filmmaking

Neal Hutcheson’s new and already extremely popular documentary The Last One, about legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton (who passed away earlier this week) making what at the time was said to be his final batch of “likker”, will be shown tonight at 8 p.m. on The Documentary Channel.

Then tomorrow night at 9 p.m., UNC TV (the PBS network here in North Carolina) will also be broadcasting The Last One.

If you have not had the pleasure yet, I heartily recommend catching The Last One however you can. Neal sent over a DVD of it a few months ago and ever since then it has been making the rounds among friends and relatives. Everyone has said that it’s an absolute hoot to watch! Now because of the sad events of this past week, it is also a fitting memorial to an American original character....

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Good friend, fellow filmmaker and renaissance man Marco van Bergen sent along this still from Normalsville, his latest project…

That looks stunning! Can you believe this is a film being made by mostly teenagers? Well, Marco and his crew are a very talented lot and I’m not ashamed to say this either: I’ve learned a lot from him that I’m eager to apply to my own productions. This is definitely a rising young name that we’ll be hearing plenty more good from in the future.

And if you wanna know more about Normalsville, click on over to the official website! 🙂...

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Awright, I’ve been sitting on this for the past week or so, eagerly looking forward to when that e-mail would arrive with the official announcement and now… it’s here!

Alexandre Philippe is a filmmaker who is currently working on an ambitious project called The People vs. George Lucas (here’s the official website: PeopleVsGeorge.com). Tonight, Alexandre and his crew released the first trailer for their film.

Behold!

Want to see it drastically embiggened and high-deffed? Mash down here!

And at 1:29 into the trailer, there’s a black and white clip showing “George Lucas” furiously typing. No, your eyes ain’t deceiving you: that is Chad Austin from my first film Forcery (click here to watch THAT movie)! Alexandre contacted me about using Forcery awhile back, and all of us at KWerky Productions are thrilled to have been invited to take part in this project.

The People vs. George ...

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Oh geez…

Many of you remember a little over a year ago when YouTube yanked the clip I had posted of VH1’s Web Junk 2.0 that made use of my my first school board commercial.

Well, this morning I got another “Video Disabled” e-mail from YouTube.

This time, it’s about Forcery, the parody of Misery – about George Lucas being held captive by an overly-obsessed Star Wars fan – that we shot in 2004. Forcery was released in 2005 and I posted it on YouTube the following year, so it’s already been on YouTube for about three years now.

If you’ve seen Forcery, then you know that when Lucas (played by lifelong friend Chad Austin) is driving back to California after writing the script for Star Wars Episode III, he turns on the radio and finds himself listening to the classic song “A Horse with No ...

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This afternoon I finished writing the first draft of the script for the first “episode” of a project that, Lord willing, we’re going to start filming in the next few months. We’ve already found most of the cast too.

But before that, “Weird” Ed and I may be doing something that, I like to believe it’ll have some significant social relevance. At the moment I can’t help but think that it’ll be along the lines of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas without all the drugs.

And then, at last, I hope to begin shooting Keys, which has been my pet project for going on three years now. Had real life situations not intervened it could have been made already. But in a crazy sort of way the delay has helped make it a much stronger product. I’ve learned things as a writer and as a film-maker that are ...

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Marco van Bergen is a filmmaker that I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog not only because he’s a really cool guy and good friend but because, well, he rocks as a filmmaker. Keep your eye on this up-and-coming director folks: he’s definitely headed for good things!

So this morning he tells me that the first teaser for his new project Normalsville is done and that I oughta take a gander at it. So I did. Like, five times in a row. It’s a right atmospheric and moody piece of work. Can’t wait to see the rest of it (even though I’ve been “in the loop” on it for awhile 🙂 Check it out!

...

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In 1927, Austrian-German filmmaker Fritz Lang released Metropolis, considered by many to be the zenith of the silent movie era. Unfortunately the various versions of Metropolis that we have had for most of the 81 years since have been around 118 minutes long: drastically shortened from the film’s original running time of 210 minutes (did those guys think big back then, or what?). For all this time finding a complete, uncut copy of Metropolis has been one of the most prized goals of die-hard movie buffs, and most had given up hope that Lang’s original vision might never be seen again.

Tonight, Ain’t It Cool News is broadcasting the word far and wide that a complete print of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has been located in Buenos Ares, Argentina!

I’ve only seen Metropolis once, years ago in college. I’ll admit: some of the dialogue is… odd… and maybe even ...

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