I first met Doug in Los Angeles when a mutual friend, Cole Harkness, introduced us. Cole figured since we both fenced and were both in the film industry, we really should get together.

Years later, Cole reintroduced us in San Francisco at a morning breakfast out in the Sunset district at Cole’s favorite Irish breakfast place. Doug had relocated for work and Cole thought it was time for us to get back together.

Doug was in the nascent stages of the West Coast Fencing Archive. His job was to collect, collate and share the history of fencing on the west coast. He was rightfully proud when he showed me the new brochure for the WCFA. Because I’m a dick, I immediately pointed out the fact that brochure said that we should check out the website which would be opening in 2015 and it was currently 2016.

I broached the fact that it wasn’t really hard to make a website. Hell, I’d been fooling around with them for years.

And thus, a partnership was born. Doug’s business partner in the West Coast Fencing Archive was used to spending a lot of money for things. Doug wanted to put the website together for significantly less to show his partner his thriftiness. In a few short weeks, the West Coast Fencing Archive was up and running. I became the webmaster turning Doug’s articles into blog posts.

During that time Doug shared with me the story of George Piller, kind of a forgotten figure in San Francisco fencing. Doug had been going through the collection of Charles Selberg who had briefly been one of Piller’s students. 

Selberg had collected fencing memorabilia of all sorts from around the world. When he passed, the collection became the starting point for the West Coast Fencing Archive. In that collection was a wealth of material about Piller including videos of stories of Piller’s life. When Doug showed the information to his business partner, the partner said he would pay a lot of money to see the Piller story as a movie.

Never say that. I immediately raised my hand and volunteered to make a movie. We did a budget and presented it. Doug’s business partner gave us the the go ahead. We were in the business of making The Last Captain, our first feature.