For a moment it became very real for him.
Actor Alfonso Freeman was filming a scene for the upcoming movie, Gettysburg 1863, playing Basil Biggs, a Black man who lived near Gettysburg at the time of the battle and was a conductor for the Underground Railroad. In the scene, Freeman as Biggs was encouraging runaway slaves to embrace their freedom.
“He was giving them a sense of dignity about themselves,” says Freeman. “‘You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Hold your head up. Look forward like you belong.”
Freeman pauses, then adds, “It was powerful for me.”
Before playing him, Freeman, the son of actor Morgan Freeman, had never heard of Basil Biggs. “This was my first time playing a historical figure,” he says. However, the movie was filmed in Gettysburg, offering Freeman an opportunity to learn about Biggs in a more real and personal way. “I visited the memorials and museums here,” he says. “I talked to historians here. I paid my respects to him at the cemetery.”
In the end, Freeman didn’t just play the part of Basil Biggs, “I wanted to honor him.”
As Freeman can attest, there can be something special about making movies in Gettysburg. And perhaps no one knows this better than Bo Brinkman and Kris Webb. The couple, partners in life and business, are responsible for the films A Gettysburg Christmas and now Gettysburg 1863, which will be released this November. Both movies were filmed in Gettysburg and the surrounding area using locals as extras.
In fact, Brinkman, an actor, director, writer and producer, and Webb, a longtime resident of Gettysburg and a local business owner, have created the Gettysburg Film Commission to encourage others to make films here as well.
“It’s a filmmaker’s dream,” Brinkman says of Gettysburg.
Brinkman first came to Gettysburg in 1992 as an actor playing the role of Major Walter H. Taylor in the movie, Gettysburg, which was filmed on and around the battlefield. He was immediately taken with the area. “It changed me,” he says. “I knew of the history, but I didn’t know the history.”
He took to its residents as well. More precisely, Kris Webb. The two met at a pub while he was in town. Webb, never one to be starstruck, she says, had no idea he was an actor. “I see this super cute guy walk in,” she recalls. Adding, “He was so easy to talk to. So welcoming.”
The two would run into each other off and on after that while Brinkman was still in town. “It was just a spark for me,” says Webb.
When Brinkman returned to Los Angeles the couple, who were both going through divorces when they met, kept in touch. “She would come to L.A., or I would come back here,” says Brinkman. “Or, I’d say, ‘Meet me at the Grand Canyon.’”
But the distance proved too difficult. “We just couldn’t figure it out,” says Webb.
So, from 2003 to 2020 they were not in contact. And during those years, Webb, owner of Sixty East Hair Design in Gettysburg, says she was going through some personal changes. “I had an awakening,” she says. “Where I lived mattered. My genealogy mattered. My identity mattered. And it mattered who I was as a woman, a mom, a sister, a friend and a business owner. I was really taking ownership of who I was.”
That self-realization would lead her to take a closer look at her home, Gettysburg, and its history. Her family, the Weikerts, have been part of Gettysburg since before the Revolutionary War. And she was, of course, familiar with the Battle of Gettysburg. “I started having prayer walks on the battlefield,” says Webb.
She began to ponder the toll taken on those who lived in Gettysburg during the battle, the civilians, who “had hell come to their doorstep,” she says. “They were changed forever. I felt their story needed to be told.” But, “I am not a writer,” she adds.
She had crossed paths with one, however. Webb found Brinkman’s phone number through a mutual friend and reached out to him. “The minute we heard each other’s voice, well, we’ve been talking ever since,” she says.
Brinkman, who also teaches film at Gettysburg College, now spends his time in both his home state of Texas and Gettysburg.
Their first joint project was not the one Webb had envisioned initially but a sweet film called A Gettysburg Christmas, which is based on the book by Craig Rupp and included actors Lee Majors and Bruce Boxleitner.
The movie came out in 2023 and has been shown at the Majestic Theatre each Christmas since to a packed house with those in the audience delighted to see “their own town in a movie,” says Brinkman. Brinkman recently signed a contract to have the story told as a play at the Totem Pole Playhouse in Fayetteville, Pa.
Working on A Gettysburg Christmas and seeing the economic boost for the community it provided, Brinkman and Webb were inspired to create the Gettysburg Film Commission, a nonprofit. The mission of the organization is to connect filmmakers with local resources, businesses and residents.
“A film commission,” says Brinkman, “Is the bridge between homeowners, the workforce and the outside production companies.”
The commission also promotes the idea of filming in Gettysburg. “Because if you don’t know where and what Gettysburg is as a filmmaker, you’re not going to think about it,” says Webb, who has been a co-producer on both A Gettysburg Christmas and Gettysburg 1863.
Both volunteer their efforts with the film commission, which also has an internship program and movie nights in the summer. “We believe in it, and we believe in what we are doing,” says Webb.
During all of this time, however, Webb still had her heart set on her original story idea. Brinkman admits he was intrigued by the idea when she shared it with him back in 2020. “I thought, well, there’s a different approach for a Civil War film,” he says of focusing on civilians.
Although an experienced screenwriter as well as a playwright, Brinkman struggled to write the story, he says. But he reassured Webb. “I would tell her, ‘I haven’t written a word yet, but it’s going to happen’,” he says. “’I promise you it is going to happen.’”
Webb wasn’t the only one looking forward to the project. Word had gotten out in Gettysburg. “I would be walking down Baltimore Street, and someone would yell out, ‘How’s the movie coming along?’” says Brinkman with a grin.
And that same community was eager to make this new film their own. While A Gettysburg Christmas was “was financed by an investor in Texas,” says Brinkman, “Gettysburg 1863 is completely supported by people in Gettysburg because they believe in it.”
The story would finally come to Brinkman while staying at the historic Sherfy Farmhouse, which still has bullet holes from the battle. “I sat down and began writing and it just poured out,” he says. He had most of it written in 24 hours. And he knows why. “I was on hallowed ground,” he says. “I felt the gravity of that. I felt the gravity of what I needed to write.”
Although the movie is a work of fiction, historical stories can present their own challenges. “This isn’t a documentary,” says Brinkman. But “I don’t want historians throwing tomatoes at me when I walk around Gettysburg.”
Not to worry. He had plenty of experts at his disposal. After all, this is Gettysburg. Historical experts like Tim Smith, director of education for Gettysburg History, and Andrew Dalton, president and CEO of Gettysburg History, were ready and willing to lend a hand.
“Andrew Dalton has gone through my script more than I have,” says Brinkman with a chuckle.
The word normalcy, for example. “I was told that that word did not exist at the time,” says Brinkman. So, Brinkman used normality in the dialogue instead.
The places where filming took place would be authentic as well. “No soundstage, no expensive set was built,” says Brinkman. Instead, the movie was filmed at such local historic places as the Schmucker House which was built in 1833. “Right in the parlor,” says Brinkman. According to Brinkman and Webb, the original furniture from the house was in storage. It was returned for the movie. “Furniture that had not been in that house for 150 years,” says Brinkman.
Much like Alfonso Freeman’s experience, being there in the room or at the place where it could have happened was powerful. “Every one of the actors said, ‘I can feel it.’ I felt it too,” says Brinkman.
Ron Maxwell, director of the movie Gettysburg, is not surprised that Brinkman is drawn to Gettysburg to tell his stories. Maxwell recalls his own determination to film here. “I kept going back to Gettysburg and saying, ‘This is a unique place,’” says Maxwell of preparing for the movie Gettysburg. “There’s no other combination of hills and dales and little mountains and fields and townships. There’s no way to recreate this in one place other than going to the actual place.” Adding, “I was absolutely convinced we had do it in Gettysburg.”
Maxwell and Brinkman are friends and knew each other before Maxwell handpicked Brinkman for the role of Major Walter Taylor in both Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, which Maxwell also directed.
During the filming of Gettysburg, young Brinkman was often at Maxwell’s side, observing and learning from the director. “I was aware of him always looking over my shoulder,” says Maxwell. “I knew he was there, and he was welcome to be there.”
“Ron was one of my mentors,” says Brinkman.
Maxwell says he plans to come back to Gettysburg for the premiere of his friend’s movie in early November. “He has always wanted to make films that were important to him,” says Maxwell of Brinkman. “Tell the stories that mattered to him.”
Stories like Gettysburg 1863
And on a sunny day in May, the filming for that story was being completed at an orchard on the outskirts of Gettysburg. Brinkman and Webb were able to use the location due to the fact that Webb had gone to high school with the owner of the property. Local connections matter.
The film set, which Brinkman describes as a “freight train till it stops,” is bustling. And Webb is doing her part. “When I’m directing, I focus on that,” says Brinkman. “Kris makes everything work around us.”
Webb rushes about delivering cold drinks to thirsty actors and even delivering an antihistamine to an actor struggling with allergies during an outdoor scene. At one point, as she hurries past Brinkman, he reaches out and gently touches her arm while never taking his eyes off what is being filmed before him.
Finally, Webb takes a well-deserved break to catch her breath and watch Brinkman direct a scene involving the two young lovers in the movie. The scene takes place beside a pond and on this particular day the sky is clear and blue and dazzling. “God smiled on us today,” says Webb. God then gives them a wink. At just the right moment, a bird swoops gracefully overhead and into the scene making for a striking image. “Did you see that?” Webb asks.
It has been a good day.
“Bo and I had to happen,” says Webb. “We had to know each other for so many things to happen. I really believe that.”
Featured image photo by Rick Gregory.
