Hollywood Shooting Stars Appear At Fantastic Fest : MyFoxAUSTIN.com

Hollywood Shooting Stars Appear At Fantastic Fest

Updated: Tuesday, 27 Sep 2011, 7:33 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 27 Sep 2011, 7:33 PM CDT

The stars were out Tuesday night for the annual Austin film festival known as Fantastic Fest. Earlier two big screen actors were in Liberty Hill.

Elijah wood and Dominic Monaghan became a couple of shooting stars at the Best of the West-Texas Shooting Range along Hwy 29. Wood and Monaghan appeared together in The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a couple of heroic hobbits. At the range the actors were not swinging swords. They got the feel of firing real guns instead of movie props.

"I think I would probably go to these guys if I was training for something specific for a role, these guys are all military or ex military and I think it’s an amazing place to do training if you have a role like that,” said Wood.

Promoters of the film festival, Fantastic Fest, organized the high powered field trip.

"More than anything else it's a little bit of fun I’m not super gung-ho about killing anything that's living but I like target practice kind of stuff for me its like a video game,” said Monaghan.

Dominic Monahan also was a cast member in the TV series “Lost.” He has a movie that he now being viewed at the Film Fest. He co-produced and appears in it. Wood is currently starring in a TV series on FX.

The man behind the magic of Tuesday’s live fire event said the experience is not just for Hollywood Shooting Stars.

Kent Morrison knows a thing or two about high powered weapons. After serving more than a decade in the Navy, Morrison now has a company called, Blackstone Group Partners. He specializes in executive protection, self defense training and investigations.

"The reality is the world can be and sometimes is a harsh and ugly place and this gives people a chance to prepare for it to develop the mindset for it. Training to handle the harshness we are sometimes faced with,” said Morrison.

Morrison does not hold large classes, he prefers smaller gatherings and individual personalized instruction. An up-tick in criminal activity usually increases gun sales and enrollment in self-defense classes. It’s a knee jerk reaction, from a somewhat complacent society, that Morrison would like to change.

“There is a famous trainer that said if you look like food you will get eaten," said Morrison.

For Morrison, he is not teaching aggression, just providing clients with confidence

"I think people need to get a wake up call and learn how to handle life themselves," Morrison said.

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