Another Allred Screenplay Gets Into Festival

This week, we're celebrating at our offices. The jury members of the Oxford Film Festival named our script "Conversations at 35,000 Feet" a semifinalist in their 2018 festival. The screenplay is a series pilot written by screenwriter Lori Kay Allred. It's her first pilot script.  It now advances to the final competition.

"Yea Lori Kay," said producer-director Scott Takeda.. "This is her second script to get into a festival. Her first one is her first feature, and that's in contention in two festivals. I'm looking forward to seeing how far it goes as a screenplay, and then hopefully developing it as a pilot."

The Oxford Film Festival is one of MovieMaker Magazine's Top-50 Film Festivals.  It will have it's 15th Anniversary when filmmakers gather during the second weekend in February 2018.

Congrats to Matthew Head for OWN's "Greenleaf"

Huge kudos to our longtime collaborator Matthew Head for being named Music Producer for the cable network series "Greenleaf." The Lionsgate TV production stars David Keith, Merle Dandridge, and Lynn Whitfield, exploring the unscrupulous Greenleaf family and their Memphis megachurch. During its first season, "Greenleaf" was one of the top-rated series airing on OWN. The second season is currently airing on Wednesday evenings.

Besides composing for network TV series, Matthew runs Matthew Head Productions out of Atlanta. We won a regional Emmy with him in 2015 for a human interest news series.

Congrats Matthew! This is well-deserved. We are proud to say "we knew you when!"

Composer Matthew Head

Allred Screenplay Goes 2-for-2

The jury members of the Festigious International Film Festival selected Lori Kay Allred’s latest feature screenplay "Secrets" to be part of their festival. This is the second straight festival for the screenplay from Allred.

"After the initial judging, the jury members felt like "The Secret" was a special heart-warming screenplay," said Festigious Executive Director Roy Zafrani. "Our jury members are looking forward to reviewing it again with the other competing finalists at the festival."

So far, Festigious has received more than 400 entries from more than 40 countries. Jurors include six-time-Emmy-nominated director Jeff Melman (Grey's Anatomy), London-based film actor Nigel Barber (Mission: Impossible - Rouge Nation) and LA actress Casey Ruggieri (Gone Girl.)

"We're really excited for our talented screenwriter Lori Kay to be going to another festival," said producer-director Scott Takeda. "We're looking forward to heading out to LA for the competition."

Allred's Latest Screenplay Finalist at Milledgeville

This week, judges at the Milledgeville Film Festival upgraded Lori Kay Allred’s latest screenplay from "Official Selection" to "Semi-Finalist" and now to "Finalist."  The screenplay is tentatively titled "Secrets" and is Allred’s first feature film.  It now advances to the final competition against other screenplays and will have a table read at the upcoming 2017 Milledgeville Film Festival in late April.

"We're so proud of Lori Kay," said producer Scott Takeda. "This now marks the second year that one of her projects has gotten into this Top-100 festival, having won Best Drama Film last year and been a nominee for Best Director. We're very excited about our first feature. Like all of our projects, we've taken a universal theme and put our own personal spin on it. This is a story about a family dealing with loss during the holidays, and how it works to hold things together."

Last year was the 4th year for the festival held in a small college town just east of Atlanta. It gets it's top rating because it regularly attracts some of the industry's best filmmaking talent to judge and hold seminars including Oscar-nominated producer Rachel Winter (Dallas Buyers Club), television screenwriter Jesse Zwick (Parenthood), Disney's Director of Production David Hartle, and Oscar.com showrunner John Heinsen.

Filming in Rural Colorado For Latest Short

This month, our creative team drove over the hills and through the woods to begin production on our short film The Outsider. This is our first film that we've produced outside of the 48 Hour Film Project – an international competition where teams first compete locally to write, shoot, and edit a short film in 48 hours. 

Director Scott Takeda explains the framing he'd like while producer Lori Kay Allred laughs with the crew.

“We're ready for the next step," said director Scott Takeda. "We want to tell deeper more meaningful stories and have more time to craft them. For example, we’re shooting this film around my family reunion at the family farm. This is only something that could be done with intense pre-production planning – stuff that was prohibited when part of a competition."

Cinematographer Dave Klein gives us the "thumbs up" as we work to coordinate the next scene.

"Like all of our previous films, we're taking a universal theme and putting our own personal spin on it," said producer Lori Kay Allred. "This film is about wanting to belong and fit into a family. And shooting at a family reunion is how we're making it personal. I don't know how this will eventually turn out, but it's been a lot of fun.  I've been laughing all day with Scott's parents, uncles, and aunts."

Audio/grip Slade Williamson adjusts a light while producers and ADs work to arrange the extras for the next shot.

"If this film turns out how we hope, we want to get it into festivals this late Spring," said Takeda. "We just have...what...three months?  Should be no problem when we're used to having 48 hours total."