First day of the New Year, and I am thrilled to get to work on the movie! What a blessing!
As life working on films blends from one day to the next, the upcoming year will be really exciting. So, putting it out there into the cosmos some of the work for my coming months.
Finish KERBEROS. Though of course there are compromises in all film making, especially with a lower budget masquerading as a big budget action film, everything tells me we are onto something really good.
Filming starts again in 10 days, and will be pushing hard to have our first screening by the end of April.
Sell BLOOD TIES. With a dozen offers on the table and contracts in hand, we are actually working out the details now. I think it could finally get out there within the next couple months.
Of course, besides the full post on KERBEROS, I am doing the trailers, the posters, the box covers, and the websites for both films.
Even before KERBEROS is done, I will shoot a short film that I am excited about - DUST TO HEAVEN. Like my film AM SESSION, it is in part to enjoy the creative process, partly to learn and push my boundaries, and also to let people know that low budget action films are not where I am going in the future.
Then, people will laugh but I can't wait to do it, I have another feature film I will take on that if remotely successful, will have some people's mouths dropping open. (all to be shot in one weekend!)
I have another short film - (I've wanted to do for a year now) - I hope to shoot over the summer, TEARS, dealing with conflict deaths around the world and with both our apathy and unawareness of them.
Having just co-directed and shot a music video for SPEECH (Arrested Development), I have the bug to shoot at a couple music videos early this year. At least one will be for KATY J, the singer songwriter from LA who will showcase some of her songs and voice in KERBEROS.
If the opportunity arises, I have another music video written out for my friend ADRIANA MEZZADRI. If I can make it happen, I will shoot it in her country of Brazil.
If I can help direct the writing talents of AMANDA McCARTHY, (THE DARK PLACES) and some of the artists I've met over the past couple years, I'll lend my eye and direction to at least one animated short this year as well. Like the other projects, it will push my abilites, bring some new knowledge and technical skills, and be FUN! Amanda's too talented to sit around waiting for me so I need to get on it...
And then there is BLACK HEART, my next action flick. If I am remotely on schedule, I will begin scouting Thailand, Australia, and the Canadian Rockies in mid summer to begin filming by early fall. With a bigger and better budget, and a couple name actors, even more opportunities should open up and reflect back on these.
Factor the first 6 months work, and I will finally be able to present my director's reel to Hollywood - agents and studios - and see where that takes me while pushing ahead on BLACK HEART and the marketing and sales of BT and K*. The graphics, the music, and the layout are now done and ready for me to populate it with the strong, evocative images I am becoming known for.
So by this time next year?
If I can stay on schedule, with a bit of luck, I'll finally tackle ALTERED, the film I have known for several years that will put me on the map. I feel I will have the resources and experience to do it justice.
It is all a lot to do - but as I do more - I find myself more and more excited about creating even more work; not just for myself but for growing network of talented people who I've been able to involve on these past few projects. The joy of creating and working and sharing with these people feeds my desire for us all to do even more.
I've received lots of requests over the past couple years, and especially since I have hit the festival circuit and started being active on many film forums and film making websites, and I have promised to put up some of the basic steps in my tackling the color grading for my work, so I need to get to that today, edit a scene I shot a couple weeks ago for ROB PRALGO's ZOMBIE INVASION, so I can get back to KERBEROS by the weekend.
luck to all
Kely McClung
"talking people and doing people - for myself, I hope to do"
http://www.bloodtiesmovie.com/
http://www.kerberosbites.com/
Showing posts with label Kely McClung. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kely McClung. Show all posts
Thursday, January 1, 2009
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/
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