Introducing The Essay Film Collaborative: Intercoastal Adventures with Mark Troy

ManaSota Films founder Mark Troy continues his mission to create a vibrant and active local film scene with the creation of a new intercity endeavor entitled the Essay Film Collaborative, uniting filmmakers in Sarasota-Bradenton with like-minded creatives in Savannah, Georgia and San Diego, California.

ManaSota Films: Mark Troy Handing Off The Mic

Tonight’s monthly ManaSota Films monthly meet-up at Parkway 8 Cinemas will be the last with founder Mark Troy playing the role of emcee, at least for the foreseeable future. According to Troy, veteran local filmmaker and active community member John Lagerholm will take over hosting duties for future gatherings.

“Bullet of Madness” Wins Big at Florida Horror Film Festival

Bullet of Madness, the short film from Bradenton writer/director JB Whirtley swept the competition at last night’s Florida Horror Film Festival, winning the award for each of its four nominations in the short film category, including Best Short Film and Best Director for Whirtley. Actor and founder of ManaSota Films Mark Troy brought home the Best Actor award for his lead role in Bullet as the murderous surgeon, Dr. Mishlove, and local special effects maven Mark Angenola pulled down a Best Special F/X Award.

“It really was a shock considering that I don’t particularly consider Bullet of Madness a horror film. But winning all four categories we were nominated for definitely puts the cherry on the bloody sundae,” said Whirtley. “But the highlight of the evening for me was when an audience member told me that watching the movie was as if Pee-Wee Herman took hallucinogenics and directed The Wolf of Wall Street. That was the best part of the evening.”

View clips from Bullet of Madness, the weekend’s competition and other entrants into the Florida Horror Film Festival here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm5Zwb8ohC8&feature=youtu.be

ManaSota Films Marches On, Searching For Venue

Allaying concerns raised by the sudden cancellation of October’s monthly ManaSota Films Meet-Up at Lakewood Ranch Cinemas, founder Mark Troy reported the organization is in fine shape, but will be looking for a new home.

JB Whirtley and the Long Road to ‘Madness’

“I have been a prisoner for about three years,” said filmmaker JB Whirtley, the writer-director speaking from the sound booth where he’s made his home for the past couple weeks, dragging an inflatable mattress into the space and setting up camp as he puts the finishing touches on his long-awaited short film Bullet of Madness, to be screened for the first time August 19 at the ManaSota Films monthly meet-up in Lakewood Ranch Cinemas, where local filmmakers get a spot on the big screen to show their work. Now the nerves set in. “It was hard to make the movie, but it’s probably going to be even harder to watch it,” said Whirtley, tired but in good cheer, “especially with a bunch of strangers.”

A dark comedy starring an unhinged plastic surgeon (played by ManaSota Films founder Mark Troy) tearing through the local criminal element in a mad quest for revenge, Bullet of Madness began in 2013 with an idea, an elaborate trailer and a trip to Canada to meet with Magnet Releasing, a studio haven for the offbeat and bizarre, especially within the world of genre filmmaking. Impressed, Magnet sent Whirtley home to make his short film and meet again after with possible talk of turning Bullet into a feature-length film. Now, three years later, Whirtley’s film clocks in at a cool twenty minutes of slick and demented action, but not without a few bumps in the road, such as switching crews and uprooting the production from Orlando to Bradenton.

“Me and the crew just did not jive,” said Whirtley, regarding the Orlando crew with a stylistic update of the classic ‘creative differences.’ “They were trying to make a different film than I was.” Shifting his focus to Bradenton, Whirtley enlisted the help of local filmmakers such as Trishul Thejasvi, founder of Orensis Films, producer and cinematographer for Bullet, and now a regular collaborator, and John O’Keefe, an actor who stepped into a co-producer role to keep the film moving as crews were assembled and sets rebuilt. On top of that, Whirtley met the demands of his regular job as assistant director for commercial work. “Any time I had a gig, I had to stop to make money,” said Whirtley. “And then when I had money, I had to reopen the production again and start shooting.” Putting the film together in bits and pieces, time ran long. “We shot whatever we could over the course of two years,” said Whirtley.

Film in hand, Whirtley remains in contact with Magnet, where he says relations are “cordial, but I still have other options on the table.” That being said, he doesn’t want to overstate his position. Magnet knows he has something, he says, but they haven’t seen the finished product and anything could happen. “It’s business,” he said. “Nothing’s carved in stone until there’s a contract.”

But even if Magnet passes and Hollywood doesn’t come calling just yet, Whirtley hopes to see the film have an impact on the local scene, inspiring other artists to try more than the usual dramas, more often than not touching on drug addiction and other social ills, which he typically finds unsatisfying and overreaching in their attempts at depth. “Especially for first-time filmmakers,” he said. “I want to push genre filmmaking.” Genre films, the biggest being horror but including science fiction and fantasy, are usually relegated to schlock, but Whirtley sees opportunity in a cinematic tradition more focused on audience enjoyment and engagement than any pretense of high art, an opportunity to invigorate the local film community. “Everyone has their own way of making film and this is just my opinion,” said Whirtley, “but there needs to be more genre films treated with more respect. Filmmakers should try to please themselves and please audiences at the same time.”

Bullet of Madness screens tonight at Lakewood Ranch Cinemas at the ManaSota Films meet-up, which begins at 8:15pm. Also screening will be At a Glance, a short film from Rory Smith about coffee shop conflict; Stephanie Davis and Cindy Krapfel’s Speed Dating; Heading Nowhere, a lengthier and seemingly absurdist short film from Keenan O’Reilly and more. Admission is free, but guests are encouraged to give back to the theater that hosts the community free of charge for the event by treating themselves at the concession stand.

ManaSota Films Brings San Diego to Lakewood Ranch

A series of short films showcasing some of SoCal’s up-and-coming talents will soon be screened for cinephiles in Southwest Florida. ManaSota Films on Wednesday, June 17, will host its San Diego Special at Lakewood Ranch Cinemas.

While ManaSota get-togethers most often offer the chance to see locally-produced films, organizers say there is value to seeing how other filmmaking communities come together to execute the movie-making process. “Besides the entertainment, it’s beneficial for our film community to be exposed to their peers’ work from other parts of the country,” said Mark Troy, ManaSota Films founder.

Local Filmmakers Sound Off in this Month’s Issue of SRQ Magazine

Efforts have been ongoing for years to turn the Sarasota-Bradenton area into a filmmaking hub, with varied success. Institutions like the Sarasota Film Festival leave their mark each year, while expensive blunders like the failed Sanborn Studios project lend a bitter taste to the whole operation. This year, an announcement from Ringling College of Art and Design regarding a new 30,000 square foot professional-grade sound studio and post-production facility reinvigorated the conversation, leading many to ask what exactly the next step entails if Sarasota is to one day be what the burgeoning film community hopes it could be.

Among the many players involved – government institutions such as the Sarasota County Film and Entertainment Office (the Office), community leaders like Mark Troy and the filmmakers themselves – each perspective gives a slightly different picture and the way forward remains uncertain…

Read the full article on SRQ Magazine’s website at http://www.srqmagazine.com/articles/98/Creative-Differences

Breaking Into The Business With JB Whirtley

He said ‘No’ to film school. He said ‘No’ to a studio offering to buy his script. Risky moves, yes, but telling – JB Whirtley wants to make movies his way, and his latest project, Bullet of Madness, a madcap dark comedy starring a plastic surgeon who snaps under pressure from the mafia and a deteriorating family life, is no exception.

Karl and Rhonda Wilson Spill the Beans on Catching Junior Tate

Catching Junior Tate, the new action-comedy from filmmaking duo Karl and Rhonda Wilson, co-owners of 2DB Productions, takes the audience down the dusty trail from Florida to Mexico, where bounty hunters, crooked cops and mobster thugs vie for custody of the eponymous fugitive, Junior Tate, and his multi-carat cargo.

Who is Ray Caster?

It began as a writing exercise by Marcus Alexander Hart. Caster served as a fictional alter-ego and Sarasota – where Hart spent most of the 90s – was his stomping grounds. A socially inept nerd hopelessly entranced by a beautiful free-spirited woman, Caster took to the web, soliciting advice from his real-life followers. The hoax lasted from 2004 to 2005, when Hart broke cover and turned his project into a novel, <i>Caster’s Blog – A Geek Love Story</i>, published in 2006.

Austin McKinley, playwright, novelist, director and old friend of Hart’s, wrote the first draft of a screenplay based on Caster’s Blog in 2007. Seven years, countless rewrites and one partnership with ManaSota Films later, McKinley has finished principal photography for a proof of concept short, filmed in Sarasota.