From Great Falls to Hollywood and Back Again

Stu Brumbaugh grew up in Great Falls. He was an imaginative kid with a lot of time on his hands, always outside, always inventing something to do. He hung around the drama department at CMR, working stagecraft, working up the nerve to audition for plays.

Then a family friend got him onto the set of Holy Matrimony, a film shooting nearby with Patricia Arquette and Leonard Nimoy. He stood behind the monitor and watched how it all worked for a few hours.

“I was immediately hooked,” he says. “I mean, immediately.”

There weren’t filmmaking programs in Montana in the early 90s, so Brumbaugh did what you had to do back then: he left. Denver first, then Southern California, where his mom was living and told him flat out that if he wanted to be in the film business, that’s where he needed to be. He enrolled at Golden West College in Orange County, studied theater, and started building the kind of network that only gets built by showing up and doing the work.

He and some partners eventually bought grip and lighting equipment with the idea of making their own films. The gear started owning them instead, and they realized they could make a real living renting it to other productions. That pivot turned into a career that spans thousands of productions. He’s been a working Key Grip and Gaffer since 1998, built Sparta Grip into one of the most respected grip and lighting companies in Hollywood, and has worked alongside award-winning directors and producers on everything from John Wick and Deadliest Catch to Dancing with the Stars and music videos for artists like Garth Brooks, Katy Perry, and Jennifer Lopez. Fortune 500 companies like Target, McDonald’s, Ford, Mattel, and Netflix have all been clients. He probably did somewhere around 2,000 toy commercials along the way, which is also where he met his wife. She was a hand model and toy tech. They kept running into each other on set.

He also spent years filming concerts and handling camera rigging at Sphere in Las Vegas. By any measure, he’d built exactly the kind of career you leave Montana at 19 dreaming about.

About two years ago, he moved his family to Kalispell, where his wife’s sister lives and where his kids have room to actually be kids. He still runs Sparta Grip. He’s also quietly planning to move the family to Great Falls by end of summer, closer to his dad, already scoping out schools.

But the bigger pull is what he’s building here. He’s raising funds for a film called War Woman, inspired by the story of Running Eagle, and he wants to create a filmmaking program in Great Falls that gives young Montanans opportunities he had to leave the state to find. We sat down with Stu to hear how it all came together.

You built a successful career in LA. What made you decide to walk away from it?

A few things kind of converged. I have a 14-year-old and a seven and six-year-old, and watching my family in LA just felt like... I don’t know, it felt like a losing battle. The cost of living is just insane down there. And the industry was changing too. The studios really backed off physical production after COVID, and between that and just the cost of making films in LA, I was starting to see the writing on the wall.

But honestly it came back to the kids. I wanted them to have the same upbringing I had here.

My dad’s still in Great Falls. I just got tired of the rat race. So we made the move.

I still run my company down there. I’ve still got trucks and equipment in Montana too. But where my head is now is making films here, hiring Montana people, building something here.

Before this project, you actually made two films in Montana. Tell us about those.

Yeah, I came back to Great Falls in the early 2000s when I was a little burnt out, and I made two low-budget films. Iron Ridge was an adventure film I made with Casey Anderson, the guy who runs the Grizzly Bear Sanctuary down by Bozeman. We got to film with Brutus the bear, pulled resources from Great Falls, hired friends. We had almost 2,000 people show up to the premiere at the Civic Center, which just felt incredible.

The second one was The Vessel, a horror suspense film we shot at the old Cascade County Jail across from the courthouse. Spent about a month in there. Both films got distribution. They were low budget, guerrilla style, but we finished them and got them made. And that was really the point. It proved to me that you can make real films here.

So now you’re going much bigger with War Woman. Where did that story come from?

I’d known about Running Eagle for a while. She’s this legendary Blackfeet warrior woman who went against traditional gender roles to become a hunter and a fighter. And the more research I did, the more I realized her story wasn’t unique. There are women across a lot of tribes who did the same thing, who just kind of broke away from what was expected of them and went and became who they wanted to be.

I’ve spent the last two years really immersing myself in it. Visiting people, sitting with members of the tribe, seeing some sacred lands that most people never get to see. I’ve just been honored to be welcomed into those conversations.

The film is loosely inspired by Running Eagle, but it’s not a biopic. Every family has their own version of her story, passed down through generations, and as an outsider you’re not going to get it right for all of them. What I had to do was take all of those stories and build a fictional character who carries those same trials and that same spirit. We’re steering away from calling her Running Eagle specifically, but the spirit of who she was is all through it.

What was really important to me was not telling the story the way it’s always been told. If you watch Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, movies I actually love, they’re always from the white savior perspective. This film is 99% Native American cast. It’s from their point of view, their culture. My wife had a lot to do with the writing too. She brought the female perspective, which I don’t have and which this story really needed. So it’s kind of Joan of Arc meets Romeo and Juliet, but from a Native American perspective. There’s a forbidden love story woven through it alongside everything else she’s navigating.

I truly believe this film, if we do it right, champions Indigenous people in a way that just hasn’t been done. Their spirituality, their connection to the earth, to every living thing. There’s something in that we’ve all kind of lost, and I think audiences are hungry for stories that bring that back. People go to films to escape, to forget about everything for two hours. There’s something to be said about bringing honest, human stories back to cinema.

Where are things at with getting it made?

We’ve raised about 20% of the $10 million budget so far. We were awarded the Big Sky Film Grant, which will really help move things. We originally wanted to start physical production this August, but there’s so much prep involved with the horse work and stunts, and winters come fast in Montana, so it’s looking more realistic for next summer.

Independent film is a lot of highs and lows. You develop a thick skin in this industry pretty fast. You just keep pushing forward and believe you’re telling the right stories.

Anyone who wants to invest or get involved in any way, just reach out to me at stu@ladder5.com or call 406-866-8118. Even if someone just wants to shadow a production for a month, those conversations are always worth having. I’ve helped a lot of Montana people get into this industry over the years. One guy from Flathead cold called me about ten years ago and now he’s a full-time grip on major studio TV shows. That’s exactly the kind of thing I want to keep doing.

What’s the longer vision for you here in Montana?

I want to build a filmmaking program in Great Falls that takes people from concept all the way through to a finished film. Screenplay, production, post, the whole thing, and then a small film festival where these filmmakers can actually show their work.

What people don’t always understand about this industry is what it does to you as a person. Every single project you’re working with 100 new people, adapting to all these different personalities and walks of life. It builds real confidence. It builds people who know how to communicate and collaborate and handle pressure. That’s something a traditional classroom doesn’t give you, and I think it matters way beyond just becoming a filmmaker.

Montana kids shouldn’t have to leave to pursue this. The opportunity can exist here. And when it does, it brings serious money into the economy. These productions pump a lot of money right back into the communities where they film. There are hundreds of job positions in this industry that people can build real careers around.

I don’t think it’s just about making one movie. It’s about building something that lasts. Montana has incredible stories that haven’t been told yet. I’ve got a whole book of notes and ideas, just real people, real history, things that would make for great films. The infrastructure to tell those stories can exist right here. That’s what I came back for.

To learn more about War Woman or discuss investment or involvement, reach Stu at stu@ladder5.com or 406-866-8118.