Two Dallas natives in Texas Film Hall of Fame

Here' s my report for the Dallas Morning News from the Texas Film Hall of Fame. It should soon be behind a paywall, so I present it here in its entirety.


BY JOE O'CONNELL
Special Contributor

AUSTIN — On the way to school in Oak Cliff, young Stephen Tobolowsky would act out plays. On Thursday, the character actor whose name you don’t know but whose face you do was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame.

He was joined by fellow Dallas native Robin Wright, San Antonio’s Henry Thomas (E.T., All the Pretty Horses) and Houston’s Annette O’Toole (TV’s Smallville) at Austin Studios on the former site of the city’s airport.

Photo by Joe O'Connell

Tobolowsky, who has acted in more than 100 film and TV projects, including Groundhog Day and Memento, said he had a revelation about his career while playing the role of a professional bass fisherman years ago. A car arrived, he thought to take him to the set, but the driver had mistaken Tobolowsky for a pilot he’d been sent to pick up. Then, said pilot showed up, thinking Tobolowsky must be the cabbie.

“In one day, I was mistaken for both a jet pilot and a taxi driver en route to my role as a bass fisherman,” he said. “That is the life of a character actor.”

Photo by Joe O'Connell

Princess Bride director Rob Reiner introduced Wright at the ceremony and said he had seen more than 100 young actresses before Wright arrived. “She walked in the room and I said, ‘Oh, my God, she is the princess bride.’ ”

While born in Dallas, Wright was raised in California. However, she returned yearly and fondly recalls jaunts to Cedar Creek Lake, where she swam and ate watermelon.

Wright, with a recent role in Netflix’s House of Cards, said the joy of her career has been “sharing stories and receiving them on a daily basis and getting paid for it.”

It’s the 13th year the Austin Film Society has inducted new members to the Texas Film Hall of Fame, which raises funds to aid independent filmmakers and serves as a kickoff to the South by Southwest Film Festival. Also honored this year was Richard Linklater’s 1993 teen film, Dazed and Confused, which received the Star of Texas Award.

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, an old Linklater pal, presented the award for what he called one of his favorite films of the 1990s.

Austin Film Society founder Linklater said he was still learning his craft while making Dazed and Confused and had his uneasy moments.

“I had such high ambitions for what I was doing,” he said. “If I ever felt less than certain, I could see how hard the cast was working and realize how much it meant to them.”

Actress Dana Wheeler-Nicholson (TV’s Friday Night Lights) serenaded the cast with a sultry rendition of the Led Zeppelin song “Dazed and Confused.” Linklater’s film is named for the song, but he was unable to get rights to use it in the film.

Texas Sundance entries have Dallas pedigrees

(From today's Dallas Morning News. Stories are behind a pay wall, so I present it for you.)
 

Texas Sundance entries have Dallas pedigrees

BY JOE O’CONNELL

Special to The Dallas Morning News

            Austin gets the Texas indie-film buzz, but the Lone Star State contingent at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival is full of North Texans.

            Yen Tan worked in marketing for Neiman-Marcus in Dallas until he trekked to the Capital City in 2010 with a plan to make a living as the go-to graphics guy for indie film poster art. His third feature film Pit Stop, the parallel stories of two blue-collar gay men in small-town Texas, premieres at Sundance later this month. Tan co-wrote the script with Dallas’ David Lowery, whose feature Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is in dramatic competition at Sundance.

12-year-old Elise Gardner, star of Spark poses for
a film blogger as her mother Mary Catherine watches.

            “It’s like winning the lottery,” said Tan of Sundance in Park City, Utah, which carries the mystique as a magical place where independent film dreams come true. “I’m scared to have expectations. I don’t want to be disappointed.”

            Tan said he quietly flew under the radar in the North Texas film scene with Lowery and Fort Worth’s James Johnston, a Pit Stop producer, before decamping to Austin.

Indie film proves a small Texas world with Austin-based Kelly Williams—yet another Pit Stop producer—programming Fort Worth’s Lone Star International Film Festival while keeping his hand in seemingly every independent movie of note, including Kat Candler’s latest Sundance short Black Metal about a rocker/dad who must deal with the guilt when a killer’s actions are linked to a love of the rocker’s music.

“We’ve all grown up together,” Williams said following a press screening in Austin of Pit Stop clips, Candler’s film and two shorts set to premiere at Sundance satellite festival Slamdance. Williams, Tan and Candler and many others share space at an Austin film production site where relationships bloom and ideas tumble back and forth.

“It’s so incestuous,” said Candler whose short Hellion played at Sundance in 2012 and is being expanded into a full feature. “There’s not a competitiveness about the community, yet everyone’s voice remains unique to them.”

Part of it is the shoestring nature of independent film that require the wearing of many hats to make a living. Candler’s two Sundance shorts were crowd-funded with donations through Web site IndieGoGo. Both star Jonny Mars, arguably the most intriguing actor in Texas indie film. The former Dallas resident also produced Black Metal and directed the 2012 documentary America’s Parking Lot about rabid Dallas Cowboys fans.

Andrew Irvine is Candler’s teaching assistant in the University of Texas Radio-Television-Film program. His frank and funny short Hearts of Napalm, about a young couple’s sexual miscommunication, will screen at Slamdance. Irvine, 30, is seeing a dream forged as a Plano teenager come to fruition.

“I’m old enough now to realize that since this is the first time it will probably never be this good again,” he said of his upcoming Park City adventure.

UT film student Annie Silverstein, whose background is solidly in the documentary form, will see her fictional short Spark screen at Slamdance as well. It’s a touching story of a boy left to deal with the daughter of his father’s love interest and some tempting fireworks.

“Sometimes using fiction you can say things that are more true than in a documentary,” said Silverstein who founded a program that taught Native American youth to use film to tell their stories.

“I’ve lived in many different cities before, and I’ve never felt so accepted so quickly,” she said of Austin. “I feel lucky. That’s not normal in artistic communities where anxieties and egos can get in the way.”

These filmmakers mark a second Texas indie film wave. The first will also be represented this year at Sundance with Richard Linklater premiering Before Midnight and Robert Rodriguez screening his 1993 debut El Mariachi. Austin’s latest “it” film director Jeff Nichols’ Mud starring Matthew McConaughey also is slated, along with works by newish Austin transplants Andrew Bujalski (Computer Chess) and David Gordon Green (Prince Avalanche with Paul Rudd).

           

My top 10 stories of 2012

The Swim Test

I  continued to pump out writing both personal and about film/literature in 2012. Check it out, with the lede (it's in the photos) buried at the end.

(Here's my 2011 list, as well my top 10 stories of the 2000s.)

10. I've been blogging about the University of Texas Longhorns football team for The Austin Chronicle for a few years now. This year I decided to chronicle the rise of the school that shall always be known as Southwest Texas State as it advanced to Big-Time Football. My rule? Write as little about football in the blog as possible. Sometimes I even write about murder.

9. SEX! Yes, I said SEX! As in talking to Suzy Spencer about her new book Secret Sex Lives: A Year on the Fringes of American Sexuality, which is part memoir, part journalistic look at SEX. That includes orgies, hookups and, yes, SEX. Did I mention SEX?

8. Jim Sanderson is one of those Texas writers whose work comes out from the smaller presses, but is indeed worth checking out. I talked with him for the San Antonio Express-News. In 2011 I had reviewed another of his books for the Austin American-Statesman.

7. I don't get to actually write reviews enough, but that's been changing. I enjoyed reviewing Don Coscarelli's new film John Dies at the End for The Austin Chronicle. Also a pleasure to put my two cents in for the Austin American-Statesman on Carolyn Osborn's lovely new novel.

6. The Austin Chronicle gave me some great opportunities for star gazing and listening during the South By Southwest Film Festival. Willem Dafoe proved smart and interesting, and a joy to photograph. I also got to hear from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane who brought along a surprise guest when talking about his film Ted.

5. Everyone else was interested in Matthew McConaughey moving to Austin, but no one but me seemed to pay attention when Dallas native Meatloaf also moved to the Capital City. I reported on it for The Dallas Morning News during the Texas Film Hall of Fame ceremonies. I also took some good pix.

4. Certainly one of the more interesting assignments during SXSW was to talk to the director of Girl Model, which looks at very young and very poor women plucked out of their Siberian homes and taken to the Japanese modeling world, most likely to be cast aside shortly, shaken and broken.

3. I voluntarily dropped my Texas film industry column from The Dallas Morning News a year ago. That follows columns in The Austin Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman on the subject dating back to 2000. I continue to blog about the film industry here (and write the occasional scoop about the industry elsewhere), but it's the personal pieces like the touching story of my friend Louise Shelby that matter more.

2. I was given a nice year-end gift from The Austin Chronicle when I was asked to go to the set of indie Western Red on Yella, Kill a Fella AND take photos there, including of cult actor Michael Berryman. Notice photos creeping more and more into this yearly list?

1. The most important piece I wrote this year is the most personal. It's about my son teaching me a lesson as he learned to swim. It ran in The Williamson County Sun.

Here's to 2013, where I'm continuing to put pen to paper (or more likely keystroke to computer). Look for more news soon in the way of fiction writing....

Goodbye, J.R. Ewing

With word of the death of Larry Hagman--in Dallas with Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy reportedbly at his beside--here's a short piece I wrote for The Dallas Morning News in 2009 about Hagman's induction into the Texas Film Hall of Fame. Oh, and I took this horrible photo, too.

 

Hagman remembers ‘Dallas’ days

BY JOE O’CONNELL

Special to the Dallas Morning News

       AUSTIN--In the winter of 1978, Larry Hagman drove the cast of the new television show “Dallas” around the city of Dallas in a converted bread truck showing them dive bars and much fancier restaurants. He was the only native Texan among them, and felt it his duty, his television wife Linda Gray said Thursday as Hagman was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame.

       “He’s’ the consummate actor,” she said of television’s J.R. Ewing. “He’s funny. He’s absolutely adorable. He’s the man you love to hate, and he’s my best friend.”

       He also apparently makes a great pitch man for efforts to expand Texas’ incentive program aimed at attracting more movies to film in Texas. As Hagman, told it, he parading around the Texas Capitol this week handing out $10,000 bills (with his own photo on them).

       “You have all these fans here and you’re going to get your money back a hundred time over,” Hagman said as he echoed the night’s clarion call. “You can’t miss.”

       Hagman, looking gaunt from a 1995 liver transplant, said younger fans today are more likely to remember him from “I Dream of Jeannie” than “Dallas,” but the latter surely left the larger cultural mark.

       Also inducted into the hall of fame were Powers Boothe, an MFA grad of SMU and Snyder native; “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke, a McAllen native; and Billy Bob Thornton, a native of Arkansas? No worries; his roles as Davy Crockett in “The Alamo” and as a high school football coach in the big-screen “Friday Night Lights” earned him the Tom Mix Honorary Texan Award, so named for the western star who actually hailed from Pennsylvania.

        They walked a roped-off red carpet in a tent on the tarmac of Austin’s former airport turned by the Austin Film Society into a film studio, while patrons who paid up to $500 to bask in the glow held up digital cameras trying to get a shot through the phalanx of television cameras. A bartender aptly named Estrella (star in Spanish) served up endless libations.

       The lesser-known ducked past the cameras with little notice. Among those was Don Stokes, the Dallas film pro and president of the Texas Motion Picture Alliance, a film lobby group aiming to convince the Legislature to increase spending for its financial incentives program. The  legislation passed unanimously out of House committee this week.

       “There are a couple of television series pilots (at least one eyeing Dallas) that, if they bill passes in time, we have a significant shot at getting here,” Stokes said.

       Event emcee Thomas Haden Church termed the legislation a “call to arms,” noting that a West Texas-set film he is a part of is about to shoot in Australia. “I’m a Texan and I’d really like to see the Texas film industry flourish,” he said.

       Boothe spoke of growing up on a cotton farm in Snyder and, in a fit of teenage rebellion, telling his father, “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my life, but it’s sure not going to be this. So I chose the movie business.”

       The hall of fame ceremonies unofficially open the South By Southwest Film Festival, which begins today and runs through March 21 in Austin.

'Carried Away' and blurbed

That Dallas Morning News blurb you see on the cover of the DVD of Tom Huckabee's film Carried Away is from a column written by yours truly back in 2010.

The last time I was blurbed was long ago for Tim McCanlies' Dancer, Texas.

Here's wishing great success to Huckabee and the film. It's set to come out on DVD, video on demand and television through Vanguard Cinema in June.

Meat Loaf moves to Austin

That's what he said last night at the Texas Film Hall of Fame awards show.

Here's Angie Dickinson, who accepted an award for the film Rio Bravo.

See more photos from the event here.

Here's my report from the evening for The Dallas Morning News:


Dallas native Meat Loaf is moving back to Texas


By JOE O’CONNELL

AUSTIN — The Dallas native behind “Bat out of Hell” is moving to Bat City.

Legendary rocker and actor Meat Loaf was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame on Thursday, but perhaps the bigger news is his purchase of a home in Austin, a city famous for its large downtown bat population.

“Who better to live in Bat City than Meat Loaf?” he told a crowd in the Austin City Limits studios, referring to his 1977 album that has sold 43 million copies.

Just as big a lure is Austin-based filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. Meat Loaf said he met Rodriguez 11 years ago and the director talked of putting him in a film. It has yet to happen.

“I will be in a Robert Rodriguez movie come hell or high water,” Meat Loaf joked.

He was serious when recounting discovering theater as an alternative to the too-quiet confines of study hall at Thomas Jefferson High. That led to a lead role senior year.

His big break came in Los Angeles when he applied for a job parking cars at the Aquarius Theater the same day as auditions for the musical Hair and talked his way into a part. He went on to roles in films including The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Austin-shot Roadie and Fight Club.

“Acting is about truth,” he said. “It’s what we all attempt every time we walk onto the movie set.”

The man born Marvin Lee Aday explained Meat Loaf isn’t so much a stage name as a moniker given to him as an infant.

Joining Meat Loaf in the Texas Film Hall of Fame’s 12th class were actor Barry Corbin (Urban Cowboy, No Country for Old Men) and director Douglas McGrath (Emma, Infamous ).

The Austin Film Society stages the event yearly in advance of Friday’s SXSW Film festival opening, and uses proceeds to aid independent filmmakers.

Corbin is also in the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, but, while he can ride a horse, he said he’s only likely to do it for an acting job these days.

“I’m a fake; I’m not a cowboy,” the Lamesa native said, and urged “Let’s keep up the good work and bring more films to Texas.”

Actor Danny Trejo, a regular in Rodriguez’s films including Machete, was named an honorary Texan, while Angie Dickinson accepted the Star of Texas Award on behalf of the film Rio Bravo.

The classic western was Dickinson’s big break. “What made it great was two words: John Wayne,” she said of her much more experienced co-star. “I stretched and got on my toes and got all I could while I was there.”

Shot in Texas: '12 Mighty Orphans' first up for new film company

By Joe O'Connell Special Contributor
The Dallas Morning News
filmnewsbyjoe@yahoo.com
joeoconnell.com
@joemoconnell on Twitter

Todd Allen hopes Fort Worth’s Mighty Mites are the start of something big for the Texas film scene.

Allen, an Austin native who has worked for decades as an actor, has formed Presidio Pictures. The company plans to first shoot 12 Mighty Orphans, an adaptation of Jim Dent’s true story of the Masonic Home of Fort Worth’s Depression-era Mighty Mites football team.

Preproduction for a spring Fort Worth shoot would start a string of Texas-made Presidio features with budgets ranging from $8 million to $30 million.

“The financing for most independent films is cobbled together with duct tape,” said Allen, who is raising funds in Texas for not just the cost of film production but also much of the distribution. “I think [Presidio] will have a substantial impact on the industry here. If it works, it’ll put a lot of people to work.”

Robert Duvall , Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Aaron Eckhart and Andy Garcia are already attached to a planned second Presidio feature, The Last Full Measure, a true story of a father’s efforts to honor his son killed during the Vietnam War.

Presidio — with former Sundance Institute chairman, Orion Pictures director and Imagine Entertainment chairman Jack Crosby on its board — could prove a shot in the arm for the Texas film industry as major films choose locations offering larger financial incentives. Jerry Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter this week that his revived The Lone Ranger movie starring Johnny Depp will shoot in New Mexico and possibly Louisiana because of those states’ heftier incentives. Texas had been looked at as the movie’s shooting location.

“My fear is it’s going to be a hokey cartoon,” Allen said of The Lone Ranger. “It’s going to cost $200 million and, if it doesn’t make its money back, it’s going to be another nail in the coffin of the genre.” (Bruckheimer says it will cost $215 million to be exact, trimmed back from $260 million.)

Allen knows the Western genre well, having acted in such films as Wyatt Earp and Silverado. “I can’t think of a single actor I’ve met who didn’t want to do a Western,” he said. “I think that’s where my mojo is at.”

Thus he’s also planning Rio Grande, a feature adaptation of Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson’s memoir co-written by David Marion Wilkinson; a television miniseries of Wilkinson’s early-Texas novel Not Between Brothers made in partnership with Kevin Costner; and the big-screen film noir Western The Deserters based on Luke Short’s novel.

Allen got his start when he happened upon the ranch set of Honeysuckle Rose (1980) in Johnson City and was mistaken for the ranch owner’s son. Director Jerry Schatzberg asked if he wanted to be an extra, and Allen caught the acting bug.

Throughout his career, Allen said he tried to stay out of his trailer and on the set figuring out the film business.

He moved back to Austin from L.A. with the expectation that acting would take a back seat to producing. But Quentin Tarantino, whom he met in a Los Angeles acting class 25 years ago, tapped him for a role in Django Unchained, a Western about slave traders featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell.
“When I first talked to Quentin he said he wanted to shoot in Texas,” Allen said.
But his acting gig starts in February in Louisiana, the land of attractive film incentives.

SHOT IN TEXAS: Texan Nick Krause gets breakout role in film with Oscar buzz

BY JOE O'CONNELL

Special to The Dallas Morning News
filmnewsbyjoe@yahoo.com
Twitter: @joemoconnell
joeoconnell.com

It was a surreal moment for young Texan Nick Krause as he stepped on the red carpet for The Descendants during the Toronto International Film Festival last week.

Krause, 19, portrays Sid, a goofy beach bum friend to George Clooney’s on-screen daughter in the film. The Hawaii-set and -filmed tale of a father in crisis, directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways), is already getting Oscar buzz.

He was 17 when the film began a four-month Oahu shoot, so he brought along his agent, Denton native and University of North Texas grad Liz Lyons Atherton. She also happens to be his mother.

Atherton woke him at 5 a.m. to make an audition tape that led to a meeting with Payne. Krause figured the laid-back character Sid would be a Cheetos fan and gifted Payne with a small bag of them. He got the part.

“The audition process had taken months, and we weren’t sure if Nick was still even in the running,” Atherton said. “We set up a Hawaiian shrine by the phones, hoping the call would come. When it did, not only did we celebrate, I’m sure the neighbors are still talking about the screams.”

He’s not the only actor in the family. His sister, Kate Krause, played Tabby Garrity for three seasons on Austin-shot Friday Night Lights, and two older brothers dabbled in acting when they were young.

It marks a major leap for Nick Krause from small roles in films such as How to Eat Fried Worms. Atherton believes it was his involvement in Richard Linklater’s ongoing 12-year independent project, Boyhood, that piqued Payne’s interest.

On the set of The Descendants, Krause said, Clooney lived up to his jokester reputation, amusing film extras by using his cellphone to play the sound of gas being passed.

“He’s a very cool guy,” Krause said. “He’s super professional but down-to-earth. One minute he’s joking around with extras and hanging out with crew. Five minutes later, he’s in character and on time.”

Krause also scored a role in the Dallas-shot Good Christian Belles television pilot but was written out of the series when it moved to Los Angeles, where he is now living and riding this wave wherever it takes him.

“It’s really about sticking with it,” he said. “When you get turned down at your first audition, you just have to forget it and keep going.”

Atherton, who 15 years ago bought an existing Central Texas talent agency that counted her other sons as clients, worries that Krause will have a hard time furthering his career in Texas.

“I think we are at risk of losing film and TV as an integral part of our economic fabric: Plain and simple, our incentive program is not competitive enough,” she said. “I recently spoke at length with a high-profile producer friend of mine who is presently packaging his next film — a film centered on a Texas theme — and he will likely film in Louisiana. Why? Because it just makes more business sense.”

Film studios get haunted

Filming wrapped this month in North Texas on The Ghost of Goodnight Lane . The horror tale starring Billy Zane (Titanic) claims to be based on reality, in the tradition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The kicker is this new film is about ghosts purported to haunt Alin Bijan’s Media World Studios; most of the film was shot in the studios themselves. The studio’s ghosts have been said to move heavy equipment and once slapped someone’s face. Also in the cast are Lacey Chabert ( Mean Girls), Danielle Harris (Halloween), Matt Dallas (Kyle XY) and Richard Tyson (Black Hawk Down). J.D. Sanders’ FTG Media Group served as executive producer on the film. Check out a production blog at ghostofgoodnightlane.com.


Joe O’Connell is an Austin-based freelance writer.

Shot in Texas: Mike Norris moves into spotlight

Mike and Valerie Norris.


By JOE O’CONNELL
Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

As a maker of independent faith-based films including the upcoming I am Gabriel, Mike Norris has moved out of his iconic father’s shadow.

“I’m proud that Chuck Norris is my father,” he said. “I’m proud of his accomplishments. I just happen to make films that are a little different.”

Gabriel starts production next week in North Texas. It’s the story of a dying town awakened by miracles when a mysterious 10-year-old boy arrives. The cast includes a couple of “super” names: John Schneider (Clark Kent’s dad in TV’s Smallville) and Dean Cain (Superman in the ’90s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman).

“It’s a very simple story, but it’s a good story,” Norris said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what we can make out of it.”

It’s the third faith-based film for Norris and his wife Valerie’s 2nd Fiddle Entertainment, which has also produced Maggie’s Passage and Birdie and Bogie. Despite the company name, the filmmaker is no second fiddle to his father, most famous for Walker, Texas Ranger.

Mike Norris grew up in Los Angeles as his father’s career turned from martial artist to action film star.

His father is in on the joke of “Chuck Norris facts” that have spawned T-shirts with messages like “Chuck Norris turned water into whiskey” — and even spotted one such message in a latrine while visiting troops in Iraq, Mike Norris said.

“I learned a lot from him: a work ethic, how to treat people,” Mike Norris said. “It’s only been a blessing to me to be his son.”

Mike moved to Flower Mound 15 years ago when he was directing episodes of Walker after a successful career in action films. He recently did stunts on the Dallas-shot series Chase for which his brother Eric Norris served as a second-unit director and stunt coordinator.

Gabriel came about after a chance encounter with Janis Thompson, who with her husband, Steve, owns Mom’s Café in tiny Justin. They had a general idea for a film. Norris caught the bug and wrote it out as a script. The 15-day shoot will take place entirely in Justin with Norris directing.

Norris works with MPS Studios in Dallas during production and post-production, then counts on Pure Flix Entertainment to get his films out to the Christian market. He has higher hopes for Gabriel.

“What I want to do is cut a nice trailer and send it out there,” he said. “You never quite know what is going to happen.”

Next up for Norris is Blind Faith, a film about a piano prodigy who loses his sight. And he’s in development on a faith-based horror film that may stretch the boundaries of both genres.

“I will do them all right here in North Texas,” he said.

‘Breakfast Club’

Barry “Bazza” Wernick was once the student body president at St. Mark’s School, which makes him the perfect choice to write and produce an adaptation of his and Matt Spradlin’s graphic novel Bad Kids Go to Hell, which recently wrapped production both in North Texas and at Spiderwood Studios outside Austin in time to make a splash at San Diego’s Comic-Con.

The horror-comedy focuses on a group of prep schoolers stuck in detention who get killed off one by one. Appropriately, Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club) stars as the headmaster. Also in the cast is Ben Browder (Starscape).

Bonus footage

Mission Park, which stars Jeremy Ray Valdez and Vivica A. Fox, is being touted as the first major feature to shoot in San Antonio in a decade. The drama, directed and written by Bryan Ramirez, has just started filming. … Look for Austin-shot series The Lying Game to premiere on ABC Family on Aug. 15. The series pilot was shot in New Mexico.

SHOT IN TEXAS: Decision on 'Dallas' series looms

Larry Hagman and Linda Gray at the Texas Film Hall of Fame (crappy photo by me).

UPDATE: TNT PICKS UP DALLAS.

My SHOT IN TEXAS column from today's Dallas Morning News

Verdict on ‘Dallas’ TV series should come soon

By JOE O’CONNELL
Special to the Dallas Morning News
Filmnewsbyjoe@yahoo.com
@joemoconnell on Twitter
joeoconnell.com

When will TNT decide the fate of the new Dallas television series? The standard reply is “any day now,” and that day is looming.

A North Texas shoot is looking more than probable given a $235,000 economic development grant from the city of Dallas to add air conditioning to a property at 2901 S. Lamar in exchange for six months of free rent for a television or film project. Developer Jack Matthews owns the property.

The agreement asks TNT and Warner Horizon to let the city know about a North Texas shoot by July 15 and sets an Aug. 1 deadline, says Janis Burklund of the Dallas Film Commission.

“They’ve always said the show wouldn’t air until July 2012,” Burklund said. “People shouldn’t get too excited that there’s not an official announcement yet.”

The city agreement requires a TV or film project to go in by July 2012 or the grant will not be paid.

“It’s difficult to find a warehouse in the right part of town that has air conditioning and is not too loud,” Burklund said. “We wrote [the grant] obviously with Dallas in mind, but it could work for other television or film projects.”

The Dallas Film Commission estimates that each TV episode shot on location brings in $1 million in direct local spending. TNT has not said how many episodes of Dallas will be ordered.

The grant agreement rankled the Studios at Las Colinas management, particularly comments that their facility in Irving doesn’t have the space to accommodate Dallas. Burklund said she heard the size complaint from producers of both Dallas and Good Christian Belles. Pilots for both shot in North Texas, but the latter series will lens in Los Angeles.

“That is exactly what we are: a soundstage development,” said Jennifer Loeb King, vice president of business affairs for the studios. “Secondly, we are a private studio facility with no city dollars given ever to us in 30 years. With the economy the way it is, it just seems that the owner of South Lamar should foot the bill privately or get a loan or whatever but not use city tax dollars to put in air conditioning on a building he owns and can benefit from into the future even if the series is cancelled.”

The Studios at Las Colinas previously has rented space for production of Prison Break, The Deep End and Lone Star.

“We recognize that all projects will not utilize the Studios at Las Colinas,” Loeb King said. “We believe in fair competition and would have preferred an opportunity to show all that we have to offer.”

“The more we build the business in general, the more that will be here for everyone,” Burklund said of an additional studio facility. She added that additional projects continue to seriously consider North Texas as a location for shoots as early as fall.

Bonus footage

Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse’s annual Rolling Road Show brings the inflatable screen poolside to the Day’s Inn on I-35 East in Hillsboro for a showing tomorrow of Bottle Rocket , the 1996 Wes Anderson film that shot at the location. It’s also part of efforts to keep the location from closing. More information is at drafthouse.com/movies/rrs_bottle_rocket/Austin. … One project that appears unlikely to shoot in Texas is Lone Ranger , a Disney film that scouted primarily in West Texas. The reinvention of the classic tale focusing on Tonto as portrayed by Johnny Depp is likely bound for Utah, sources say. More generous filming incentives appeared to tip the deal. … Carol Pirie steps down this summer as deputy director of the Texas Film Commission after 23 years — including multiple stints as acting film commish. She notes that Lonesome Dove was in production when she started, and she leaves just after rooting for Texas-shot The Tree of Life as it won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.

SHOT IN TEXAS: ‘Dallas’ pilot begins 12-day shoot

My Dallas Morning News column (which actually runs Saturday but is already up on the Web site--oddly minus my byline).--Joe

NOTE: Larry Hagman on Sunday at 8 p.m. will be at the Texas Theatre, where the original Dallas series is being screened two episodes at a time weekly.

SHOT IN TEXAS: ‘Dallas’ pilot begins 12-day shoot here next week

BY JOE O'CONNELL
filmnewsbyjoe@yahoo.com
joeoconnell.com
@joemoconnell on Twitter

The TNT series pilot for Dallas begins a 12-day North Texas shoot next week. The pilot follows the next generation of Ewings led by Jesse Metcalfe, Josh Henderson and Jordana Brewster. Larry Hagman, Charlene Tilton, Steve Kanaly, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy from the original series are also on board.

“Just because a pilot shoots here doesn’t mean it’s going to stay if picked up,” warned Janis Burklund of the Dallas Film Commission. She has seen network shows such as Fox’s Good Guys come and go. Indeed, most of the original Dallas series was shot in Hollywood.

Dallas-set and Dallas-shot ABC pilot GCB, starring Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth and Annie Potts, recently wrapped production. Word of a series pickup is expected by mid-May.

A couple of canceled series shot in North Texas are also staging small-scale comebacks. The five unaired Chase episodes shot in Dallas will be broadcast beginning Saturday on NBC. And Lone Star creator Kyle Killen is staging a free screening of the fourth through sixth episodes of the canceled Fox series this Sunday in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse-Ritz.

In 2009, Hagman, Dallas’ J.R. Ewing, wandered the Texas Capitol giving out fake $10,000 bills with his photo on them, successfully prodding legislators to increase filming incentives funding. But incentives are no longer such an easy sell.

With six weeks to go in the session, the Texas Legislature is hashing out the future of a filming incentives program that in 2009 awarded two-year funding of $60 million — with another $2 million for operating expenses and funding of a state film archive. This time the Senate is looking at two-year funding of $10 million, while the House is considering increasing that two-year figure to $30 million plus that spare $2 million for operations and film archive. The decision will likely be up to a House-Senate conference committee.

The industry, in a study expected to be released next week, contends the film, television and video-game industry has had a $1.1 billion impact since incentives were first funded in 2007, and a direct in-state spend of just less than $600 million. The study commissioned by the Texas Association of Business with the help of the University of Texas considers spending through 2010.

“It shows how effective we are at creating jobs,” said Don Stokes, president of the lobbying group Texas Motion Picture Alliance. “It shows the Texas program is the most efficient program out there.”

Competing states also are looking at either cutting back or eliminating filming incentives in this tight budget year. Still, New Mexico is considering a $45 million per year cap, far more than ever offered in Texas.

“Our program was designed from the beginning to be very conservative,” Stokes said, noting Texas’ strengths in trained film crews and varied filming locales. “As other programs across the country pull back and come back into reality, it makes Texas that much more competitive. We hope we end up with enough to keep Texas in the game.”
Burklund agrees. “We all know we’re going to take a cut,” she said. “I’m not panicking about it. We’re doing the best we can given the circumstances.”

Bonus footage

Dallas filmmakers Barak Epstein, Adam Donaghey, Jason Reimer and Eric Steele, working together as Aviation Cinemas, are launching what they term “crowd-funded” indie films and producing them directly from Oak Cliff’s Texas Theatre. The first project is The Verdigris, a music documentary executive-produced by Bradley Beesley (Okie Noodling) and featuring music by Beau Jennings. A donations-only performance by Jennings opened the effort at the Texas Theatre on Friday.

SHOT IN TEXAS: TV series poised to begin shooting in D-FW

My Dallas Morning News SHOT IN TEXAS column from today.

BY JOE O’CONNELL
Special to the Dallas Morning News

ABC is expected to begin production in the Dallas-Fort Worth area Monday on the pilot of Good Christian Bitches, and TNT’s reboot of the Dallas TV series will start production in April.

The pilots are positive signs for the North Texas film and television industry, which went from hosting production on three network series—The Good Guys, Lone Star and Chase—to none.

Dallas seems like a lock to be more than a pilot since original Dallas stars Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray signed on. The new show follows their grown-up children, with two Desperate Housewives stars leading the cast--Josh Henderson as John Ross and Jesse Metcalfe as Christopher.

Good Christian Bitches follows the “high school mean girl” (Leslie Bibb) who returns to Dallas after her divorce and runs into the old gang, which includes Kristen Chenoweth (Glee), Annie Potts (Designing Women), Miriam Shor (Damages), and Marisol Nichols (24).

The show’s title, taken from Kim Gatlin’s book on which it is based, is likely to change, but not before it has generated some national controversy. Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association sent out an email to members seeking petition signatures protesting the show even before it shoots.

“Disney-owned ABC has no reservations about creating hate speech against Christians,” Wildmon wrote, “but you can be sure they would never consider a show called Good Muslim B-tches or Good Jewish B-tches.

ABC spokesperson Erin Felentzer said every show in the pilot stage is considered to have a working title and offered no comment on the protest.

“I never thought that name would stick,” said Janis Burklund, head of the Dallas Film Commission, who remains more concerned about how much the Texas Legislature may cut funding for filming incentives program aimed at attracting networks to shoot in the state from the current two-year $60 million total to as little as $10 million.

“We’re more concerned about the future,” said Burklund, since the current batch of pilots will fall under current funding. “At least one if not more series have backed off while they wait and see what happens.” Details on productions needs for both shows are at the commission’s web site, filmdfw.com.

The Good Christian Bitches pilot from Darren Starr (Sex and the City) is actually what’s called a “pilot presentation,” essentially half a pilot that showcases its potential as a full series. But the current star power behind the show gives it a strong shot of making ABC’s fall schedule.

Earlier this month during Texas Film Hall of Fame ceremonies in Austin, film and television producer Scott Robbe said a clause barring incentives for projects showing Texas in a bad light may be what’s really keeping many investors away at this point.

“That’s got to go!” said Robbe, who recently moved to Austin where he is working on an upcoming Austin shoot of a nursing home-set horror thriller called The Home. It’s expected to feature Elijah Wood, Michelle Rodriguez, Ed Asner, Hal Holbrook, Louise Fletcher and Cloris Leachman. Robbe is also working with Gus Van Sant on a documentary about the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP.

'Chase' stops running, what's next in Texas film/TV?

They've made my SHOT IN TEXAS "premium content" on the Dallas Morning News site, but here it is from today's paper...


'Chase' shuts down after NBC pulls it from schedule

By JOE O’CONNELL

NBC pulled Chase from its schedule just days before production on the show officially ended in North Texas this week. Five episodes remain unaired, and the move means the series probably won’t be back for a second season. The network earlier reduced the episode order from 22 to 18 after poor ratings.

Chase was the last of the major network series shot in Texas to close shop. It follows North Texas-shot Lone Star and The Good Guys, and Austin-shot My Generation and Friday Night Lights. Lights ended it fifth season on DirecTV this week, though the season won’t air on NBC until April.

All of the series faced ratings woes while also proving the mettle of Texas crews and bringing money to the state. Each episode is estimated to bring in at least $1 million in local spending.

If North Texas officials get their wish, the television production frenzy will continue.

“We do have projects that are looking,” said Janis Burklund of the Dallas Film Commission. “And that includes television pilots — plural — and features.”

Certainly the possibility with the highest profile is TNT’s modern-day take on Dallas . It was recently announced that Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray have all signed on for the series pilot, which will focus on the original characters’ children.

There was no word at press time that Dallas would shoot in Dallas, but Burklund remains cautiously optimistic. “They’re looking at their options,” she said of TNT reps. “I think we will know fairly soon.”

Also possibly on the horizon is the Dallas-set Good Christian Bitches , based on Kim Gatlin’s book of the same name. ABC has ordered a pilot presentation for the soap-like show from Sex and the City’s Darren Star.

The television floodgates opened after the 2009 Texas Legislature made its filming incentives payment more flexible and upped overall two-year spending to $60 million. The increase was seen as too little to attract a lot of major films, but perfect for network television. The current budget crunch is likely to shrink that amount considerably. An early proposal dropped it to $10 million for the next two years.

This week, Gov. Rick Perry proposed adding another $20 million on top of that for an even $30 million, as well as opening the possibility that additional funds could be added to the program if they could be freed up elsewhere.

The new session also brought a new leader to the Texas Film Commission, Dallas native Evan Fitzmaurice, who is keeping a politically low profile and letting legislators handle the politics of film incentives.

“There’s a process at work, and as a film commission, we are eager to answer their questions as we have in the past,” he said.

Don Stokes, president of the Texas Motion Picture Alliance, said cutting incentive funding now could halt the flow of television series to Texas.

“We’re prepared to look at a smaller appropriation,” he said. “We just feel it merits more than $30 million because of the jobs we bring to the state.”

The film group has commissioned an economic impact study aimed at proving that . The study is due March 1 from the Texas Association of Business.

Bonus footage

Fitzmaurice spent five years in Los Angeles as an entertainment attorney before joining Perry’s legal staff. He’s a graduate of Greenhill School in Addison. While attending the University of Texas, he wrote music reviews for The Daily Texan and played bass in the band Second Season. … When Angels Sing, a Christmas story directed by Tim McCanlies (Secondhand Lions ) and based on Turk Pipkin’s book, is currently shooting in Austin. The cast includes Harry Connick Jr., Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights ), Willie Nelson , Kris Kristofferson and Lyle Lovett.

Making sense of the Texas film industry

My latest SHOT IN TEXAS column in The Dallas Morning News looks at where things stand for the Texas film industry going into the January session of the Texas Legislature.

'The Good Guys' is gone for good

Fox has not officially canceled Dallas-shot The Good Guys; they just won't order more episodes that the 20 that have already aired. With a reduction in episodes ordered for Chase, the television flurry in Big D looks to be drying up. More from me on this Saturday in The Dallas Morning News.

SHOT IN TEXAS: On the set of 'Boneboys'

That's Boneboy's co-director Justin Meeks on the left with writer/producer Kim Henkel on the right. In the middle is an actress starring in the day's scene.

My SHOT IN TEXAS column in The Dallas Morning News concentrates on Kim Henkel's Boneboys this month. Check it out.

Bob Hudgins to resign as Texas film commissioner

Bob Hudgins, Texas film commissioner for the last five years, will resign at the end of this month, he confirmed to me today. (This link is to an early blog post as the story was shaking out.)

He says he's basically burned out from the road and looking to perhaps get back into the film biz, but there is also a harassment investigation which he says he requested after allegations were made. He denies anything happened, but says he can't offer more specifics now.

Hudgins was a longtime locations scout prior to joining the Illinois Film Commission. In Texas he helped jump-start the industry by leading the way for a film incentives program. More from me on this in tomorrow's Dallas Morning News.

Here is my final article that appeared in the Morning News and includes discussion of the harassment investigation involving Hudgins.

NBC orders full season of Dallas-shot 'Chase'

Lone Star may be gone, but one of its Dallas-shot brethren will live on, at least for a full first season. NBC announced the full season pickup of Chase (which is set in Houston) but wasn't specific on the number of additional episodes. We can assume it's the "back 9" episodes to go with the already-in-production 13.

More on this in my Dallas Morning News column on Friday.

My DMN article about the 'Lone Star' sneak

Lone Star's Eloise Mumford (left) talks with fans at the pilot screening Saturday at The Studios at Las Colinas.


Here's the article about the sneak peek viewing of Fox's new Dallas-shot series Lone Star from today's Dallas Morning News.

My latest SHOT IN TEXAS column

Most of this has been covered in my blog, but here's my latest Dallas Morning News SHOT IN TEXAS column for your reading pleasure.