Home » Movies and Video Articles » Shelter - Release Date, November 25th
Shelter - Release Date, November 25th
Echelon Studios has acquired Worldwide Rights for "Shelter"
LOS ANGELES, CA, October 24, 2008 /Movies and Video PR News/ -- An emerging indy production company, Three Blind Artists Entertainment Group (3BA), is beginning to create significant buzz as their first feature-length film SHELTER, a drama about people vying for limited spots in a small town's only bomb shelter as the world above them comes to an end, approaches its November 25th release date. Plans for a pair of dramas in the $1M - $1.5M budget range (In a Parallel Universe and The Gutterpunk Tribe), a $2.5M 3-D horror film called Within, a slate of three feature-length films in the $1.5M - $2M budget range, and a slate of 2 TV pilots and 3 feature-length films in the $5M-$10M budget range are already in the works.
SHELTER was made for under $100K. "The fact that Echelon Studios believed in this project with no stars in it is amazing" said Actor/Consultant Alan Cassman, "I chalk that up to the timeliness of the subject matter and the unique approach the guys at Three Blind Artists took in making the film. They managed to take five figures and make it look like seven."
The intrinsically ground-breaking film happens in real-time, takes place primarily inside of a bomb shelter, and features a single scene that lasts over seventy minutes. The film is a hybrid of formats, shot on Sony's HDV camera, the HVR-Z1U, but also using the P+S Technik adapter to apply 35mm film lenses. "The footage is stunning", said Producer/Writer/Director Chris Elston who also serves as 3BA's Creative Manager. "My cinematographers have given me exactly what I was looking for. The movie has the popping colors of high definition but the grain and depth of field that makes film so beautiful. Audiences will be blown away by how gorgeous this film is."
The film is also helping to blaze the trail for AG3D, the state-of-the-art sound technology developed by Lloyd Trammell. The technology predicted by many to eventually replace THX and Dolby, uses mathematical logarithms to reposition the sound, adding dimension and clarity to the tracks.
"The buzz is getting stronger as we release little clips of the film and the 'behind the scenes' featurettes on the web. It's exciting to see that people are not only enjoying the hard work we've done, but clearly want more" says Elston, referring to the clips the team has uploaded to sites like MySpace, YouTube, MovieSet, Crackle, and Veoh. The theatrical trailer and three out of the five clips have now won Editor's Choice Awards and one of the clips spent several months listed among the 25 highest rated clips on Crackle's Screen Bites channel, joining the ranks of clips from films like Spider-Man, A Few Good Men, In the Pursuit of Happyness, Jerry Maguire, Taxi Driver, Snatch, Stand by Me, and Men In Black.
Elston concludes, "I've had the concept for this film for over a decade. I finished writing it two and a half years ago. We started shooting it over eighteen months ago. A lot of people have worked very hard for a very long time to overcome some major obstacles. Now, after finally getting it out there, to see people respond so positively is not only rewarding but, it's also vindication."
"We made a film that looks and sounds great on a streamlined budget" adds Producer and 3BA's Technical Manager Casey Brooks, "A hundred thousand dollars is lunch money in this town. Imagine what we'll be able to do with ten or twenty million."
While a $20M budget is fun to think about, 3BA is taking their projects in what they consider the proper order. "Our company is dedicated to making intelligent decisions," said Doug Elston, 3BA's Executive Manager and General Counsel. "We want to spend our money wisely and make our investors happy so that we can keep doing this. That includes both working our ways up the ladder and continuing to choose projects that people are willing to spend their hard-earned money to see."
They're hoping the $1M drama The Gutterpunk Tribe, the $1.5M drama In A Parallel Universe, and the $2.5M 3-D horror film Within all hit that mark. Both dramas are ripe with social commentary and are sure to strike a chord with their targeted 15-49 age demographic while within aims to take advantage of the growing hunger for 3-D content in movie theaters around the world and target the same 15-49 age demographic.
3BA is creating buzz with innovative approaches to the art of filmmaking while telling stories that appeal to a lot of people. The Gutterpunk Tribe will have a documentary look to it while telling the fictional story about the leader of a group of homeless youth who falls in love with a girl who stands for everything he has spent years preaching against.
In a Parallel Universe starts with a serendipitous meeting between two hard-luck strangers who embark on a quest for the life they could have had if they had been born into different circumstances.
"This is another unique one" said Brooks. "Chris wants the first act to look like video. It's the real world the characters come from. It's dark, cold and ugly - a lot of hand-held camera work. Then the rest of the film will be very smooth, colorful, and warm."
They're also planning to add recognizable faces to the cast on new films. "We'll be spending more money from now on" says Elston, "So, some of that will go to getting actors who help put butts in the seats. But, I don't want to cast someone just because they're famous; I want someone who is famous because they make films better as a result of their unique talent. My dream is to cast Morgan Freeman as Tom Hauk in In a Parallel Universe. He's perfect for it. Of course, he's perfect for just about anything. The guy's brilliant. I'd pay the full ticket price just to watch him spit in a can for 90 minutes because I know he'd make it interesting somehow."
I guess if you're going to be innovative, you have to know how to go back to basics.
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About SHELTER
Status: Complete
Genre: Drama
Release: November 25, 2008 (Amazon.com, Singa Home Entertainment, Netflix, etc.)
Major Credits: Written & Directed by Chris Elston
Produced by Casey Brooks, Chris Elston, Sue Doc Ross
Executive Produced by Doug Elston
Edited by Robert A. Perez & Chris Elston
Cinematography by Casey Brooks & Juan Santos
Cast: James Casey, Chris Elston, Jennifer Pennington, Kelsey Sanders,
D.C. Douglas, Sarah Green, Kendall Ryan Sanders, Alan Cassman, Chad Nell,
Casey Brooks, Grant McKaskle, Osbie Shepard
With a catastrophic world event rapidly approaching, 18 people vie for 10 spots in the small town's only bomb shelter.
About The Gutterpunk Tribe
Genre: Drama
Written by: Chris Elston
The leader of a group of homeless youth falls in love with a girl who stands for everything he has spent years preaching against.
About In A Parallel Universe
Genre: Drama
Written by: Chris Elston
A serendipitous meeting leads two relative strangers to abandon a lifetime of hardships in search of the life they could have had, were they born into different circumstances.
About Within
Genre: Horror
Written by: Chris Elston
A group of college friends reunite for a camping trip and spend the night in the middle of a cave inhabited by a beast that feeds on humans.
About Three Blind Artists Entertainment Group, LLC.
Three Blind Artists Entertainment Group produces high quality television programming and feature-length motion pictures with broad commercial appeal on a streamlined budget. We are poised to become leaders in the film and television industry through the integration of creative people, advanced technology and innovative approaches to the business of making entertainment.
Three Blind Artists Entertainment Group owns the rights to a significant number of feature film and television projects, including scripts and series bibles. The company's principals have developed significant contacts at various production companies, studios, management firms, agencies, distributors, and other entertainment industry entities. We also have access, through personal connections, to successful published novels ripe for adaptation.
In addition to developing and marketing our own inventory of commercially desirable scripts, we are willing to partner with the right production and distribution companies, large and small, to jointly produce, market, and distribute high quality cost-effective films, both domestically and abroad.
Our approach to the filmmaking business is to always target those audiences who represent the largest film-viewing demographic. We do not intend to become revered only by the art-house critics who seldom agree with the general public as to what makes a film worth seeing.
We believe our market-oriented approach will allow Three Blind Artists Entertainment Group, by taking full advantage of the enormous potential for profitability, to rapidly grow into one of the leading film and television production companies in the entertainment industry.
About Echelon Studios
Echelon Studios has acquired Worldwide Rights for "Shelter"
Formed in 2004 by veteran industry executive Eric Louzil, Echelon Studios successfully operates on a proven business plan involving the development, financing, production, acquisition, sales representation and distribution of film entertainment in the domestic and worldwide marketplace, with a slate of projects geared toward the Theatrical, TV, Pay TV, DVD and VOD markets. Echelon Studios titles may be purchased at such online and offline marketplaces as Netflix, Blockbuster Online, Target, Best Buy and many other retailers in the U.S.
For more info visit www.echelonstudios.us
About Chris Elston
Creative Manager
Chris' career as an industry hyphenate started in college with the lead role in the play Doors for the 1995 Drama Showcase. He returned to the Drama Showcase the following year with a one-act play he wrote, produced and directed called The Art of Love and won the Best In Show award. His college experience also included significant involvement in video and radio work, including producing, directing, writing and hosting various radio and television programs. Since then, Chris has written nearly two dozen feature film and television screenplays and has been invited to participate in screenwriting events for festivals in Seattle and Los Angeles.
His award-winning short films have played at festivals all over the country, including New York and Los Angeles, and on cable television in 166 countries. Most recently, The Diner, which he co-directed with Sue Doc Ross, won the Audience Favorite Film Overall Award at the 4th Annual 168 Hour Film Festival. Since January of 2004, Chris has been working as a writer, director, actor, camera operator, editor and producer on various film and television projects in Los Angeles involving networks such as ESPN, HGTV, Lifetime, Wealth TV, and Fox Sports Net.
About Doug Elston
Executive Manager, General Counsel
Doug is a successful trial attorney focusing on commercial disputes. He has served as General Counsel and Director of Private Equity for a private investment company involved in the acquisition, development and sale of mid-market companies ($25-300 million in value) in a variety of industries and as General Counsel for a national environmental engineering firm. Doug was also the President and CEO of a manufacturer/distributor of highly specialized personal watercraft. He has extensive experience in private equity fundraising, investments, intellectual property, general corporate and corporate legal matters.
Doug has a deep-seated interest in the film industry, having co-authored several feature length screenplays with Chris. Their first collaboration, a legal thriller called Fade to Gray, was a quarterfinalist (out of 6,000 scripts) at the Academy Foundation's Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, the country's most prestigious screenplay competition.
About Casey Brooks
Technical Manager
While earning his degree in Television/Video Production from Columbia College-Hollywood, Casey served as Director of Photography for the Seth Himes short film Hopeless Romantics and collaborated on a documentary short written by Chris called Dave Valle and Esperanza International. They co-produced and co-directed the project which placed third in the prestigious St. Christopher's National Video Magazine Contest, and was broadcast on the Odyssey Network.
Casey has co-produced, edited and directed photography on nine short films since college. He served as a Production Coordinator for Comcast in Los Angeles for two years where he was responsible for the coordination of original programming among producers and worked as a camera operator on various projects for Entertainment Tonight and networks such as PAX, Wealth TV, and CNN.
Roberta Lifonso
VP Publicity
Echelon Studios
1725 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA 91201
roberta@echelonstudios.us
www.echelonstudios.us
About Echelon Studios
Echelon Studios is a Development, Production and Domestic & International Sales Company.
Echelon Studios was formed in 2004 by veteran industry executive Eric Louzil, who has written, produced and directed over 30 independent films including Troma's classic cult film The Class Of Nuke'Em High, Part 2: Sub-Humanoid Meltdown as well as Kevin Costner's first film Sizzle Beach, USA.
The company operates on a proven and successful business plan, involving the development, financing, production, acquisition, sales representation and distribution of film entertainment in the domestic and worldwide marketplace, with a slate of projects geared toward the Theatrical, TV, Pay TV, DVD and VOD markets
CONTACT INFO:
ROBERTA LIFONSO
Email: roberta@echelonstudios.us
PH: 818/500-1640 x 17
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Press Release Contact Information:
Roberta Lifonso
Echelon Studios
VP Publicity
1725 Victory Blvd
Glendale, CA
USA 91201
Voice: 818.500.1640
Fax: 818.500.1644
Website: Visit Our Website |
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