Horse You See film

Melissa Henry, national winner of the 2012 PBS Online Film Festival with this film, produced a 7-minute short film, “Horse You See” starring her Navajo horse Ross and her father Johnny Henry. The film was written and directed by Melissa Henry, 31, who has a sparkly and child-like personality to match her creations.

“Horse You See” took over two years to create, and the written script came after the visuals. “I storyboarded the movie, and then I wrote – okay, this is what the story’s about.” Henry said a storyboard looks like a comic strip and she draws them out on paper.

Henry was the first in her family to go to graduate school, to the University of Maryland, where Muppet creator Jim Henson had gone. Henry is now an adjunct professor in film at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

It was filmed where Henry played as a child at the base of the Zuni Mountains. Henry said “I grew up south of Gallup, way out in the sticks, in the Church Rock area.” To be exact, she added, “the side that has trees.” Henry’s clans are Bitter Water, Born for Towering House People, and her father, Johnny Henry, is a Blessing Way medicine man and president of the Church Rock Chapter.

The film is the first of an animal trilogy that Henry and her husband and producer, filmmaker Alfredo Perez, are making in their company Red Ant Films. “Run Red Walk,” also award-winning, about her sheep-herding dog looking for his lost sheep, is the second one they made and next will be “The History of Navajo Wool as told by Baa Baa.” After that will be a feature film, “Black Cat in Space.” There are links to the films and how to order them at their website at RedAntFilms.com.