So you proved you can make a movie - whatever the perceived quality or financial result. You have some accolades and some industry 'well wishes' for both the movie and your success as a filmmaker. And you have lots of ideas for the next project. Bigger. Better. Hoping that inspiration and the luck that came as you filmed before strikes again, and that you can utilize some of the lessons from the first to insure an even better outcome for the second.
You have gone from being that person who wishes they could make a movie, or talks about it, or silently dreams about it. to being that rarefied person who has actually done it. So if you are a bit insane, you start planning the next.
Oh yeah... and you have no money.
So do you spend then next year trying to raise the money, trying to justify to everyone that you talk to why your first effort isn't in a position to finance the second, or do you impose on your friends and beg those who helped before to pitch in again?
I guess a bit of both. I do know that this next story is better. That I know more now. Things that can and will make it better. That the script and the finished movie can be good for all who get involved. But not only do you have to suck up the small bit of pride you've worked so hard to earn, you have to tackle the next years work with the foreknowledge that it could even be better with a few more resources. Resources that money could bring.
And yet time goes by and you are either talking about it or you're doing it.
Amazing that Billy had it right so long ago.
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
And so before the dream is poisoned or murdered by fear and doubt and reason - it's time to give it life -
- nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose -
--
"Talking people and doing people, for myself, I hope to do"
Kely McClung
http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/
http://amsessionwebsite.com/
http://www.festivalwinners.com/
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
There are NO friends in the entertainment industry...
I was told recently by someone I had considered a friend, that there are no friendships in the movie industry. This by someone who has substantial standing in the industry, the same film business I am getting deeper into.
Pretty sure they are wrong, but since I haven't made it big yet, I can only examine my own circumstances and those I surround myself with.
I started investigating film and video as a way to document the massive amount of training techniques and discoveries made while teaching martial arts over the years. Writing and sketching out techniques and angles and body mechanics became way too cumbersome. While doing research on video cameras and what was involved in filming something that hopefully would be intelligible 20 years later, I met Jim Benton. He became not only my first acting teacher, but a friend, and has been for nearly twenty years.
Though I might not have been a great student, through his class I was introduced to two other students, Ray Lloyd and Robert Pralgo. Ray jumped into the professional wrestling world and is better known to his fans as Glacier. He became a part time student of my martial arts, and is now more and more involved in the world of film and acting, and for these 18 years has been someone I consider a good friend.
Robert Pralgo became an instant friend, and we discovered later that I already knew his father from other mutual friends in martial arts. I had previously traveled to Los Angeles to teach at his martial arts school, have dinner, be shown the sights, and find out that his son lived in my home town of Atlanta. "Have to meet him sometime" - not realizing until sometime later that I already had. Small world, then and more so now, and both our mutual friends, Chuck Young, and Rob's father Mel, remain friends with me and each other.
Rob and I shared a mutual love of films and found we both had ambitions behind the camera as well. Rob to push his acting, and me to take creative control and become a director. We remained close friends while I moved to LA, Rob to New York, then me to Miami as Rob transitioned to Los Angeles.
I helped create product for Pan Am Pictures in Miami while Rob pursued his acting in LA, and only years later after a couple of false starts, we found ourselves in the same city with the same passion for films and movies, and then partnered on producing and delivering BLOOD TIES. Though the film stretched our finances, stretched our collective talents, and stretched me physically, it never stretched our friendship.
My circle of friends are basically in the business of movies, tv, and films. Actors, writers, cameraman, and editors. The success of BLOOD TIES on the festival circuit has introduced me to many people, a few of which I can now call, and hope they do, my friends.
One of the friends made on BLOOD TIES, brought me in as the director and editor of another project, AM SESSION, which can now be found playing on HBO. Mark Wilson and I are talking about future projects now.
Rob was with me, to hang out with other friends from our circle of filmmakers, when I met my girlfriend nearly 2 years ago. Besides a host of other things, she has a passion for dark, thought provoking stories, and an exhaustive knowledge of films, anime, comics, and graphic novels. Turns out that Amanda McCarthy is an amazing writer, and as she pursues her writing, we are now investigating options for animations and short films under her label THE DARK PLACES.
We thought it would be fun for people if we included the first scene I ever directed on our behind the scenes extras on the BLOOD TIES DVD. Shot in 1992 on a single Super8 camera , it incorporated lessons I learned playing a major role in AMERCAN NINJA IV (can there actually be major role in there?), and getting to double both Michael Dudikoff and David Bradley. (David later helped bring me in on TOTAL REALITY)
What's pretty cool about watching the video of our Super8 scene - shot 16 years ago - besides the laughing at the huge hair and patting myself on the back for some meager exhibition of a talent for orchestrating film violence, is that my main fight was with another friend and sometimes martial arts student/sometimes teacher Scott Sullivan.
Not only was I able to bring him back in on my first starring picture, he later became the U.S. Heavyweight Champion in Shootfighting - a huge part of the lineage of the UFC. He was and remains my friend.
And there in the beginning of the clip, for just about 5 seconds of screen time, filling in as a stuntman and lending me his arm to break (no one was actually hurt - okay okay - no one was actually broken) is my friend Rob Pralgo.
I know I haven't made it big yet, but... I still have all my friends.
For the high rez Windows Media clip of the Kely McClung and Scott Sullivan fight: CLICK HERE
To watch this Kely McClung scene and others from the movie BLOOD TIES on YouTube: CLICK HERE
Kely McClung
http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/
http://www.amsessionwebsite.com/
http://festivalwinners.com/
Pretty sure they are wrong, but since I haven't made it big yet, I can only examine my own circumstances and those I surround myself with.
I started investigating film and video as a way to document the massive amount of training techniques and discoveries made while teaching martial arts over the years. Writing and sketching out techniques and angles and body mechanics became way too cumbersome. While doing research on video cameras and what was involved in filming something that hopefully would be intelligible 20 years later, I met Jim Benton. He became not only my first acting teacher, but a friend, and has been for nearly twenty years.
Though I might not have been a great student, through his class I was introduced to two other students, Ray Lloyd and Robert Pralgo. Ray jumped into the professional wrestling world and is better known to his fans as Glacier. He became a part time student of my martial arts, and is now more and more involved in the world of film and acting, and for these 18 years has been someone I consider a good friend.
Robert Pralgo became an instant friend, and we discovered later that I already knew his father from other mutual friends in martial arts. I had previously traveled to Los Angeles to teach at his martial arts school, have dinner, be shown the sights, and find out that his son lived in my home town of Atlanta. "Have to meet him sometime" - not realizing until sometime later that I already had. Small world, then and more so now, and both our mutual friends, Chuck Young, and Rob's father Mel, remain friends with me and each other.
Rob and I shared a mutual love of films and found we both had ambitions behind the camera as well. Rob to push his acting, and me to take creative control and become a director. We remained close friends while I moved to LA, Rob to New York, then me to Miami as Rob transitioned to Los Angeles.
I helped create product for Pan Am Pictures in Miami while Rob pursued his acting in LA, and only years later after a couple of false starts, we found ourselves in the same city with the same passion for films and movies, and then partnered on producing and delivering BLOOD TIES. Though the film stretched our finances, stretched our collective talents, and stretched me physically, it never stretched our friendship.
My circle of friends are basically in the business of movies, tv, and films. Actors, writers, cameraman, and editors. The success of BLOOD TIES on the festival circuit has introduced me to many people, a few of which I can now call, and hope they do, my friends.
One of the friends made on BLOOD TIES, brought me in as the director and editor of another project, AM SESSION, which can now be found playing on HBO. Mark Wilson and I are talking about future projects now.
Rob was with me, to hang out with other friends from our circle of filmmakers, when I met my girlfriend nearly 2 years ago. Besides a host of other things, she has a passion for dark, thought provoking stories, and an exhaustive knowledge of films, anime, comics, and graphic novels. Turns out that Amanda McCarthy is an amazing writer, and as she pursues her writing, we are now investigating options for animations and short films under her label THE DARK PLACES.
We thought it would be fun for people if we included the first scene I ever directed on our behind the scenes extras on the BLOOD TIES DVD. Shot in 1992 on a single Super8 camera , it incorporated lessons I learned playing a major role in AMERCAN NINJA IV (can there actually be major role in there?), and getting to double both Michael Dudikoff and David Bradley. (David later helped bring me in on TOTAL REALITY)
What's pretty cool about watching the video of our Super8 scene - shot 16 years ago - besides the laughing at the huge hair and patting myself on the back for some meager exhibition of a talent for orchestrating film violence, is that my main fight was with another friend and sometimes martial arts student/sometimes teacher Scott Sullivan.
Not only was I able to bring him back in on my first starring picture, he later became the U.S. Heavyweight Champion in Shootfighting - a huge part of the lineage of the UFC. He was and remains my friend.
And there in the beginning of the clip, for just about 5 seconds of screen time, filling in as a stuntman and lending me his arm to break (no one was actually hurt - okay okay - no one was actually broken) is my friend Rob Pralgo.
I know I haven't made it big yet, but... I still have all my friends.
For the high rez Windows Media clip of the Kely McClung and Scott Sullivan fight: CLICK HERE
To watch this Kely McClung scene and others from the movie BLOOD TIES on YouTube: CLICK HERE
Kely McClung
http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/
http://www.amsessionwebsite.com/
http://festivalwinners.com/
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Making your first movie is a piece of cake, look at BLOOD TIES...
Making your first film is all about convincing yourself you can do it. And you can. Anybody can.
We've grown up on watching TV and movies. Subconsciously we know - more or less - how to construct a scene. A bunch of scenes strung together and suddenly we have a movie. Might be a short. Maybe a feature. Might be fantastic, hinting at abilities previously unknown, certainly unproven before now, or it maybe we grew up watching a lot of really bad movies and worse TV and we get nominated for the worst excuse of a film ever made - and that would be pretty cool too.
Those we recruit and entrap on that first movie project also know how movies work - so they bring a lot to the table. Our enlisted cameramen and our actors, our best attempt at make up and special effects, the music and the sound and the artwork - they are all done by those who at best case have done it before and so know even more than we do, and at worst case have also watched a million shows of every sort. The collective knowledge/skill pool is well on its way, unencumbered by realistic expectations and the dreaded 'in retrospect'. Probably the single hardest thing of all is convincing yourself to just do it. Not a NIKE plug I swear... But the fear of failure stops us time and again.
Just the same - for some of us - delusions of grandeur overwhelm and squash our fears and before you really understand what's going on - you've done it. Made your first film! And when you look back, with all the struggles and the obstacles that stood in your way defeated, the now empty pockets and empty bank accounts and empty friends' favors account, the deep circles under your eyes and the few extra gray hairs - it turns out it really was a piece of cake.
But now... a few pats on the back. A greater standing in the community. A few accolades from the industry. And we either go back to our pre-completion existence or... we're faced with our Second Movie. Fear rears its many faces and the mythic struggle with our personal Hydra starts all over again.
In my own case, even while finishing post on BLOOD TIES, the quirky, international action epic that stretched me in ways sadistic medieval torture masters could not have envisioned, I was able to find brief respite in tackling the short film AM SESSION. Even that delivered 11 minute interlude of digital celluloid took nearly 8 months from start to completion. It can be found playing now on HBO.
It benefited from lesson learned, equipment purchased, and skills honed on BLOOD TIES, and I was able to confidently approach and conquer the directing, the editing, and the musical score.
After all, I had 100 minutes of feature film finished, this would be a piece of cake. And in retrospect it was.
But now... looming over my every conscience thought, the many-headed serpent's poisonous breath warm and fetid across the back of my neck... The Second Movie.
More coming soon...
We've grown up on watching TV and movies. Subconsciously we know - more or less - how to construct a scene. A bunch of scenes strung together and suddenly we have a movie. Might be a short. Maybe a feature. Might be fantastic, hinting at abilities previously unknown, certainly unproven before now, or it maybe we grew up watching a lot of really bad movies and worse TV and we get nominated for the worst excuse of a film ever made - and that would be pretty cool too.
Those we recruit and entrap on that first movie project also know how movies work - so they bring a lot to the table. Our enlisted cameramen and our actors, our best attempt at make up and special effects, the music and the sound and the artwork - they are all done by those who at best case have done it before and so know even more than we do, and at worst case have also watched a million shows of every sort. The collective knowledge/skill pool is well on its way, unencumbered by realistic expectations and the dreaded 'in retrospect'. Probably the single hardest thing of all is convincing yourself to just do it. Not a NIKE plug I swear... But the fear of failure stops us time and again.
Just the same - for some of us - delusions of grandeur overwhelm and squash our fears and before you really understand what's going on - you've done it. Made your first film! And when you look back, with all the struggles and the obstacles that stood in your way defeated, the now empty pockets and empty bank accounts and empty friends' favors account, the deep circles under your eyes and the few extra gray hairs - it turns out it really was a piece of cake.
But now... a few pats on the back. A greater standing in the community. A few accolades from the industry. And we either go back to our pre-completion existence or... we're faced with our Second Movie. Fear rears its many faces and the mythic struggle with our personal Hydra starts all over again.
In my own case, even while finishing post on BLOOD TIES, the quirky, international action epic that stretched me in ways sadistic medieval torture masters could not have envisioned, I was able to find brief respite in tackling the short film AM SESSION. Even that delivered 11 minute interlude of digital celluloid took nearly 8 months from start to completion. It can be found playing now on HBO.
It benefited from lesson learned, equipment purchased, and skills honed on BLOOD TIES, and I was able to confidently approach and conquer the directing, the editing, and the musical score.
After all, I had 100 minutes of feature film finished, this would be a piece of cake. And in retrospect it was.
But now... looming over my every conscience thought, the many-headed serpent's poisonous breath warm and fetid across the back of my neck... The Second Movie.
More coming soon...
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Making a low budget movie takes a lack of vision!
A lack of vision?
Crack! Slam! Ka-Pow! The hits are coming in 'fast and furious'. A director with no vision? What kind of schlock are you? Blind?
Well, sure. If I had vision I could see the rent is due, utilities are coming up, tax season is looming, the country's fate over the next four years is shaping up, and yet all I can think about it how to pull off my next movie. Seems willfully blind to me - entering the exotic, welcomed by me world between reality and fantasy that allows one to create. A chosen, delusional world embraced.
And which will make a damn good movie by the way.
Quick paced and edgy, clever dialog that sounds and feels real off the tongue. A cast no one has heard of yet are so strong they'll chew the story up, and are always willing to go that extra mile take after take. As the director, and one that probably won't get paid until somewhere on the far side of a 'near future', that's the paycheck and pat on the back that lets me go the extra 10 miles [10 : 1] seems like a good ratio of effort to me [director : actor\crew] - and that translates to visible energy on the screen which translates to palpable energy in the audience - even if it's only an audience of one - which it will be through its long gestation period. Movies are not born overnight...
An unconventional story with unconventional characters... hard to call any of them heroes... but I think it will be pretty easy to call them human. Easy to love and easy to hate. The best of us and the worst... yet its a movie so I'll make them a little better and a little worse than what we could ever admit in ourselves.
A fast pace -- a twisted tale. I feel it. I can feel the emotions, the pain from dreams each character failed to realize, and the excitement that wells up in them as the story presents its opportunities. Their hurt and disappointment when the plot twists it all back on itself. I know intimately the heartaches that shaped their lives; the joys and pleasures they reached and struggled for. I can feel their hopes for a future without pain, without struggle. And their resignation that as story master, I alone have the power to keep that resolution close enough they can taste it, chew on it, even swallow, only to make them regurgitate on command and give up their prize to the greater good of my tale.
I can feel the cold in the shadows and the meager warmth from dim pools of light. Warm blood running down the side of frozen cheeks, the sting of sweat in the eyes, and the lack of oxygen in labored breaths. How leather shoes worn on one side from an old football injury rub into one's feet as he runs the sprint of his life on hard alley pavement. How blood warms the pavement as he lays on the cold, oily street. The agonies from the tortures, pain from the broken fingers, the flesh rent as bullets savage muscle and bone alike, the humiliation and degradation of the rape, the swell of pride in a moment of sacrifice, the resignation of fate.
The locations themselves are raw and angry, screaming their pain onto my canvas. I can smell the dirt and the mold and the urine wafting with the miasma of sweet/bitter rot. I hear the wind and the traffic, and the birds just out of sight of camera but intruding gently into my shot. Is that a leaf blower in the middle of the city from some bastard who is ruining my sound with the auditory proof of his lack of responsiblity in that he not push his own garbage onto others?
Filmed with the urgency of lessons learned shooting Blood Ties in alien cities on foreign lands with the demonstrable threat of the authorities in our faces, the lack of time on our side, and unavailable resources to stand against either.
Hang on --- the phone's ringing. A now broken phone by the way. More bills. Great. Let me write that down... at least I've learned that unopened offers of '0% now pay the rest of your life starting tomorrow' credit cards make great scratch pads.
In my apartment, they are covered with ideas, thoughts and glimmers of thoughts. Links to that other world.
Yep, I can almost see it.
Kely McClung
http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com
http://www.festivalwinners.com
Sunday, February 3, 2008
DVD Extras for the action movie BLOOD TIES
So far we've added an interview with Rob Pralgo, our executive producer and co-star, and I am finishing the commentary that I did with Noralil Ryan Fores from Short Ends Magazine . Noralil was gracious enough to follow up on her flattering review and interview on BLOOD TIES from last year. The 3 hours plus we took watching the film and recording together needs a bit of editing to fit on the 93 minutes of BLOOD TIES. So, a bit more work before it gets added to the glass masters.
Now we're looking at some old footage that we thought might be fun to include. The first scene I ever tried to direct and edit, shot on Super8 back in '92. Basically, a fight scene with me and about 10 others - even Rob in a 5 second shot getting flipped and his arm broke.
Looking at this original footage, I'm hit with mixed feelings. One is that it's actually pretty cool to see the big finale of the fight between myself and Scott Sullivan. Scott was my friend and work out partner who later held the U.S. Heavyweight titles in both Kickboxing and Shootfighting. Hard to believe that this tough guy, who is host of the weekly radio show "In the Cage" for ESPN on 97.5 in Houston, TX, is now completing his PhD in philosophy a the the Center for Thomastic Studies where he also works as an adjunct professor!
What make's it especially cool for us is that we did this same fight - move by move - 2 years later in a rushed day of filming for STICKFIGHTER - Produced by Menahem Golan of Cannon Pictures fame.
Have to say, even though it's the two of us fighting in both, I like my version better!
What gives us (Rob and I) mixed feelings is that looking at the scene, we're hit with the regret of not making the plunge into our own productions before. Is it the greatest scene ever filmed? No. Good enough to have been out there entertaining action fans? Definately.
It pretty much rubs in the fact that I need to be making movies. Even at the pace of four years it's taken me to make BLOOD TIES, we would had four feature films done!
Film has so far brought me my friends, my wonderful girl friend, travel, knowledge, and the joy of constantly stretching and reaching for all the talents and skills it takes to make a movie. Any movie!
The bills stay the same, the intrusions and sidetracks of life keep coming, but looking backwards, the excuses seem pretty hollow.
So ROLL CAMERA!
Kely McClung
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Film Festival Winners is up at www.festivalwinners.com
Well, after putting aside my final efforts of BLOOD TIES (the special features) for a few days and putting in some time on understanding how this web thing works, I finally have festivalwinners.com up and running.
Actually, its little more than a splash page with links to a suggestion page and some explanation about what it is. What is it? At this stage, I am compiling a book - we'll start with a hundred different film makers who have won various festivals around the world. Most of them probably have never really had a voice before, even though looking at their work, they obviously have a lot of skills and advice they can pass on.
I know that we can always read about the big guys, the Ridleys and Stevens of the film world, but it seems to me that many of the lessons and advice they talk about have little to do with my situation right now.
For now, it's paying the rent (actually in the same month it's due), keeping gas in the car, and the computer up and running while trying figure out how to make the next movies.
So it's back to how do I make the little movies that I can seem like big movies, make them powerful enough to move people, and then what?
So far, I've managed to finish BLOOD TIES -still working on what we hope are the kick-ass extras (http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/) - the action movie we made on a shoe-string budget in 3 countries and 6 major cities.
Then for the price of a nice meal out for four - my four man crew - producer/friend, best friend, girl friend, and MacGyver film buddy, knocked out the short film AM SESSION (http://www.amsessionwebsite.com/)
BLOOD TIES has done pretty good on the film festival circuit so far - though money has been so tight we've only entered seven. Still, LA's been especially good to us - in four fests there, we've won Action Film of the Year, a Best Director award, a Best Visual Effects award, and Best of the Festival.
AM SESSION was in the very pretigious American Black Film Festival and nominated for the HBO Short Film Award. Didn't win, but they bought us and it plays on HBO Zone later this month and then I guess off on on for the next 2 years.
Seems like most of the friends I've made at these fests have the same issues. They've staked a big chunk of their lives on their films, done really well on the circuit, and no one really knows they or their films exist.
Maybe between us, we'll figure it out. I know we're way ahead of a lot of people, and hopefully we can help others as we move forward.
I know the book (http://www.festivalwinners.com/)is a good idea because like the movies and stories I want to make just so I can watch them, I can't wait to read the book!
Kely McClung
Actually, its little more than a splash page with links to a suggestion page and some explanation about what it is. What is it? At this stage, I am compiling a book - we'll start with a hundred different film makers who have won various festivals around the world. Most of them probably have never really had a voice before, even though looking at their work, they obviously have a lot of skills and advice they can pass on.
I know that we can always read about the big guys, the Ridleys and Stevens of the film world, but it seems to me that many of the lessons and advice they talk about have little to do with my situation right now.
For now, it's paying the rent (actually in the same month it's due), keeping gas in the car, and the computer up and running while trying figure out how to make the next movies.
So it's back to how do I make the little movies that I can seem like big movies, make them powerful enough to move people, and then what?
So far, I've managed to finish BLOOD TIES -still working on what we hope are the kick-ass extras (http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/) - the action movie we made on a shoe-string budget in 3 countries and 6 major cities.
Then for the price of a nice meal out for four - my four man crew - producer/friend, best friend, girl friend, and MacGyver film buddy, knocked out the short film AM SESSION (http://www.amsessionwebsite.com/)
BLOOD TIES has done pretty good on the film festival circuit so far - though money has been so tight we've only entered seven. Still, LA's been especially good to us - in four fests there, we've won Action Film of the Year, a Best Director award, a Best Visual Effects award, and Best of the Festival.
AM SESSION was in the very pretigious American Black Film Festival and nominated for the HBO Short Film Award. Didn't win, but they bought us and it plays on HBO Zone later this month and then I guess off on on for the next 2 years.
Seems like most of the friends I've made at these fests have the same issues. They've staked a big chunk of their lives on their films, done really well on the circuit, and no one really knows they or their films exist.
Maybe between us, we'll figure it out. I know we're way ahead of a lot of people, and hopefully we can help others as we move forward.
I know the book (http://www.festivalwinners.com/)is a good idea because like the movies and stories I want to make just so I can watch them, I can't wait to read the book!
Kely McClung
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