by Tanner Shinnick

from 2017 Discover Llamas

by Laura Higgins

The Making of LLAMA NATION: The Documentary by Tanner Shinnick

I’ll start out by saying that I was terrible at llama showing. The best I ever did was 8th place when I was 9 years old. Quickly I realized that llama showing wasn’t really my thing. I resolved to just helping out on the family farm for the rest of my adolescence. Llamas was still very much part of my life. I mean, I was referred to as llama boy in high school. Llamas were part of my identity. stories..

Then llamas left my life. I went off to college and then I started a career. Llamas at that point simply became a conversation piece or unique fact to share. I spent the next few years working in the commercial and film industry. It was there that I finally realized that although I maybe wasn’t good at showing llamas, I just might be good showing them on the big screen. That’s when the idea of Llama Nation was born.

With this idea of a documentary, I met with two producers at a coffee shop in the Fall of 2012. I walked in with the direction I thought the film might go all outlined out in my little notebook. I sat down and gave my pitch for the idea. Once I was finished with my pitch, ears immediately perked up. “Wait, you can show llamas?” “There’s llama ranches?” These were some of the questions I ending up hearing throughout the entire process of making this film. That evening it turned into an hour long conversation about the potential of the film. I walked out of that informal meeting with a green lit feature documentary ahead of me to direct.

The next six months of preparation before shooting were some of the busiest I’ve ever had. It was research time. I had on paper the type of characters that I wanted in the film. I knew that for the cornerstone of the film I wanted two youth competitions for the national llama showing title. However, I had no idea if these youth actually existed. From my experience in it, I assumed that they would be but it was only a hope. It quickly turned into the time to uncover these Alongside with my producers, we began calling different llama organizations searching for that perfect storyline we were after. We finally came across two youth, Janessa Hall and Hunter Snow, who were top contenders in the youth category of llama showing. We set aside some time and spoke with them on the phone about our idea for the documentary and how they might fit into it. Very quickly into these conversations, we knew they would be the cornerstone of our film.

much better. After we had Hunter and Janessa ready and secured to film, we got together our film crew and went out on our first week long expedition in the South. We visited multiple llama ranches and went to our first show. Over the next year we filmed in over 12 states capturing the story of Llama Nation. Our travels put us from North Carolina all the way to

Oregon in our filming efforts.

Throughout our little over a year of filming, we followed the story of Janessa and Hunter and they both raced to the National Llama Show. I would give more information but I’ll just let you watch the film. It explains that journey

We had the opportunity to meet and film so many wonderful people during our travels. One of our most memorable experiences while filming was when we went packing up in Idaho. We found ourselves in the mountains along the continental divide. It was minus fifteen degrees and we were trekking thought three feet of snow. With a ton of camera equipment strapped to our bags, we spend the next two days filming this expedition. It was an intense feat, but turned out wonderfully on film.

We had captured nearly 200 hours of footage.To put it lightly, it was a lot of footage to sift through. Luckily, we brought on a fantastic editor who drastically helped to organize and make sense of it all. It’s still strange to me that over 99% of what we shot, didn’t make it into the film. But hey, that’s documentary filmmaking.

Over this year of editing, we went through 24 versions of the film until we got to the right one. Every Wednesday I would go and review the weeks cut with the editor. I wish I would’ve kept count with how many times I watched the film through this process. If I had to make a guess, I would say around sixty.

Then in September of 2015, we finally locked in our final version of the film and moved onto submitting to film festivals. By the end we reach a final film that we were all ecstatic about. I still look back on the film and know that we gave it our all. There’s nothing I have regrets about. We poured our heart and souls into it. We think this comes out on screen.

From this point Llama Nation morphed into what it is now. It’s explores the quirky and competitive llama showing and breeding subculture in the United States. The film follows passionate llama owners, each with their own unique story, including two 16-year-old girls as they compete in hopes to become the national llama showing champion. Janessa Hall and Hunter Snow are complete opposites of each other except for the fact that they both competitively show llamas. Every year, the two girls are neck and neck en route to the national llama show each year, but only one can take home the first place ribbon. Also featured are Jack and Tracy Pearson, the godparents of llama culture in the United States, and Ron Shinnick, llama carting king and mayor of a small town in Georgia.

The film reached much success through the festival circuit. We won Best Documentary at the Omaha Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Utah Film Awards. Through this success, we were able to secure a distribution deal to bring the film to a mass audience. For anyone who makes movies, a distribution deal is something you dream about when first making a film. You hope it happens and for us we were fortunate enough that it did.

The film is now available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, VUDU and Microsoft Movies & TV. A DVD release will be occurring in March of 2017. Other platforms will then follow.

We hope you take the time to enjoy the film. You can follow the progress and new platforms at www.llamanationfilm. com.

About the author: Tanner Shinnick is an award winning director, quickly earned an Emmy award after entering the field and has been continuing on with a successful career ever since.

He grew up in a small town in Georgia on a llama farm and was around llamas his entire growing up years. It was there he received the nickname “Llama Boy” from his closest friends. His parents Ron and Pam Shinnick were some of the original members of SSLA.

Throughout his years of experience he has worked as an editor, producer, cinematographer and director on a variety of projects - often wearing multiple hats. This behind-the-lens, Swiss Army knife-like versatility would merit Llama Boy with a reputation as a reliable storyteller as seen in his work on such documentaries as the multiple award winning film, Llama Nation.

His keen dexterity in multiple film genres is evident in spots he has shot for Google, Intel, P&G, FOX, ZAGG and many other brands.

Photo inset on preceding page: Tanner as a very young boy with his dad, Ron, two older sisters, Stacy and Leslie, and their first llamas Dr. Mike and Pincy P.

Quick Release Knot

This is a quick release knot. If the llama pulls on the long end, it gets tighter. But if you pull on the short end, it will release. With practice you can tie this quickly...even with your eyes closed!