South
Jersey
Filmmakers to Make the Psychological Horror Thriller “Hush”
From www.saintsinnerent.com
Vineland, N.J., July 24, 2007 –
SaintSinner
Entertainment - the South Jersey based independent film and television company
headed by three Jersey boys, Chief Executive Officer,
director/producer/screenwriter Brandon E. Brooks, President,
actor/producer/screenwriter Adam Ciesielski, & Vice President,
director/producer/screenwriter Amel J. Figueroa, is set to produce it’s first
feature film under the SaintSinner logo, a psychological drama with horror
elements titled “Hush”.
Based on Figueroa's short story "It’s
Always the Quiet Ones", (which was published by Fiction Press in 2002),
Figueroa will act as screenwriter, producer,
and director, with his SaintSinner partners Brandon E. Brooks and Adam
Ciesielski, and another New Jersey based filmmaker, David Von Roehm (president
of Ningun Films) serving as executive producers. The "Hush" cast will
include Ciesielski (Fear of Clowns 2) in the lead role as “Michael”, along with
up & coming talent like Brea Bee (The Eye of the Tiger, Thrill of the
Fight), Clayton Myers (Nimrod), Jeremy Zelig (“As the World Turns”), & Mark Lassise (Fear of Clowns 1-2). The cast
will also feature veteran actors Courtney Gains (Stephen King’s Children of the
Corn), Reggie Bannister (Phantasm), Bill Allen (Rad), & Tony Todd (Candyman), .
"We recently forged a solid business
relationship with David Von Roehm, and are incredibly excited to be working
with him, Off On a Tangent Productions and Uncut Productions to create what
will be an awesome feature film thriller," stated Brooks in a recent
interview. "Dave is a great person, whose talent crosses all mediums. His
willingness to assist us in making “Hush” a success is amazing, since we’re in
a medium where so few offer help of this nature so genuinely.” It’s great that
this endeavor we’re all involved in is driven by all of our love for this art
form, and not all the BS semantics that keep so many independent projects from
ever getting made” stated Brooks strongly. “Dave’s also acting as our director
of photography, and we’re certain that “Hush” will provide him with a great
opportunity to paint a larger-than-life canvas with very identifiable, real
characters at the heart of this intense story."
Von Roehm is also a performing arts teacher
at chARTer TECH School for the Performing Arts in Somers Point, New Jersey, on
top of running his Ningun (which means “unborn nature” & “potential”) Films
production company, which is based in Williamstown, New Jersey. Roehm has
filmed various independent film projects, including the horror film Murder
Below the Line, the mob drama Pawns, and the upcoming crime drama StradaVida.
Earlier in the year, Von Roehm hired SaintSinner CEO Brandon E. Brooks to act
as the unit production manager for the feature film Shoot Out of Luck, which is
set to film in November in Austin, Texas, and star Willie Nelson.
In addition to producing "Hush",
SaintSinner Entertainment has numerous other projects in the works for early
next year through the spring of 08’, including a horror slasher titled Kanyon’s
End, a supernatural horror thriller titled Frightland, a music themed drama
titled Soul, and an action crime drama television pilot titled “Jersey’s Finest”.
On the acting and screenwriting side of things within the company, along with
gearing up to star in “Hush”, Ciesielski is amped for the August 16th
Baltimore, Maryland premiere of the Lions Gate horror film Fear of Clowns 2,
which he co-stars in opposite Mark Lassise (”Shivers” the Clown), Frank Lama
(Swarm of the Snakehead), Tom Proctor (Halloween 6), and Johnny Alonso (“One
Tree Hill”). Figueroa is currently finishing up two screenplays, the first, a
dramedy titled Long Distance Daddy, and the second, a horror thriller titled
Who Are You?.
Principal photography for “Hush” begins on
August 18, 2007, in Vineland,
New Jersey and Philadelphia,
PA for 11 shoot
dates. The current plan is to have the film ready for a just missed Halloween
premiere on November 16th, 2007, where as the tagline on some of our poster art
will read that “EVIL IS REBORN”.
For more information about SaintSinner
Entertainment and “Hush”, including a killer, no pun intended, pre-teaser
SaintSinner created for the film, head on over to www.saintsinnerent.com, or www.myspace.com/hushfilm.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Down on Willie’s RanchAtlantic City Weekly -June 1-7, 2006 – page 8 - written by
: Jeff Schwachter
chARTer~TECH students and David Von
Roehm on the set with Willie Nelson and crew.
Back in March, three
students from the chARTer~TECH High School for the Performing Arts in Somers
Point rode down to Luck, Texas in a van with their TV/Film teacher, David
Roehm. Their destination? Willie Nelson’s ranch. The students helped film a
trailer for a movie project he country music legend is working on called “Shoot
out of Luck”. Nelson liked the trailer so much, he’s using it to show to
investors. The students are heading back to
Texas later this year, says Roehm, to be
a part of the actual film’s production. Shore area folk can catch a world
premiere of the film’s trailer, along with over a dozen other chARTer~TECH
student film projects Tuesday June 6, at the Margate Performing Arts Center,
where there will be a student film show (5$) at 7pm. Funds raised will go to
the school’s TV/Film department in order to keep wonderfully interactive
projects like these coming for the students there.
The Press of Atlantic City – Living
Section - Friday, February 17, 2006
Young filmmakers get their big break
Teens'
animated short shown in local theater, on Internet
By
VINCENT JACKSONStaff Writer, (609) 272-7202
Published:
Friday, February 17, 2006 /Updated:
Friday, February 17, 2006
If they make it big, they'll say it started in gym class.
David Baker and Kyle Brown-Watson were killing time three years ago at Charter Tech High School
of the Performing Arts when they discovered they shared a warped sense of
humor. Somewhere in their interactions, a vision emerged: the nebbish New
Yorker Woody Allen in a “Star Wars” setting.
That idea would ultimately become a 10-minute animated film that was shown in
the lobby of the Towne 16 Theatre and is now viewable over the Internet.
Three years ago, Baker, now 18 and an Atlantic City resident, and Brown-Watson,
now 17, of Egg Harbor Township, started developing the concept of Allen
directing the “Star Wars” series into a film titled “Complaints of the
Neurotic.”
“We wanted to get Woody Allen-type humor ... but to appeal to all audiences,”
said Baker. “We wanted to appeal to people who didn't see ‘Stars Wars' and who
weren't thoroughly familiar with Allen.”
The animated film shows Allen needing help from the Jedi Council. He handles a
light saber and runs into Darth Vader, who tells Allen that he is his father,
which Allen doesn't believe. A light saber cuts off one of Allen hands. Yoda
gives Allen an ink-blot test. The movie shows Darth Vader baby-sitting Allen
and changing his diaper as a baby.
“It was a huge learning experience. I learned about going on instinct. This was
like our boot camp as filmmakers,” Brown-Watson said.
They scrapped an early 3-D version of the animated short film and switched to
2-D animation. It took six months in 2004 to create the new animated version.
They sent the finished product to the “Stars Wars” fans film festival, but the
organizers didn't accept it.
Baker and Brown-Watson put “Complaints” aside and started working on an
animated TV show, “Serial Box,” which combines film noir, detective stories and
TV science-fiction like the now-defunct “The Twilight Zone.” Charter Tech TV
teachers liked the “Complaints” film and started showing it to students.
Deborah B. Frank of the Frank Family Theatres chain stopped by one day and saw
the movie on a tour of the school.
“Get me a copy of this. I want to show it at the theater,” Frank said.
“I think I was shaking. I was not intending for that to happen at all,”
Brown-Watson said.
Frank played the film for free on a plasma TV screen in the lobby over the
concession stands earlier this year when movie fans paid to see Allen's newest
movie “Match Point.” Brown-Watson visited the theater as his animated film
played in the lobby, but Baker never saw it there.
“People started laughing watching it. They weren't expecting it,” Brown-Watson
said.
The duo will use “Complaints of the Neurotic” as a calling card in their
portfolio and will continue working on their animated series. Brown-Watson is
finishing his final year at Charter Tech, and Baker attends Atlantic-Cape Community
College.
Kyle Warren, Charter Tech's animation instructor, said he looked at the short
film while the students created it, but they did the bulk of the work.
“They are both very creative and smart. Over a four- or five-month period, I
watched them put this together,” said Warren, who added Baker and he e-mailed
each other two or three times a week even though Baker graduated from the
school last year. “Since it's a comedy, there are filmmaking rules to go by to
it make it even funnier. It's really hard to edit a comedy short together. If
you're off by a second, it's not funny.”
November 28, 2005
Atlantic
City PressPartnership
sets students on course for Hollywood
Early next
month, a small group of high school students will fly to California to help make a movie.
Dianne
D’Amico
Published:
Monday, November 28, 2005
It’s a long way to go to do homework, but the students from the Charter-Tech High School for the Performing Arts in
Somers Point will get a month of hands-on experience in film production that
can’t be learned in a classroom, or even in the school studio.
“When students graduate from here they leave with a resume and film clips,”
said David Roehm, head of the TV, Film and Media program at the school. He
believes internships are a vital part of education.
The state Department of Education agrees, and has formed a partnership with the
New Jersey Motion Picture and TV Association to work with schools that have
approved performing arts programs by developing internships and workshops for
students.
There are 36 school districts in the state that have such programs, including
Charter-Tech, Atlantic County Institute of Technology, Middle
Township, Pinelands Regional, Ocean
County Vocational, Gloucester County Vocational and Salem City.
Acting Commissioner of Education Lucille Davy said the partnership will help
assure that young people gain real-life exposure and insights into the worlds
of film, television, commercials and video.
Roehm said that type of experience has been a hallmark of the Charter-Tech
program. Students already participate in video work at conventions and film
festivals in southern New Jersey.
He’s looking forward to being able to expand that exposure statewide to give
his students more opportunities.
The project in California
is an independent film he has been involved with featuring Tony Curtis and Abe
Vigoda. They will be working out of Paramount Studios, and the students will be
expected to keep up with their academic work online.
“The students who come on the trip have to get approved by their academic
teachers,” Roehm said. He encourages his students to continue their educations
at a four-year college, majoring in television and film production. The
experiences they get in high school will go a long way toward helping them get
into college.
“I’ve got a student who’s 16 who just did his first feature film,” Roehm said.
“We’re going to take it with us to California.”
Published in the Ocean County Observer
08/10/05
WHAT A DEAL!: Casino
school becomes movie set
By ADAM TALIERCIO
Staff Writer
TOMS RIVER — A man in black walks through a casino carrying a briefcase. He passes by roulette and
craps tables before settling in at blackjack, between two men who make brief
small talk with one another before a new dealer arrives and greets the players.
The man in black asks for chips in exchange for a large wad of bills; the
dealer counts out his money and gives him his chips.
The briefcase he is
carrying is filled with $150,000 in cash, all of which he's about to put down
on a single bet — all of which doesn't exactly belong to him.
The scene only lasts a few
moments and is just a small part of "Prophets of Doom," a film
currently in production by Ningun Films directed by David Von Roehm, a teacher
at Charter-Tech School for the Performing Arts in Somers
Point. Yesterday afternoon Von Roehm, actor Tony Devon and a crew of high
school students were at Ace Casino School
in Toms River in order to film this and other
scenes.
Ningun Films operates out
of Philadelphia,
but Von Roehm is using the film as a summer project for his students, who
assist in all areas of production.
"They go out on these
shoots all the time," he said. "It's good for the students. They help
in film festivals, commercials, everything."
Being an independent
producer as well as a teacher allows Von Roehm to give his students a chance to
work on a feature film.
And that kind of work is
hard and time-consuming: Arriving at 9 a.m. and wrapping up close to 4 p.m., Devon estimated that the end result would have been about
five minutes worth of the final product. But each shot takes a long time to set
up, between camera positioning, checking sound, moving equipment, positioning
actors and extras, and also making sure the details of a shot are accurate.
The students weren't just
behind the camera, either. About a dozen students from the casino school were
on hand to serve as extras for the various scenes, and spent a full day, mostly
between scenes, waiting for their chances to portray ... well, themselves.
Carol D'Algerio, a Jackson resident and
former student at the casino school, played the dealer for the blackjack scene,
and made sure the depiction of the behavior of a dealer and the set-up of the
table were as they normally would be.
"Lance (London, director of the casino school) invited me to come
down and be an extra," said D'Algerio, who now works as a dealer at Atlantic City's Borgata.
"It sounded like fun, and it was."
D'Algerio's brief scene
required literally hours of setting up and shooting, with different angles and
close-ups of the same scene each requiring time to prepare and film.
"I'd say it's no more
than two to three minutes," she said of her scene's final length.
The filmmakers will use the
Borgata for the exterior shots; they had approached the casino about filming
within it but were unable to close a pit to use for the film and were advised
to try the school.
London said that the school had never had
anything like this happen before, but that they were a perfect setting for the
scene.
"It's laid out just
like a casino," he said of the school. "And it's good experience for
the students."
"It's always good to
see what goes on in filming," Smith said of why he volunteered to attend
the shoot. "Plus it's practice for me, using the skills I learned in
school."
Smith has been a student at
Ace Casino School
for the past two months, and is learning poker, roulette and blackjack.
About his scene, which was
even briefer than D'Algerio's, Smith said, "It was just acting natural,
like you would as a dealer. If you're not paying attention, the filming won't
bother you. You're not the actor."
The movie itself is a
collection of vignettes about a gambler, a writer and an artist. Each
character will be faced with an important decision. The idea of the film,
however, is that regardless of the choice each character makes, there is no
moral judgment to be made.
Shooting at the school
allowed the producers everything they required for their shots but without the
inherent problems that would come with shooting in a casino.
"It has this gaming
feel, but we can manipulate it according to how we need it," he said.
The movie is expected to be
completed within the next several months, in time for submission to spring film
festivals. Future shoots will take place in Jersey City
and in and around Atlantic City.
"We want to show parts
of Jersey you don't normally
see," "This is an intense place to be."
Published on August 10,
2005, in the Ocean
County Observer
