Showing posts with label "Shades of Gray". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Shades of Gray". Show all posts
6.03.2011
Rent Shades of Gray on Netflix
"Shades of Gray" on Netflix Streaming... "Romeo Must Hang" will be coming soon, we just locked the picture last week. Visit romeomusthang.com to check it out.
2.07.2010
Border Crossings, New Places and the home of the Buffalo Wing...
One great thing about this job is the adventure involved and the people you meet along the way. I always say that with documentatry filmmaking you get to experience a different walk of life with every interview and new place along the way. "Shades of Gray" took me to sunny Key West, Frozen Minnesota and to Cleveland, Ohio where after the interview I got to see Roger Clemens take the mound for the New York Yankees. With "Adopt a Jesus" I went to the streets of Nashville, Shreveport and Houston to name a few and met folks who go unnoticed for the most part by our fast paced world. Next up, Romeo Must Hang took me to Buffalo, New York, Independent filmmaking is always an adventure.
After finishing up my 40 hour work week at WVPBS at 7pm on Friday evening we took to the road. Steve Schmidt and I were headed off to Erie, PA where we would stop for the night. On the way we listened to some of the tracks that Jeremy had cut for the film, the different perspective you get listening to music at varying times of the day is interesting. Suddenly a Angelo Badalamenti quality crept from the tracks that I had listened to months before. Some filmmakers prefer to have a score cut to the finished film but I like to have a sound in my head while I'm gathering my interviews. The documentaries I've done in the past are shaped by the soundtrack that I lay out in advance and it allows me to construct the world in which my characters live.
The next morning we finished the trek to Buffalo, NY where the mission was to interview David Schmid, author of "Natural Born Celebrities." We met David at his house and followed him to his office at the University of Buffalo where we sat down for the longest interview I've conducted or been a part of. Steve also said it was his longest he had been apart of. I prefer to call my interviews conversations, I don't write down any questions to take into the interview, this feels forced to me. I do have a specific outline in my head to which I will attempt to cover during the conversation but what happens in-between those bullet points is anything goes. The most important thing going into a "conversation" is you've got to do your homework. You've got to know first of all about the subject and characters in your film. Second you need to know about the subject your about to sit down with to have a conversation.
The interview went more than well, it was the kind of interview that takes a story to the next level. Each film has one or more, Shades of Gray had multiple interviews of that nature, hopefully "Romeo" will turn out to be as fruitful. My goal with David was to paint broad strokes with my questioning to generate deep discussion, I wasn't concerned with the details of the Powers story at this point. By this I mean rather than asking What Powers personality was like, I would ask Why is it every time a serial killer surfaces in a neighbor hood everyones reaction is, Well he was such a nice quiet guy. The scary thing is these monsters are just like you and I... average unassuming people. That is the level of conversation I was trying to get, and I more than got it. Thank you David.
After the interview it was off to the Anchor Bar in downtown Buffalo. Its a contentious issue but the Anchor Bar claims to be the place that invented the Buffalo wing, there is another place in town that claims the same. I'm not much of a wing fan but being a fan of history I ordered up some, I must say it tasted like a Buffalo Wing.
At this point it's 8pm and when making a film business comes first but it's also important to have some fun along the way. With this you see and do things when time allows, this means a night trip to Niagara Falls and across the border to Canada. I've never been to the falls and even at night it was impressive. It was nothing like I had cooked up in my imagination, I pictured a secluded area lot of forestation and a giant waterfall with a guy in a viking hat riding a barrel to the bottom. I hadn't dream up the towns and casinos that had grown up on each side of the border. It was a short lived trip because it was 5 degrees on the U.S. side and it was -15 across the border. It was cold but we didn't have to give it much thought, we were heading back to West Virginia in the morning. Canada here we come.
At the border they didn't seem too keen on us bringing $8000 worth of gear into Canada. I told them we had carried the sensitive gear into the hotel and were just too lazy to carry the rest. "What do you do for a living?", asked the border guard as he searched the car. "I'm a Filmmaker," I said. "What is your film about," he said. I replied, "Actually a Serial Killer." The second guard laughed and said, "Did he do it?" To which Steve replied, "Hell yeah he did it." "Where you guys staying?" "Buffalo," I answered. "I wouldn't leave my stuff in Buffalo either," he said.
After the car was searched it was onto Immigrations to get a background check to be cleared to cross the border. Once in Canada we walked beyond the tourist traps to a little bar with curling on one screen and hockey on another. After a few hours in Canada it was back to the U.S. where once again we were searched crossing the Peace Bridge. The guard asked mostly the same questions with one exception. "What did the Canadians say when you brought all that equipment across the border?" I didn't have the heart to tell him.
After finishing up my 40 hour work week at WVPBS at 7pm on Friday evening we took to the road. Steve Schmidt and I were headed off to Erie, PA where we would stop for the night. On the way we listened to some of the tracks that Jeremy had cut for the film, the different perspective you get listening to music at varying times of the day is interesting. Suddenly a Angelo Badalamenti quality crept from the tracks that I had listened to months before. Some filmmakers prefer to have a score cut to the finished film but I like to have a sound in my head while I'm gathering my interviews. The documentaries I've done in the past are shaped by the soundtrack that I lay out in advance and it allows me to construct the world in which my characters live.
The next morning we finished the trek to Buffalo, NY where the mission was to interview David Schmid, author of "Natural Born Celebrities." We met David at his house and followed him to his office at the University of Buffalo where we sat down for the longest interview I've conducted or been a part of. Steve also said it was his longest he had been apart of. I prefer to call my interviews conversations, I don't write down any questions to take into the interview, this feels forced to me. I do have a specific outline in my head to which I will attempt to cover during the conversation but what happens in-between those bullet points is anything goes. The most important thing going into a "conversation" is you've got to do your homework. You've got to know first of all about the subject and characters in your film. Second you need to know about the subject your about to sit down with to have a conversation.
The interview went more than well, it was the kind of interview that takes a story to the next level. Each film has one or more, Shades of Gray had multiple interviews of that nature, hopefully "Romeo" will turn out to be as fruitful. My goal with David was to paint broad strokes with my questioning to generate deep discussion, I wasn't concerned with the details of the Powers story at this point. By this I mean rather than asking What Powers personality was like, I would ask Why is it every time a serial killer surfaces in a neighbor hood everyones reaction is, Well he was such a nice quiet guy. The scary thing is these monsters are just like you and I... average unassuming people. That is the level of conversation I was trying to get, and I more than got it. Thank you David.
After the interview it was off to the Anchor Bar in downtown Buffalo. Its a contentious issue but the Anchor Bar claims to be the place that invented the Buffalo wing, there is another place in town that claims the same. I'm not much of a wing fan but being a fan of history I ordered up some, I must say it tasted like a Buffalo Wing.
At this point it's 8pm and when making a film business comes first but it's also important to have some fun along the way. With this you see and do things when time allows, this means a night trip to Niagara Falls and across the border to Canada. I've never been to the falls and even at night it was impressive. It was nothing like I had cooked up in my imagination, I pictured a secluded area lot of forestation and a giant waterfall with a guy in a viking hat riding a barrel to the bottom. I hadn't dream up the towns and casinos that had grown up on each side of the border. It was a short lived trip because it was 5 degrees on the U.S. side and it was -15 across the border. It was cold but we didn't have to give it much thought, we were heading back to West Virginia in the morning. Canada here we come.
At the border they didn't seem too keen on us bringing $8000 worth of gear into Canada. I told them we had carried the sensitive gear into the hotel and were just too lazy to carry the rest. "What do you do for a living?", asked the border guard as he searched the car. "I'm a Filmmaker," I said. "What is your film about," he said. I replied, "Actually a Serial Killer." The second guard laughed and said, "Did he do it?" To which Steve replied, "Hell yeah he did it." "Where you guys staying?" "Buffalo," I answered. "I wouldn't leave my stuff in Buffalo either," he said.
After the car was searched it was onto Immigrations to get a background check to be cleared to cross the border. Once in Canada we walked beyond the tourist traps to a little bar with curling on one screen and hockey on another. After a few hours in Canada it was back to the U.S. where once again we were searched crossing the Peace Bridge. The guard asked mostly the same questions with one exception. "What did the Canadians say when you brought all that equipment across the border?" I didn't have the heart to tell him.
1.26.2010
Gray Barker, an Apple and the Men in Black…
… sounds like a good idea for a Disney movie except we can exchange the gay man for a brunette princess. And oh yeah the Men in Black can be Dwarfs.
“Insert the FINAL CUT STUDIO instillation disk…”
The new edit system arrived today, decided to take a crack at a Screenplay and the snow that is falling as I write brought back memories of the first step on a long journey to where I am today. I have to say that the hour that I’ve spent with my new Mac Book Pro has sold me on Apple. First it was an iPod, then the iPhone and now the Mac Book. I’ve been a skeptic all along but I’m now a full-fledged junkie or whatever term is hip to apply. Now only if Final Cut is as good as Avid. I’ve spent the last 9 years cutting on an Avid edit system at WVPBS and own my own Avid Express system that I work on from home. The same system that I cut “Shades of Gray” on and “Adopt a Jesus.” I can only hope that Final Cut can stand up to the Avid program… To be continued
Not that I’m busy or anything but I think Charessa (my wife) and I are gonna begin working on a screenplay. All of the research is stored in my head so the easy part is out of the way, now its time to put it together in an entertaining fashion that resembles nothing of the true events. You know based upon a true story. We’ve got the index cards out and the opening scene ready to go, should be a fun process... updates to come.
This next few paragraphs should be titled “The road to where I am,” or “The first step in a journey I had no idea I was about to begin. As I get in the way back machine, I think I was a senior in High School or maybe a Junior, and one of the biggest snow storms to hit the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia in my lifetime had just passed through. The only bigger storm I can remember I had to walk home from school with my dad and almost got frostbite. My mom used warm wash cloths or maybe a hair dryer, memory in the way back machine is hazy, to keep my ears from falling off. Anyway… I got snowed in at the Thaxton’s house, which was good planning; I got to hang out with my future wife Charessa while the snow melted. I ended up spending a lot of time on that hill in high school and we ended up buying a house and living there the first ten years or so of our marriage.
So during the snowstorm I call up the local video store and see if they are open and how long. The guy on the other end of the phone tells me he’s about to close. I tell him I can be there in 10 minutes, we have to walk because of all the snow, he says OK. That was the first time I met Jeremy Brightbill, to make a long story short we became instant friends, I got a job at the video store and we started a band together along with another friend of mine Antonie Zorio. We would be known as Watership Down after the Richard Adams Novel. Jeremy is now working on the soundtrack to “Romeo Must Hang,” I can’t wait to hear what he comes up with, he’s truly a great musician.
My time at the video store allowed me to study filmmaking and watch a lot of movies, and they paid me to do it. At the time my Favorite Actor = Dennis Hopper, Favorite Movie = Raising Arizona… It was a journey that began there and after a few detours I ended up studying film in college. I was fired from the job at the video store once and like a good producer I talked them into hiring me back, besides I had a lot more movies I needed to watch.
Well it’s 12:30 am and I’m on disk 3 of 7 of the final cut install… it’s gonna be a long night. I think I’ll go read A Clockwork Orange.
“Insert the FINAL CUT STUDIO instillation disk…”
The new edit system arrived today, decided to take a crack at a Screenplay and the snow that is falling as I write brought back memories of the first step on a long journey to where I am today. I have to say that the hour that I’ve spent with my new Mac Book Pro has sold me on Apple. First it was an iPod, then the iPhone and now the Mac Book. I’ve been a skeptic all along but I’m now a full-fledged junkie or whatever term is hip to apply. Now only if Final Cut is as good as Avid. I’ve spent the last 9 years cutting on an Avid edit system at WVPBS and own my own Avid Express system that I work on from home. The same system that I cut “Shades of Gray” on and “Adopt a Jesus.” I can only hope that Final Cut can stand up to the Avid program… To be continued
Not that I’m busy or anything but I think Charessa (my wife) and I are gonna begin working on a screenplay. All of the research is stored in my head so the easy part is out of the way, now its time to put it together in an entertaining fashion that resembles nothing of the true events. You know based upon a true story. We’ve got the index cards out and the opening scene ready to go, should be a fun process... updates to come.
This next few paragraphs should be titled “The road to where I am,” or “The first step in a journey I had no idea I was about to begin. As I get in the way back machine, I think I was a senior in High School or maybe a Junior, and one of the biggest snow storms to hit the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia in my lifetime had just passed through. The only bigger storm I can remember I had to walk home from school with my dad and almost got frostbite. My mom used warm wash cloths or maybe a hair dryer, memory in the way back machine is hazy, to keep my ears from falling off. Anyway… I got snowed in at the Thaxton’s house, which was good planning; I got to hang out with my future wife Charessa while the snow melted. I ended up spending a lot of time on that hill in high school and we ended up buying a house and living there the first ten years or so of our marriage.
So during the snowstorm I call up the local video store and see if they are open and how long. The guy on the other end of the phone tells me he’s about to close. I tell him I can be there in 10 minutes, we have to walk because of all the snow, he says OK. That was the first time I met Jeremy Brightbill, to make a long story short we became instant friends, I got a job at the video store and we started a band together along with another friend of mine Antonie Zorio. We would be known as Watership Down after the Richard Adams Novel. Jeremy is now working on the soundtrack to “Romeo Must Hang,” I can’t wait to hear what he comes up with, he’s truly a great musician.
My time at the video store allowed me to study filmmaking and watch a lot of movies, and they paid me to do it. At the time my Favorite Actor = Dennis Hopper, Favorite Movie = Raising Arizona… It was a journey that began there and after a few detours I ended up studying film in college. I was fired from the job at the video store once and like a good producer I talked them into hiring me back, besides I had a lot more movies I needed to watch.
Well it’s 12:30 am and I’m on disk 3 of 7 of the final cut install… it’s gonna be a long night. I think I’ll go read A Clockwork Orange.
11.03.2009
"Shades of Gray" a new WV masterpiece
Shades of Gray - a new WV masterpiece
By Steve Fesenmaier
Bob Wilkinson and Robert Tinnell, two of West Virginia's most creative filmmakers have combined forces to make "Shades of Gray," a masterpiece film about one of the state's most interesting personalities since WWII, Gray Barker (1925-84).
Wilkinson is a WVPBS filmmaker who previously had directed a great film about Harpers Ferry called "John Brown's Body." Tinnell is a well-known graphic novelist and filmmaker, best known for his hit graphic novel, "The Feast of Seven Fishes," and a long previous career making films in Hollywood. The film is called "Shades of Gray," a new 55 minute biography that is full of insight and dark humor. Congrats to both for making an accessible and intense film about a man who helped create the contemporary obsession with UFOs and local monsters.
The film includes fascinating interviews with Barker's family and friends, revealing that Barker never really believed in all the amazing things that he wrote about including UFOs, the Flatwoods Monster, Mothman, "Men in Black" (MIB) but apparently enjoyed the invention. He was just a small town man with a very great imagination, and the intelligence and energy to invent worlds that only he could really imagine.
This biography includes clips from two of the Hollywood films that have been made based on Barker's inventions - "The Mothman Prophecy" and "MIB." Both films starred the biggest actors in Hollywood, and the second became such a hit that a sequel was made.
I particularly enjoyed the recreation of Barker writing at his typewriter, showing a lonely character who almost single-handedly invented the world that super-star directors like Spielberg and thousands of others were able to mine for their own creations. Could there have been a hit TV series like "The X-Files" without the work of Barker? Could Spielberg have invented E.T. and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" without "Saucerian" magazine? I doubt it.
There is an earlier film, "Whispers from Space," by Ralph Coon that also profiles Barker. Coon came from L.A. back in the 1980s to explore the life and times of Barker, interviewing some of the same people shown in this film including Merle Moore, the Clarksburg-Harrison County library director who purchased the Barker Collection for her library. (She once called me on a Saturday, asking me to come to town to evaluate the collection. At that time I had no idea who Barker was and declined the invitation. I did work with Coon then, programming the world premiere of the film at the Spring WV International Film Festival, and put Wilkinson and Tinnell together since they both expressed great interest in Barker to me.) This film, unlike Coon's, explores the very dark side of Barker's life including his homosexuality and his possible death from AIDS. Barker was arrested for illegal sexual activities, and as Moore says, being gay in a small town can be dangerous.
This film is for adults, and probably will not be shown in West Virginia grade schools. However, I think that it would be great to show in West Virginia high schools and colleges, studying the vast UFO universe that came from Barker's typewriter.
The film has been shown at the 2008 Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia and will be shown in Sutton, Braxton County in early October. Hopefully Barker's family, some of whom still live in Braxton County, will attend the premiere. I hope that there is a Clarksburg showing of the film since David Houchon, the curator of the Barker Collection, is one of the main experts interviewed. Hopefully, the will be shown all over the U.S. and world. The people of West Virginia can be proud of this honest and artistic film about a man who made our universe a whole lot bigger despite having little to work with except his own intelligence and flare for the amazing.
By Steve Fesenmaier
Bob Wilkinson and Robert Tinnell, two of West Virginia's most creative filmmakers have combined forces to make "Shades of Gray," a masterpiece film about one of the state's most interesting personalities since WWII, Gray Barker (1925-84).
Wilkinson is a WVPBS filmmaker who previously had directed a great film about Harpers Ferry called "John Brown's Body." Tinnell is a well-known graphic novelist and filmmaker, best known for his hit graphic novel, "The Feast of Seven Fishes," and a long previous career making films in Hollywood. The film is called "Shades of Gray," a new 55 minute biography that is full of insight and dark humor. Congrats to both for making an accessible and intense film about a man who helped create the contemporary obsession with UFOs and local monsters.
The film includes fascinating interviews with Barker's family and friends, revealing that Barker never really believed in all the amazing things that he wrote about including UFOs, the Flatwoods Monster, Mothman, "Men in Black" (MIB) but apparently enjoyed the invention. He was just a small town man with a very great imagination, and the intelligence and energy to invent worlds that only he could really imagine.
This biography includes clips from two of the Hollywood films that have been made based on Barker's inventions - "The Mothman Prophecy" and "MIB." Both films starred the biggest actors in Hollywood, and the second became such a hit that a sequel was made.
I particularly enjoyed the recreation of Barker writing at his typewriter, showing a lonely character who almost single-handedly invented the world that super-star directors like Spielberg and thousands of others were able to mine for their own creations. Could there have been a hit TV series like "The X-Files" without the work of Barker? Could Spielberg have invented E.T. and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" without "Saucerian" magazine? I doubt it.
There is an earlier film, "Whispers from Space," by Ralph Coon that also profiles Barker. Coon came from L.A. back in the 1980s to explore the life and times of Barker, interviewing some of the same people shown in this film including Merle Moore, the Clarksburg-Harrison County library director who purchased the Barker Collection for her library. (She once called me on a Saturday, asking me to come to town to evaluate the collection. At that time I had no idea who Barker was and declined the invitation. I did work with Coon then, programming the world premiere of the film at the Spring WV International Film Festival, and put Wilkinson and Tinnell together since they both expressed great interest in Barker to me.) This film, unlike Coon's, explores the very dark side of Barker's life including his homosexuality and his possible death from AIDS. Barker was arrested for illegal sexual activities, and as Moore says, being gay in a small town can be dangerous.
This film is for adults, and probably will not be shown in West Virginia grade schools. However, I think that it would be great to show in West Virginia high schools and colleges, studying the vast UFO universe that came from Barker's typewriter.
The film has been shown at the 2008 Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia and will be shown in Sutton, Braxton County in early October. Hopefully Barker's family, some of whom still live in Braxton County, will attend the premiere. I hope that there is a Clarksburg showing of the film since David Houchon, the curator of the Barker Collection, is one of the main experts interviewed. Hopefully, the will be shown all over the U.S. and world. The people of West Virginia can be proud of this honest and artistic film about a man who made our universe a whole lot bigger despite having little to work with except his own intelligence and flare for the amazing.
10.30.2009
Letters from Stanton Friedman & Jerome Clark about "Shades of Gray"
Jerome Clark author of the UFO Encyclopedia:
Hi, Bob,
I am frankly thrilled at how well this film turned out.
I love the way you tell the story, which keeps circling back on itself, each time exposing new levels of insight and revelation. The final part, integrating Barker's public life as a UFO personality and his private one as a deeply closeted gay man, is a stroke of genius, and entirely persuasive. The first part so brilliantly parodies a cheesy, gap-mouthed cable-TV UFO "documentary" that you had me fooled there for a few minutes. Watching it, I was lulled into thinking, "Oh, another one of those." Man, was I wrong.
You've made a smart, unexpectedly moving film, and I give you my heartiest congratulations. I've watched it four times now, and it stands up each time. I've also learned things I didn't know from it.
Cordially,
Jerry
Leading Ufologist Stanton Friedman:
Bob:
That was a touching film. Thanks for sending it. Well done. A sad tale but a fascinating one. As best I can tell you have captured the man.. warts and all.
Stan Friedman
Visit theyknewtoomuch.com or email astraydogfilm@gmail for more info...
Hi, Bob,
I am frankly thrilled at how well this film turned out.
I love the way you tell the story, which keeps circling back on itself, each time exposing new levels of insight and revelation. The final part, integrating Barker's public life as a UFO personality and his private one as a deeply closeted gay man, is a stroke of genius, and entirely persuasive. The first part so brilliantly parodies a cheesy, gap-mouthed cable-TV UFO "documentary" that you had me fooled there for a few minutes. Watching it, I was lulled into thinking, "Oh, another one of those." Man, was I wrong.
You've made a smart, unexpectedly moving film, and I give you my heartiest congratulations. I've watched it four times now, and it stands up each time. I've also learned things I didn't know from it.
Cordially,
Jerry
Leading Ufologist Stanton Friedman:
Bob:
That was a touching film. Thanks for sending it. Well done. A sad tale but a fascinating one. As best I can tell you have captured the man.. warts and all.
Stan Friedman
Visit theyknewtoomuch.com or email astraydogfilm@gmail for more info...
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