The first part of Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon’ is out Friday. Here are 4 Utahns who worked on the film.

A Utah actor said working on “Horizon: An American Saga” was “different from any set I’ve ever worked on before.”

A veteran gaffer, who runs electrical systems for many movie productions, called the experience his “proudest moment.” A makeup artist said it was the first time she ever worked on a Western. And a mother said that after she and her son worked as extras, the boy wrote a “thank you” letter, by hand, to the movie’s director and star, Kevin Costner.

Those are the stories four Utahns told The Salt Lake Tribune about working on “Horizon,” a four-part Western saga that Costner started filming last year in southern Utah. The first chapter is set to open in theaters nationwide on Friday; part two is scheduled to open August 16.

“Horizon” captures a 15-year period of settlement across the American West before, after and during The Civil War.

Filming for the first chapter took place in Moab, and the second movie was filmed in Washington County. It’s estimated that Costner’s production company will spend around $90 million to produce those two parts. Costner is planning to shoot parts three and four in Utah sometime this year.

The production is one of the largest Utah has ever seen, and is considered a boost to local economies. In the last 10 years, the Utah Film Commission says, Utah’s film industry has created more than 36,000 jobs and contributed $600 million to the state’s economy.

Beyond the financial rewards to the state, the production of “Horizon” has given the Utahns who worked on it stories to tell. Here are four of them.

Allison Yamamoto-Sparks and Orion Sparks, extras

Allison Yamamoto-Sparks, who works for the tourism office of San Juan County has lived in Monticello for 15 years, and her son, Orion, were extras on the first part of “Horizon.” For both of them, it was their first experience on a film set, driven by Orion’s interest in participating. They’re in a wagon scene in the film.

The mother-and-son duo went to an opening casting call in Moab in summer 2022, because Orion heard about it from a friend. At the time of filming, in October 2022, Orion was 10 years old.

“We actually met some other Monticello people that we didn’t know that were out there filming,” Yamamoto-Sparks said. She and Orion stayed in Moab in their RV camper for the week of shooting in which they were involved.

Every morning, they’d get there by 6:30 or 7 a.m. for wardrobe and makeup. She would don a full corset, then more layers for filming in the desert. Part of Orion’s costume was a jacket.

“We’re sitting there in the shade of one of the wagons, and we were looking at the tag of his jacket. We could see really faintly there was a name written or typed onto the tag of the jacket,” Yamamoto-Sparks said. That name was Mitch Vogel, a child actor known for his roles in such Western shows as “Little House on the Prairie” and “Bonanza.” They learned this after Googling the name.

“It was really cool to kind of see that connection,” Yamamoto-Sparks said.

Over the course of five days, Yamamoto-Sparks said it was fun to watch her son disconnect from screens, and play in the dirt with the other children extras. They would play tic-tac-toe in the dirt between shoots. Because extras aren’t told too many details about the storyline, she said they’re excited to watch the movie not only to see themselves, but to see how it all comes together.

And, Orion enjoyed the experience so much, he wants to do it again. After they got paid, he hand-wrote a letter to Costner to share how he spent the money — buying himself his first ever laptop.

“It was just so cute. It was like, ‘Dear Kevin Costner. I was one of your extras. With my movie money, I bought a computer. Thank you, Kevin Costner,’” Yamamoto-Sparks said.

Yamamoto-Sparks went back to the set after their extra gig was over with the Monument Valley Film Commision, and she briefly got to meet Costner. She was able to directly hand him her son’s letter.

“To get to do it right where we live, you know, it was fun … and that’s kind of the cool thing about them using so many local people,” Yamamoto-Sparks said.

John Raymer, gaffer

John Raymer said working on “Horizon” is “one of the proudest moments” of his film career.

“[That’s] simply because Mr. Costner is so passionate about this idea. This is a story that’s been forming for over almost 30 years,” Raymer said, “When you’re a crew member, [and] you’re working for a director that has that amount of passion, you can’t help but be proud and passionate as well.”

Raymer is originally from upstate New York, but has been in Utah for 40 years. For 35 of those years, he’s been involved in the film industry. He’s previously worked on Westerns in Texas, New Mexico and North Carolina.

“Westerns are kind of a breath of fresh air,” Raymer said. “The scale of them is so large, sometimes that you’re really not running around a lot, you’re working hard.”

Raymer is a gaffer, or a chief lighting technician. There are between six to 10 people on his team and they handle all the electricity needs for the film. It can be a difficult task, especially when the film is mostly taking place in the scorching desert.

“Sometimes it takes all day long to shoot a scene that really only occupies a minute-and-a-half of screen time,” Raymer said. “If you’re outdoors, and the Earth rotates, our lighting changes. And as clouds come and go, the lighting changes. So one of the more difficult aspects of exterior work is controlling the sunlight and using the direction of the sunlight to your advantage.”

Raymer said shooting at night is his favorite, because the lighting can be put up and controlled more easily.

“A big part of being prepared for any kind of challenge that day is making sure that we need electricity everywhere,” he said. Raymer has also worked on the second installment of “Horizon,” and he said despite his years of experience, he was nervous before he started his work on the first film.

Raymer said J. Michael Muro, the film’s director of photography, was asked by production to source local crews, so the incentive money would be available for crews like his. He had never worked with Muro before. (Muro’s first movie as director of photography was the last movie Costner directed, the 2003 Western “Open Range.”)

As a director of photography, Raymer said, Muro got very hands-on with the camera, instead of sitting behind the monitor. Because of that, Raymer was able to take the reins on directing the lighting.

“That was one particularly unique part of ‘Horizon’ is that he had faith and trust in me,” Raymer said. “Generally speaking over my career, that hasn’t necessarily been the case. Sometimes directors of photography like to direct the lighting as well as the camera.”

Shalyse Lopez, key makeup artist

Shalyse Lopez is one of the key makeup artists on “Horizon,” and worked on makeup for actresses. Lopez grew up in Murray, but now lives in West Jordan — and though she’s been doing the job for 10 years, it is her first time doing makeup for a “full Western movie.”

“The key makeup artist is kind of like the second-in-command,” Lopez said. “We had a rather smaller team for a project. We had the department head, key makeup and three makeup artists that were full-time staff.”

The makeup department worked collaboratively with the film’s creative team, Lopez said, to carry out Costner’s vision.

“We work with the creative department in terms of wardrobe and hair, to make sure that we’re creating a cohesive look,” Lopez said. “In the makeup world, it’s a lot of dirt. We want them to look accurate, but still pleasing on camera.”

The “dirt” makeup is something everyone gets in the film, but the severity of it depends on what they’re doing in the scene, Lopez said, if they’re doing something “rugged,” then there’s more dirt. “We really are just trying to make it feel authentic,” she said.

“Even on the hard days, I tell myself all the time, like, ‘This is something that I’m going to look back at and tell my grandkids, these memories of being out in the desert, and scaling the mountains,’ Lopez said. “Even though the project is hard, sometimes because of the elements, you’re a part of something that’s going to be not only great for film, but for Utah films specifically.”

She said Costner’s film team has been cognizant of hiring local talent as they arrived in Utah to film.

“There’s a lot of films, especially the bigger films that come through here, and they bring in their own people. A lot of films come here to save money, but yet they tend to bring in their own people, when we have a very strong infrastructure here,” she said. “I like to see that films come here also to take advantage of the crews.”

Alex Nibley, actor

Alex Nibley grew up in Utah and said he was a child actor 50 years ago. Over the years, he’s been involved in the local film and television scene, and has also taught filmmaking at Utah Valley University for the past 22 years.

“It was very interesting for me, because I had a lot of students and former students who were on the set with me, people that I had trained in my classes,” Nibley said.

In “Horizon,” Nibley plays the character of Martin Pine, who is a member of the wagon train that is moving across the county. Nibley says his experience working on “Horizon” was “different from any set I’ve ever worked on before.”

One of the reasons it was different, he said, was the intensity of the creative team.

“That goes from top to bottom. The people who were putting on your makeup or adjusting your costume,” Nibley said. “There was a feeling on the entire set that everybody felt like they were working on something special.”

Nibley said he also enjoyed the integration between the locals and the Hollywood cast and crew.

“There was no differentiation. It was a totally integrated cast and crew, and nobody knew really most of the time who was a local hire and who was Hollywood or from Great Britain or New York,” he said.

“I was a local hire, but I was playing opposite an Oscar-nominated actress who’s had a 50-year career, Kathleen Quinlan, and I never felt like I was not a complete part of the cast,” Nibley said.

Nibley has many memories of working on “Horizon”: Watching Quinlan stay late, even though she wasn’t in the scenes that were filming that day; meeting Indigenous families when they filmed on the Paiute reservation; and training on how to drive a wagon.

When Nibley went through his great-grandfather’s memoirs, he learned that he had crossed the country much like the actors in the movie, 175 years ago when he came to Utah. “It gave me a real appreciation for what my ancestors had been through,” Nibley said.

Nibley said he also enjoyed observing Costner’s “spontaneous creativity” on set, like when Costner pulled a former student of Nibley’s who was working in the greens department to act for a scene.

Nibley said this film tells a story where the “the country itself becomes the main character.”

“This is the kind of movie [where] you’re on this set, and you go, ‘Oh, yeah, this is why I wanted to be a filmmaker. This is why it’s not just the job,’ ” Nibley said. “This is something special.”

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