A retired rodeo legend risks it all to save his grandson in Director Jon Avnet’s drama, The Last Rodeo.

Avnet’s film tells the story of Joe Wainright, a 50-year-old rodeo legend who enters a high-stakes bull-riding competition after a crisis strikes his family.

On May 10, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Avnet discussed the making of The Last Rodeo during a Q&A moderated by Director Jason Reitman (Saturday Night).

During the conversation, Avnet revealed how he tackled shooting an aspect of the bull riding scenes after a conversation with Professional Bull Riders Inc., CEO Sean Gleason.

“Sean said he’s never seen a good close up on a bull ride. I looked at a couple movies and I went, ‘Yeah, he’s right. Why don’t they work?’ How do you capture what it’s like to be on a bull? I said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna get a 600-millimeter lens and shoot really tight so you can see the face.’ And then I went, ‘That’s just recording it. It doesn’t have a visceral or cinematic element to it.’ So, I was lost as to how to do the most basic thing — the close up. Then one day we went out to [bull riding champion] Kyle Sherwood’s house with his dad, and he was riding on the bucking machine. And as he was doing it, I took out my iPhone and I started moving the camera. As soon as you move the camera, guess what? It’s the camera moving, not the guy on the bull moving. It’s what you don’t see as opposed to as what you do see.”

Avnet’s other directorial credits include the feature films Three Christs, Righteous Kill, 88 Minutes, Up Close & Personal and Fried Green Tomatoes; the movies for television Have a Little Faith, Bunker Hill and Between Two Women; and episodes of Justified: City Primeval, Sneaky Pete, Boomtown and Call to Glory. He was nominated for the 2001 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Miniseries for Uprising and again in that same category for his 2007 mini-series The Starter Wife. A DGA member since 1984, Avnet currently serves as a member of the DGA National Board, on the Western Directors Council, as a Co-Chair of the DGA AI Committee, and as a Trustee on the Pension & Health Plan. After previously serving as Co-Chair on the 2020 DGA Negotiations Committee, Avnet served as Chair of the DGA Negotiations Committee in 2023 and was recently appointed Chair of the 2026 Negotiations Committee.