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.

'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.

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.

My latest SHOT IN TEXAS column

Most of this has been covered already in the blog, but here's my latest SHOT IN TEXAS column in the Dallas Morning News about three TV series shooting in Dallas, one in Austin and True Grit in Granger. Enjoy.

Coen brothers looking at Central Texas for 'True Grit'

That's really the big scoop in my latest SHOT IN TEXAS column in the Dallas Morning News. Also, more on the television shows lensing in Dallas nnd the Zapata, Texas, TV pilot that Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick are scouting, also in Central Texas.

More specifics not in the column: True Grit is looking at Granger, and Zapata is looking at Bastrop and the new Spiderwood Studios located near there.