El Vaquero: Reno Hallmeyer’s Western
By Haley Hart
May 1, 2024
Reno Hallmeyer, a junior here at Morro Bay High School, loves participating in many things. For example, he’s a member of both the as golf and surf team; but above all he has always had a passion for filmmaking. He shares, “I’ve always loved creating films and expressing my creativity through it”. Some of Reno’s all time favorites include, Die Hard, the Fast and Furious franchise, and best of all, Sony Pictures’ Surfs Up.
For the 2024 Morro Bay High annual Film Fest, Hallmeyer submitted a film entitled, El Vaquero, a film about a cowboy, El Vaquero, seeking vengeance on a thief, El Ladron. El Vaquero takes down the thief’s business partner, Jesse, before challenging El Ladron himself to a duel with a “banana gun” resulting in the thief's death.
The film ends with El Vaquero riding off into the sunset, once again saving the town from danger. Hallmeyer shared his unusual inspirations for the film saying, “the main character is based off my cowboy friend.” Upon further investigation (because hello, we live in California, how do you have a cowboy friend?), he revealed that the film was inspired by MBHS’s very own Jakob Korman, who plays El Vaquero in the film.
The filmmaking process was much different than anything Reno had previously done. He shared, “this film was a Spanish project that I did with some of my very good friends. I’ve known Jakob since I was very young, like a baby, it was just fun to film scenes with him.”
Reno shared that his past films, at least according to him, pale in comparison to El Vaquero. He explains that he’s “made a lot of progress and the audio is great this time around.” Overall, Reno describes the film as “intense, passionate, and invigorating” and hopes everyone enjoys it as much as he enjoyed making it.