Lights, Camera Bullshit
Gerard Evans, an aspiring filmmaker, returns to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee to build a career in a promising new arts scene when his job at a commercial firm takes a bizarre turn into the murky, strange world of backwards money, political gangs, and life itself. Now available on Amazon Prime.
Written and Directed by: Chad Allen Barton
Featuring MICHAEL HORSE of TWIN PEAKS
Director's Statement
LCB has a winding and bizarre story. It was our company’s first attempt at a feature and of all things, it was going to be about trying to make independent films. Many of the events in the film happened to us while we were actually trying to make the film, albeit not as exaggerated and cartoonish. We had to film in back alleys and behind abandoned buildings in order to have locations that required no money and at times using our film slate to show the cops we weren’t trying to break in anywhere, just shooting a movie. It was a dangerous exercise that I would never try again, but it was our film school. It taught us about every aspect of filmmaking from pre to post-production.
The actual film is semi-autobiographical in nature about my trying to balance personal life with work and with artistic endeavours. I send up myself as much as I send up independent filmmaking. The whole process of indie filmmaking is full of problems, the three biggest being: money, politics, and relationships. There’s never enough money and there never will be. By politics, I don’t really mean who you voted for in the last election. It’s about the politics of the entertainment industry and the social hierarchy, especially in a smaller city. And lastly, relationships between your family, friends, coworkers and the community at large. In Indie Filmmaking, your friends become your co workers and those same people become your family. The problem is that in filmmaking you have to keep producing, which requires a lot of commitment from everyone around you and it can come across poorly, if you aren’t aware of it. This can strain your relationships with everyone in your life. It’s a constant struggle, but we all keep doing it and we’d have it no other way!
