Take a bow, East Texas. You're a star.
Film
production companies are developing in the Pineywoods, taking advantage
of digital technology to create movies that make an end-run around the
Hollywood machine.
|
Michael Cavazos/News-Journal Photo
|
Actress
Cassie Shea Watson of Harleton speaks with her friends, on Thursday
December 4, 2008, in the lobby of Carmike 10 at the premier of a localy
made film 'Agenda' in which she plays the part of Jenell.
|
|
|
One
of those companies, Azisa Pictures, drew 150 people to its casting call
for extras hoping to be spotted on screen in, "Agenda," which is set
for a three-day run in Longview starting tonight.
"If,
several years ago, somebody had told me a production company would be
involved in Longview, I would have laughed," said Jonathan de la Luz of
Longview, before admitting the joke's on him: "And I'm the one who
created it."
De
la Luz created Azisa Pictures, a locally based film company that's
already had success with the release of "Agenda," a suspense thriller
shot in Longview, Lake O' the Pines and nearby locales.
"It
could be argued that I'm not in my environment," de la Luz said. "But
the good news is I've tried to bring my environment here to East Texas."
Luz,
54, and creative collaborator Danny Martin, a Marshall native living in
Longview, co-wrote "Agenda." With publicity being handled by Luz and
his ex-wife, Allison Peacock, Azisa stays lean and competitive in a
field of giant Hollywood machines.
"If
you're an 800-pound gorilla, like a major studio is now, you're going
to do OK because it's a brand name," he said. "I was told - Danny and I
were both told - 'You're nuts. Just get a job at Kinkos and let it go
at that.' "
Instead
of letting go, local movie makers are grabbing hand-held cameras that
are gaining increased use among the Hollywood gorillas. Digital
technology is key for smaller outfits like Azisa, he said.
"We're
getting to a point where you can download a movie to a theater via the
Internet," he said. "That's what Azisa Pictures' business model has
been designed on - to take advantage of that. But at the end of the day
it's all about content."
"Agenda"
already had an international debut at the Cannes Film Festival, notched
the Grand Jury Prize at the New York Independent Film Festival and a
Remi Award at the Houston International Film Festival.
Technology also is lending a hand to 1990 Carthage High School graduate Kent Fuselier,
a recording studio owner who spotted the name of an old school chum in
movie credits several years ago and re-connected with Randal Reeder .
Reeder,
37, was recently seen in "W," playing an oilfield foreman chewing out a
young George W. Bush. He also was prison guard, Big Bob, in "Harold and
Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay." Reeder tries his hand at
directing in the pair's East Texas movie, "Stabbin Kabin."
"We're
at an interesting point in film history," Reeder said. "It's the
digital revolution. Everything's so much more inexpensive now that
we're able to do this stuff."
Fuselier
worked on the sound for "Stabbin Kabin," a slasher flick Reeder shot in
Northeast Texas for Coma Pictures. The two old school friends now are
working a second local project, "Tet. The Movie." They are forming
their own production company, Y3K360 Productions, a spin-off of
Fuselier's Diire Records. The pair also are negotiating with Vietnam to
shoot some scenes for Tet in the Asian country, Fuselier said.
Their
business model is similar to Azisa's. That includes the hand-held R1
and R2 digital cameras that are setting a rapid pace for a new movie
era.
"That's
kind of our little gimmick, here, is making stuff cheap and small and
fast, and getting things out to distribution as soon as we can,"
Fuselier said.
By
fast, he means lightning speed by Hollywood standards. Fuselier
estimates Tet, which recently was cast, will take two months to move
from conceptual stage to filming.
Their
budgets are miniscule by Hollywood standards, too. Reeder puts Y3K360
movies in the $50,000 to $500,000 range. (Azisa's projects range
slightly higher; it's first movie, "The Hunt," now out on DVD, cost
around $1.5 million).
"There
is a glamour about it that people read about in People magazine or
(watch on) Entertainment Weekly," de la Luz said. "But show business -
what people forget is the emphasis on the business. That's tough, and
it's hard. And then there is the bad news. It's not for the faint of
heart."
* * *
