Comanchería

Firewood

Comanche history, made for the phone in your hand.

What this series is

Researched first, made second.

Historians have pieced their history together from oral sources, journals of priests, missionaries, frontier soldiers and traders, and military records. Some things they get right, some things they aren’t (and others) sure and some, wrong. We work from historical records and original historians to minimize the noise and bring the truth to light, and we welcome the feedback and the collaboration of community organizations, elders and agencies in helping to tell their stories. There’s a lot of AI slop out there, getting this right is important.

Comanches aren’t just the subjects. This is their history, and their feedback and their collaboration are welcome throughout. Come follow the journey @beforethefences.

How we got here · Daniel Rizza

You can’t know American history without understanding Comanche history.

I have always loved history, and in 2021 I discovered the Comanche and crawled deep into their rabbit hole. Podcasts, history books, historical fiction, YouTube, museums, I consumed it all.

Then in 2023 I serendipitously met a Comanche family, which led me to Oklahoma, to the community, to the land, to powwows, and a lot more YouTube and history books.

Then in 2025 I met Sean and we started talking about how we could leverage his filmmaking skills and proprietary AI models to bring new perspectives, stories and facts to life in a consumable, sustained format, meeting people where they are, their phones. That’s what this series is.

Cuerno Verde

A Spanish governor spends ten years hunting the man his own people called Dangerous Man. The war crown ends up behind glass in the Vatican.

God Dogs

Before the horse, a people moved at the pace of a dog. Within a generation of it, they were the finest light cavalry on the continent.

Visual development · the war paint

Short form

Visual development · hooves in the stream

Frames

The world, shot by shot.

A walled settlement burns at night, figures before it.
A mounted column fords a wide river at first light.
A rider and a horse, forehead to forehead.
A red canyon at dawn.
A thunderhead over the plains at golden hour.
A horned silhouette on horseback in low fog.
A mission burns at night, figures silhouetted.
A horse herd runs through dust at dawn.
A village of lodges under smoke at first light.
A lodge close up, people sitting at its opening.
An adobe town at night lit by torches.
A lone rider under a spreading tree at sunset.
Bare cottonwoods along a frozen river.
A line of riders crossing open grassland.
Spanish colonials at a table by a window.

In motion

Two parties of riders meet on open ground.

Contact

Tell us what you are trying to make.

What brings you
  • Film
  • Brand
  • Event
  • Real estate
  • Marketing
  • Press
  • Comanches
  • Something else

One file, 8 MB max. Please send only material you own or have the right to share. We cannot treat anything sent here as confidential, and unsolicited ideas are not reviewed in confidence.

Received. We read everything, and you will hear back.

Or write directly · firewoodstudio@gmail.com Firewood · New York

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