TOW Cast & Crew

There’s nothing like being at a movie premiere.  Especially for a film you’ve worked on and know half the people on the screen. This was a private screening for cast, crew, and close friends.  The Film Was TOW… which stands for Tainted, Obsessed, Wayward Soul. The Screening was held Friday December 4th at IUPUI campus. Truth be told I barely can say I worked on this film. I put in about half a day as the location sound mixer(recordist). As it turns out I was there for the big climatic confrontation scene. It was fun to see how the stuff I worked on fit into the lager picture. The main cast and crew worked on this film for months and they did a great job with very limited resources. I’m glad I got to be part of it.

Erin & Adam Newell with their Executive Producers (Parents)

TOW is the brainchild of Adam Newell. He wrote, directed, and stars in the film. The female lead is Emily Wood. I had worked with Emily on a few projects over the past couple of years. She is an amazing actor. She throws some great emotion into her character in TOW. The chemistry between the two leads is a great thing to watch develop.  Another actor who stood out anytime he was on screen was Louie Lawless. He played a strong supporting role as the local Sheriff. This was the first time I’d worked with Louie… though we have worked together since wrapping TOW.  Louie is a great dramatic actor… who between the takes kept everyone laughing.  The antagonist of this film is actually a filmmaker in his own right, Kelly Lynch. Kelly at times seems to be summoning some of Keith Ledger’s Joker as he takes the main characters by surprise and leads them to his own twisted version of reality. While everyone in the film is in some way Tainted and Wayward… Kelly’s character is very Obsessed.

Kelly Lynch

The film was shot During the summer and fall of 2008. Adam had the help of his sister Erin Newell as producer of the film. Though each of them took on many different roles during the production. Even the cast members helped out while not on screen. One of the highlights of the film is the soundtrack. All of the music is from local independent artists. Artist such as Mike Akers, Red Moon and Hum.V. The multi-talented Emily Wood preforms several of the music tracks in the film.  The film starts off awkward and ends beautiful as all the peaces fit together. Everyone walked away from the screening proud of their work… and for good reason.

The Film is now off to the Film Festival Circuit, where I believe it will do well.

You can buy your own copy of TOW or check out the latest news on the film via the website http://towthemovie.com/

Louie Lawless and Mathew Allen

Heading up the Festival was Steve’s brother Brian Pearce and their parents. Brian has Produced several films and is currently a Voluntary Board Member of the Indiana Filmmakers Network. This year’s festival was arranged at a break-neck speed. They had only a couple of months to put together what most festivals take a year to organize. It was very important for the family that the festival be held on November 21st… Steve’s Birthday.

In the short amount of time they actually got twice as many entries as needed for the festival. The submissions were whittled down to the fifteen films selected for screening. Most of the films screened had some kind of local connection. There was no shortage of laughter.  There were several feature length films  including, Zorg & Andy, Open Mic’rs, and 29 Reasons To Run. There were also a dozen short films…

Waffles For Virginia

Do Pencils Go To Heaven

Delusions

Cat Clock

Clones Gone Wild

The First Date

I’m Not Talking To You

The Last Bottle

PHAT

If A Tree Fell

Das Spiel

Tree Talk

Many festivals take years before they turn a profit for their charities… not this one. The very first Wet Your Pants Festival was able to make a generous donate to the National Kidney Foundation. The attendance was great and everyone had a wonderful time. The day was split into four blocks of films with Q&A sessions between each. There was plenty of time to meet the filmmakers.

The films competed for three awards.

“Best Film of 2009″ award was decided by a group of local industry professionals and personalities. It was won by Gary Weeks’ film “Clones Gone Wild” . A story of what happens when your clone is cooler than you.

“The Audience Choice Award” as it’s name implies, was decided by the audience members…hmmm what a neat idea. This award also went to Gary Weeks, this time for his film “29 Reasons to Run”. A cross country journey by two friends who really need to get their lives together.

The Third award was the “Steve Pearce Memorial Award”. This award was presented by Steve’s family to the film that most matched Steve’s odd sense of humor. It was given to Director Steve Wright’s short film “Cat Clock”. I can’t really describe this film… it would give the whole thing away and wouldn’t nearly do it justice.

The Family has already started making plans for next year’s festival. I’m really looking forward to what it will bring.

The Indianapolis International Film Festival (IIFF) kicked off this year’s festivities with a bang! The Melody Inn hosted the IIFF Preview Party, Including two live bands and Bob & Tom’s Donnie Baker doing his stand up show. There were prizes, free drinks, and lots of film enthusiasts…who liked free drinks!

I was there to support two films I worked on. Both are up for the same award at this year’s festival, the Hoosier Lens Award. The award is devoted exclusively to Indiana Filmmakers. Kate Chaplin’s “First they Came For…”, Brian Pearce’s “Illusions of Life”, Dan T Hall’s “America On Wheels: Model T”, and Jon Moisan’s “Free Wall” will compete for this year’s award. I was the sound recorder on both “Illusions of Life” and “First They Came for.’ This gives me a 50% chance of being on the winning ticket! or a 50% chance of loosing twice in the same race… depending on that whole glass is half full or half empty thing.

Kate Chaplin and Chuck Budreau

Kelli Safford, Dan Hall, and Dorothy Henckel

Kate Chaplin, Brian Pearce and Dan Hall were all at the party enjoying the the fact that anyone of them could win and they would all be happy about it.

Michael Tressler and Craig Mince

The staff of the IIFF put on a great meet up. The Melody Inn is a wonderful mixture of a true rock bar and a quiet beer garden… in case you actually want to talk while the band is rock’n out. The festival starts next Wednesday (July 15th) and runs through July 25th. The Indianapolis Museum of Art is hosting the festival this year.  More info on the festival can be found here…

http://www.indyfilmfest.org

photos by Chad Richards

Checkout  Chad’s blog of this event…

http://www.onlinemediajunkie.com/indy-film-fest-preview-party-at-the-melody-in

This was the first time I have setup a table at this kind of event to promote IndyFilmNews.com. The reactions were great. The number of people that already knew of and frequent the site was very reassuring. At the time I confirmed my table I had let Tim know I was available for any panel discussions that he thought would be appropriate. As things turned out one of the main guests, Stephen Susco, had some travel problems and couldn’t make it to the festival. This made them pull together a panel of filmmakers to fill the time slot. I was very pleased with how the panel worked out.

River Bend Film Festival Filmmakers Panel

The Panel covered many of the hurdles of Indie films. Financing, Copyrights, Distribution, Budgets, etc. The panel consisted of Myself, Kate Chaplin(Karmic Courage), John Klein, Cole Simon and Mike Molenda(all from Glass City Films), Scott Dokey( President of Mid America Filmmakers) and Moderated by Festival Charman Tim Richardson.

Kate Chaplin, Chuck Budreau, and John Klein

For an impromptu panel it went really well. The room was packed with filmmakers and would-be filmmakers. They had lots of questions. we swapped war stories and all seemed to agree on most of the points. Even though I had never met most of the panel we go along great. Kate’s Karmic Courage productions is based out of Indianapolis and I have worked closely with Kate on many projects.  Glass City Films is based in Toledo Ohio, though they spend a lot of time in Chicago and South Bend.  the Mid America Filmmakers is a group of filmmakers that help each other with their projects, they were the sponsors of the festival.

John Klein and Cole Simon of Glass City Films

The evening session had a great turn out. it featured films from the Mid America Filmmakers and several foreign shorts. The Festival main event was the showing of Stephen Susco’s latest film “Red”. They managed to setup a video link via Skype and Stephen Susco was able to introduse thefilm as well as do a Q&A session afterwards. It worked out really well.

The Mid America Filmmakers are a great group and I look forward to working with some of them in the future. They put on a festival that was fun to attend and even better to be a part of. I’m sure I’ll go back to next year’s River Bend Film Festival.

Scott Ganyo and Tom Sparx

“Soldier’s Song” is a film based on  the real-life experience of an injured soldier returning from Vietnam. Greg Raubins (Tom Sparx) has been paralyzed from the waist down and is in incredible pain. He struggles with his injuries, his family, his roommate Rick (Scott Ganyo), and an uncaring VA Hospital Staff.

Scott Ganyo

The film was shot over a four day period, March 20-23 2009, at the Magichouse studios in Logansport Indiana. The studio is owed by Mark Racop, who servered as Technical Director on the shoot. “Soldier’s Song” was written and co-directed by Michelle Gusow.

Director of Photography Nate Savidge films Tom Sparx and Scott Ganyo

The cast and crew were a joy to work with.

There were many of the usual Magichouse crew: Mark Racop, Mike Williams, Eric Ridge, Megan Werle, and myself (Chuck Budreau).

There were some great additions this time including Director of Photography Nate Savidge and Tom Johnson from Inverted Staircase Productions. Kate Chaplin, Melinda Labita, Stacy Mayo, Neal Werle, Gina Caroway, Nate Caroway, and our latest generation “The Pirates!” Josh and Justin Robbins of “The Dread Family Robbins!”

The Cast was also top notch. Tom Sparx, Scott Ganyo, Micheal Harris, LaDonna Pettijohn, Michelle Gusow, Angela Plank and Doug Bolton.

Sorry for anyone I left out of this list, the long hours of this shoot is leaving me a little scrambled.

Everyone worked hard, did a great job and we all had a great time bringing this tragic story to life. I know many new connections have been made through this film. I had worked with just about everyone before, but getting these people together has been a long time goal for me. I knew that the talent and dedication of these individuals would really shine when they were teamed together. Kate Chaplin asked me this weekend if I’m ever tired of always being right… not this time Kate.  Thanks to everyone for proving me right, you guys are the tops and I look forward to our next shoot.

photos by Nate Caroway

Debra goes over her notes, preparing for the interview.

Lin, The daughter of King Arthur is the principal character of Debra Kemp’s series “The House of Pendragon”. The first book “The Firebrand” was released in 2003. The second book, “The Recruit” was recently published and Debra is out promoting it’s release. She is currently working on the third book of the series.

As part of the promotion of the book series Debra commissioned Kate Chaplin to shoot an interview explaining the concept behind the series and introduce the author to the world .

Director Kate Chaplin, Makeup Artist Stacey Mayo, and Grip Tom Johnson

We had the great pleasure of shooting at the home of Dr. Chris Jones. His personal library could be a blog post in itself. Filled with Movie props, Medieval weapons, Tiny rocket ships, shrunken heads… and a great selection of books too! It was the perfect backdrop for an author interview…and with the castle feel of the place King Arthur would have felt right at home.

Debra Kemp and Camera Op Brian Pearce

Kate Chaplin pulled together a small but capable crew, for what turned out to be a very straight forward shoot. Kate directed and prompted Debra with questions. Tom Johnson acted as grip. Brian Pearce was running the camera. Stacey Mayo did Debra’s hair and makeup. And I (chuck budreau) captured the audio.

It was great to hear Debra’s story of how the Arthurian bug had taken a hold of her life and thoughts. She’s been in love with the classic tale since the first time she saw the film “Camelot”. Though she confesses that it is not her favorite rendition of the Arthurian Romances… that would be “Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail”.

She traced down every version of the stories going back to Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” from the 15th century. She decided to take a different approach, based on the view of a young princess raised as a slave.  She really has a passion for this story and enjoys sharing it with others. Her own story is also fascinating as she describes living in England  and how that brought the story to life.

The Recruit

The books are available through Telltalepress.com and Amazon.com

–chuck

Need a new car?

How did you spend your weekend?

I spent most of Saturday shooting commercial for an old friend of mine. Mark Racop makes the best replica’s of the 1960′s Batmobile you will ever likely see. It’s his day job. The original car was a modified 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car. The modifications were done by George Barris, the King of Custom Cars. Mark fell in love with the car when he first saw it… during the original run of the Batman TV series… he was three years old at the time, but he knew he wanted one of those cars.

Not a Monte Carlo

I met Mark in high-school, we hung out and started making movies together.  One day we were looking at the wreckage of his mother’s 1974 Monte Carlo (really good story in itself), and he started drawing up plans to convert it into … a Bat Replica. That Monte was too badly twisted in the wreck… (yes I was driving)… so he found a 1975 Monte Carlo to work with instead. We started the long work of converting it in the spring of 1983. Both Mark and I met our wives while building that car. Chicks love the car.

Heading off for the shoot...

Fast forward about 20 years… Mark is still in love with that car…(and his wife too). He goes to the trouble and expense to rework the Monte Carlo based car we built in the 80′s, with help from our friend Bill Mollencupp,

This really gets Mark thinking… He acquires a full scale mock-up of the original Lincoln Futura (proof you can buy anything on ebay). He repairs the body, pulls molds  and replicates all of the modifications George Barris did to the Futura to create the TV show Batmobile.  Mark and his partner Jeff Sandburg went into business creating these beautiful cars. FiberGlass Freaks is Located in Logansport Indiana.

Seeing Double?

Mark Racop is also the founder of MagicHouse Productions. A production company that has shot several feature films and helped produce many short

films, industrial videos and music videos. Having a commercial to shoot and already having a film crew on hand it seemed the natural thing to do. Mark drew up the shot list, we packed up the equipment, fired up the engines on two amazing cars, and headed for the highway… after calling the local law enforcement agencies to let them know what we were up to… they’ve gotten to know us pretty well. They used to call anytime something strange was happening in the area, just to make sure we were not shooting another film.

I say-a Boom!

A few years ago a couple we knew lost their home when the state decided to build a bypass through it… (hitchhikers reference intentional)… So it seemed like

this stretch of highway owed us one.  The Hoosier Heartland Corridor goes from Logansport to Ft. Wayne. the part that we used, doesn’t get a lot of traffic… perfect for what we needed to do Saturday.

It’s not normal to have two of these cars completed at the same time. It literally just turned out that way. That’s when Mark decided it was time to shoot some footage.

Our camera opps  were Greg Fauvergue and Eric Ridge.

Say Cheese!

Eric has some of the coolest toys… and the best ones he built himself.  Case in point. His camera crane… it’s too cool to be called a jib. It extends about 25 feet into the air and the head is remote controlled.

It’s always a blast working with the MagicHouse crew. I’ve know all of these people for longer than most of us would like to admit. Doing what you love to do, with good friends can hardly be called work.

I spent most of the day as a traffic jam creator. I would drive a few tenths of a mile back from the cars and camera truck and hold back the other traffic.  I’m sure I was called some very unpleasant things by those other

Eric and Greg talk about the shoot with Mark.

drivers… It wouldn’t be the first time, I’m sure.

We started shooting at about 9:00am and didn’t wrap until about 5:00pm. Afterwards Mark treated the crew to Chinese at China Lane. yum!

At the end of the day the our ‘Stars’ had an opportunity to pose original Monte Carlo replica.

Action!

Greg gets some close-ups

Triplets

Photos by Chuck Budreau & Eric Ridge

We started Saturday morning in the small town of Topeka Indiana. Topeka is about 45 minutes northwest of Ft.Wayne, deep in the heart of Amish country. The location was the Topeka Pharmacy, which is pretty much a general store… doubling for a old style Five and Dime.

The main characters of the video where portrayed by
Alicia Hedlund, Travis Gow, and Chris Breidinger.

Alicia Hedlund

Travis Gow

Chris Breidinger

Which brings us to the title of the song…
“Dodg’n a Ford (in my Chevrolet)”
Here’s Travis’ Chevrolet…

and here’s the Ford he’s Dodg’n…(along with Nate Savidge catching some cool footage)

We had a blast shooting the chase footage. Stunt Supervisor Jim Dougherty organized the chase scene while Director Kate Chaplin oversaw the rest of the shoot.

Alicia, Kate and Jim

On Sunday we shot the band footage. These guys were great… they put up with all of the hurry-up and wait that comes with any shoot, without any complaints. As a film crew we’re used to this kind of thing taking way longer than anyone would ever guess. These guys were pros!

We were also joined by still photographer
Polina Osherov
. Who took some incredible shots of the band and crew. These are not her photos… but here’s a photo of her…which you won’t find in her shots!

Polina & Kate

It was a long hot weekend but lots of fun and hard work.
The video is now in the hands of the producers awaiting approval of the edit.
I’ll be sure to do an update when it’s available.

–chuck

Photos by Lynn Budreau