Artist Dan Seneres is a Bay Area native currently working in various facets of the entertainment industry, including video games, theatre, film and video.
As a Film Maker Dan has been involved in many productions with such credits as productions designer, concept artist, story board artist, model builder and more. Dan's latest project is a grind house type trailer. The story is a blend of death race 2000, Mad Max and Zardox. Performing much of the work behind and in front of the camera, Dan's goal for the trailer was to achieve a high production value (with a micro budget), to create convincing story element and to entertain; and judging from a recurring comment of viewers: "I want to see the whole movie now"-mission accomplished.
Jace Witman literally became a one-man industry when creating his debut film, Whispers and Shadows. The film was not only written and Directed by Jace, he also provided the gory makeup FX, the editing and sound design, and even acted opposite screen veteran Richard Moll.
A chance encounter at a Laundromat between off-beat Aaron (Henry Thomas) and hot young Linda (Kelli Garner) turns into an impromptu afternoon lunch date. As they get to know each other, Aaron spins bizarre stories to titillate and seduce Linda. Spurred on, Aaron's stories get darker and darker. When Linda confides that she's missed her best friend's birthday party at a cabin in the woods the night before, Aaron fashions a story about that birthday party in which the guests (Linda's friends) are systematically killed off by a maniac in a white jump suit. Linda becomes more and more intrigued with the tale (and Aaron) as the mayhem mounts. She actually contributes ideas to the story. Is this the beginning of a beautiful relationship or a spiraling path toward something more sinister and deadly.
Shawn is the sick-minded fuck who wrote and produced this exercise in filth. He makes the most twisted pervert in the world look like a cheerleader, fearlessly steering the blistering hull of the Rotten Cotton Steamship through the fog in search of good times, bad sex, and hideous shit. Check out the web site www.rottencotton.com for all the dirt. If it's loud, red and wet, Shawn's right in the middle of it. Fear him.
Black Devil Doll is the end product of nine years of Catholic school and being raised in a Christian home.
In the fall of 1988, a young boy was deserted in a haunted corn maze. As he grew older, he went insane, and shacked up in a dilapidated house near the cornfield. The town quickly became terrified of the man they nicknamed Farmer Bill. On Mischief Night 2008, 4 friends decide to have a little fun near the seemingly abandoned cornfield. But little do they know that someone is watching them through the stalks...Will they get through the night alive? Only Farmer Bill knows the answer.
John Gonzales, award-winning filmmaker of "Y2K: Shut Down Detected", discovered horror films at an early age. But wasn't until he saw John Carpenter's Halloween, that he knew he wanted to make movies. He began writing short stories for several years, in hopes of making them into movies, before finally getting his hands on a VHS Camcorder in the early 1980's. He corralled his childhood friends into acting out his creations from kung fu fighters to flesh-eating zombies. He would edit his movies from VCR to VCR. In 1993. shortly after graduating from Fresno State University earning a Bachelor's Degree in Telecommunications, with an emphasis in production, he produced his first feature film, "The Crier", aka: "Demones", which screend at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in 1995. John moved to Los Angeles in 1995, pursuing his childhood dream. He wrote a feature-length script entitled, "Y2K", and went into production in 1997 with production partners, Slava Siderman and Trent Shumway, eventually creating the award winning short film based on the feature length script, as a writer, producer, actor, editor, and director. In 2002, John co-produced the feature movie, "Shining On", with his longtime friend and collaborator, Jason Fenton while simultaneously co-producing and co-directing with Slava, the documentary, "48", an inspirational season of high school football in the San Fernando Valley. Both movies are currently in post-production. He recently completed the short, dark comedy, "It's Over, Honey" and is currently developing and writing feature-length screenp;ays for all genres, including the horror screenplay, "Isolation" with Unhinged Cinema partner, Slava Siderman.
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As a young boy in the Soviet Union Slava Siderman spent most of his time sculpting and drawing. He came to United States with his parents on March 6, 1979. After a five month journey through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Italy the trip was over. With little language skills his parents spent the next year at night school preparing themselves for a new life and a new beginning. Slava spent his nights sitting in his parent's classes honing his art skills. These skills later would help him in winning scholarship awards in High School and College. His senior year in High School was spent in art classes where his love for the craft grew. As an aspiring cartoonist Slava applied and was accepted to the highly prestigious Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, CA. Even though the acceptance was a high accomplishment, Slava decided on a local Commercial Art School, Watterson College. At Watterson his interest for moving visual story telling developed through experiences in his TV production courses. More education was necessary for his new found love of filmmaking. The next two years were spent at a Junior College (Los Angeles Valley) studying Film Theory and History. In 1993 he was accepted to the highly acclaimed Brooks Institute of Photography. On campus he quickly built a reputation as a positive and impressive worker. During his stay at Brooks he produced three shorts and won many Awards, such as the Eastman Kodak Film Award, Motion Picture Departmental Award, and the highest achievement of the President's Award ... being the 51st winner in the school's 50 years of existence. His class project "As Luck Would Have It" won the 1997 Cine Golden Eagle award. Along with personal projects and accolades he also managed an amazing resume with 55 projects under his belt, from student shorts to professional features... he did it all in just 42 months. As his award winning education concluded the contacts he made while at school paid off with quick film work and TV production. Slava has worked in the film and television industry since 1995 with positions ranging from grip to director which include over 100 features, shorts, commercials, TV Shows, etc. Along with the experience he has a long background of education in the arts and filmmaking mentioned earlier. He has an impressive resume of production positions from PA to Producer. With all that experience he began doing independent Directing and Cinematography work shortly after graduation. In 1997 he joined up with two aspiring filmmakers, John Gonzales and Trent Shumway, to creative the highly acclaimed and award winning horror short "Y2K: Shut Down Detected". This film brought critical success including high praise from the horror maestro John Landis. He followed that up with another joint venture, this time a psychological action thriller feature, "The New Chapter". The past six years he has produced and/or directed eight projects with recent projects in post production, both being documentaries, "48" about an inner city High School football team and "Angel for Hire" an amazing look inot a hardcore wrestler's life. Currently he is in pre-production on a Horror feature currently entitled "Isolation", with John Gonzales.
Arthur Maness, the creator and director of examination , was raised in Tulare California in the heart of the central valley. He now resides in the San Fernando Valley where he attended college and earned a multimedia Degree from California State University Northridge. During his time at CSU Northridge and after his graduation he has worked on many different projects in different aspects of their production, but Examination is his first attempt at directing.
Writer/Director
Paula loves films with gore, laughs, great scares, and loud rock music. Despite the fact that she's a strict vegetarian, she once drove to a slaughterhouse to buy pig guts to make her college thesis film as bloody as possible. Rumor has it that Paula made this film to realize her life-long dream of being a zombie.
Currently attending the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Thomas grew up in Southern California. Since the beginning of his attendance at AAU in September '07, he worked on multiple video and film projects, and made four short films on his own, including one finalist in the Epidemic Film Festival.
Patrick Rea is a writer-director based in Lawrence, Kansas. His film company SenoReality Pictures, www.senoreality.com, was started with collaborator Ryan Jones while attending the University of Kansas.
Two of SenoReality's student films were winners in the Fangoria's Blood Drive contest. The DVD was released nationally in 2004 through Koch Entertainment. Several other student shorts directed by Rea have been released on both "Hollywood Scarefest" DVDs, distributed by Vanguard Cinema.
Since 2004, Rea's has directed many more short films that have screened at festivals such as Palm Beach International Film Festival, Shriekfest LA, The New York City Horror Film Festival, and Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors. These shorts have also screened on Fangoria TV, Horror Channel and
n8studios. com. In 2007, SenoReality's first feature film "The Empty Acre" was released on DVD from Cinema Epoch.
Rea's most recent shorts "Woman's Intuition", "Emergency Preparedness", "Café at the Crossroads" and the satire "Torture Porn" have also garnered acclaim and are currently on the festival circuit.
"Woman's Intuition" has recently garnered a regional Emmy nomination.
Michelle Fatale is a woman of many occupations outside of assuming the position of Executive Assistant of The Chainsaw Mafia. Primarily a producer/writer/director, she completed her first short film 'Dead Line' in 2004 which won official selection at the IFFNTX.com film festival, and the Pretty-Scary.net film festival as well as countless favorable online reviews. Since then she has worked on a handful of short films including 'Paraphilia' and 'Closet Monster' which was produced through her newly formed production company Chopping Block Films. Fatale has also been featured on screen in such films as 'Monkey V.S. Hooker,' and 'Werewolf in a Women's Prison.' She currently writes film reviews and articles for horror websites including choppingblockfilms.com, pretty-scary.net, and horror-fanatics.com. Her latest short film 'The Cleaner' produced with partner Craig McGee is her most ambitious project to date, and has most recently been accepted into the Northern California Film Festival, and SiliCon Film Festival. Along with McGee and Chopping Block Films, the pair have completed their first feature script and are currently working on their second. Their hope is to collaborate and begin production with an executive producer that shares a similar vision and love of horror.
The short film that spawned the feature (shooting this summer). Below you will find details on the short film's production team, followed by the new additions to the feature production team.
REVERSAL (11:17 run time)
Written/directed/produced by:
Rock Shaink Jr.
Written by:
Keith Kjornes
Produced by:
Bryan Du Toit
Cast:
Joanna Sims
Charlie Capen
Brian Allen
The short film was shot to be a "preview piece" for the feature. Utilizing a lot of favors, we brought together a heavy based studio caliber team consisting of Sundance/Cannes alums, Oscar/Emmy nominees, and a lots of hot-on-the-rise talent. The finished product "REVERSAL (the short)" had its premiere in Los Angeles on Friday, April 11th. At the premiere, a handful of announcements weremade, introducing the new members of the feature production team; Producer Jeff Most (The Crow, and the upcoming Edgar Allen Poe's Ligeia), Casting Director Michael Hothorn (Alien vs. Predator, Mr. & Mrs. Smith), Director of Photography Stephen St. John (The Guardian, Mission Impossible 3), as well as some of our original team; Rock Shaink (The Hidden remake [The Seed], and the 2008 Cannesbound film Terminal), Keith Kjornes (Gehenna Project), Bryan Du Toit (The Fringe), and our cast Joanna Sims (Finishing the Game) and Charlie Capen (recent recipient of the "Best Newcomer" award from the AFI Film Fest, and star of festival winner, Psycho Hillbilly Cabin Massacre), and Brian Allen (Sarah Connor Chronicles).
Logline:
A gritty, high-octane-thriller about a woman who breaks free after being confined in a basement, and abused for 9 months, but instead of escaping, discovers there are other girls just like her scattered around town. Now, fueled with rage, she must force her captor to become the captive, and lead her to the other girls... If it's not too late.
Detailed bios, and credits for the short film:
Cast:
Joanna Sims
Charlie Capen
Brian Allen
Kimi Reichenberg
Jessica Ceasar
Alex Du Toit
Claire Bergkamp
Director:
Rock Shaink
Producers:
Bryan Du Toit
Rock Shaink
Executive Producers:
Isaac Porter
Santa Sierra
Mike Perri
Stan Rush
Clinton Childress
Fernando Beltran y Puga
Mike Dietz
Julia Brown
Writer:
Keith Kjornes
Rock Shaink
Director of Photography:
David Rob Jones
Editor:
Linda Di Franco
Composer:
Robert Bennett
Additional Music:
Paul Harckham - "Buckled and Broken'
Sound Editor/Designer:
D. Chris Smith
1st AD:
Andrew Baldwin
1st AC:
Ethan MacDonald
2nd AC/Loader:
Jeff Hayford
Key Grip:
David Starks
Grip:
Dinh Lu
Stunt Coordinator:
David Wald
Makeup/Hair:
Yoko Nobushi
Wardrobe:
Claire Bergkamp
Sound Mixer:
Paul Bacca
Boom Op:
Tim Hollanbaugh
Production Designer:
Aaron Glazer
Script Supervisor:
Ann Doria
Storyboard Artist:
Fred Bresky
Prop Master:
Dupree Dial
Director's Assistant:
Amanjah Anthony
Producer's Assistant:
Jason Boritz
Production Assistants:
Ben Gelera – Key
Matt Hilton
Tony Hinkens
Special Thanks:
Mark Jonathan Stanley
Rock & Robin Shaink
Sean Buck
Dean Lee
Shawn Mayor
Alex Du Toit
Jake Blecha & the SAF guys
Adam Reed
Mary Jane
Shaun Greenspan
SHORT BIOS:
Rock Shaink
Rock is an award-winning writer/director/producer born and raised in the greater Boston area. Before founding Romark Films he was senior executive of Tyrese Gibson's HQ Pictures. Having come up in the New York world of independent films, Rock broke in as a writer first, setting up a handful of projects around town, including THE HIDDEN, a remake entitled THE SEED with Gavin Polone's PARIAH(Panic Room, 8mm) and New Line, TERMINAL with Fernando Beltran's Leviathan Blue, and THE BIG TEST, a co-production between Portofino Pictures and HQ. With his experience in story, and his background in both film and marketing, Rock stepped into the role of producer, taking on the projects 12TH MAN, CONDITION DEAD, SNUFFED and the upcoming film PROTECTING JIMMY LEONE. His latest work brings together all his talents as he is the writer/creator and executive producer of the new TV series DREAMER, being produced by Marc Sternberg (Mirrors, The Girl Next door) and Larry Shuman (The Shield, House). Leaving HQ to found Romark Films, Rock now has the opportunity to focus on more personal projects, and to work with a larger pool of creative talents on both a studio and independent level.
Bryan Du Toit
Owner of Dare To Dream Productions, Bryan got his first job on the feature film Evicted", discovering his true calling to be a filmmaker. At the age of 19, he wrote, produced and directed his first short film entitled RESIDENT OF WAR about the last five minutes of a prisoner of wars' life. The film was accepted and praised in festivals worldwide. He produced the commercial URBAN RAGS for a clothing company of active sport-ware. Airing on MTV, VH1, ESPN and FOX Sports News was, it was so popular it ran for nine-months. Bryan then produced a 35mm Short Film, HOT RUSH, in which there were many cameos by stars like Claudia Christian, Brenda Bakke (The Chase) and Jason (Jay) Mewes (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Mall Rats, Dogma, Jay and Bob's Amazing Adventure), and which was accepted into the 2002 DreamWorks SKG Film Festival and can be seen online at www.ifilm.com. Bryan also produced the much talked about Super 16mm Short Film YURI & ME, also an official entry into the 2003 DreamWorks SKG Film Festival. From 2004–2007, Bryan moved back to South Africa and partnered with South Africa's largest production company, The Imaginarium (Hotel Rwanda, Charlie Jade, Stander) and was lead producer in charge of raising financing for the feature film THE FRINGE – the largest South African film produced to date. During this time, Bryan gained extensive knowledge of worldwide financing, distribution, international co-production treaties, product placement, budgeting and marketing.
Keith Kjornes
Keith is a twenty-five year veteran of the Texas Independent Film community where his versatility and speed has garnered him local and national attention. Cutting his teeth in the Dallas / Austin / Houston film corridor in the 80's and 90's, he has written thrillers, horror and comedy for a diverse group of clients. Whether it was black urban gangster movies for Tanya York's York Entertainment or romantic rapper comedies for Doug Schwab's Maverick Entertainment, his ability to "switch gears" has kept his skills in demand. He is the man behind the most infamous corporate thriller ever produced, RISKY BUSINESS: VIOLENCE IN THE WORKPLACE for PrimeMedia. This Corporate Training Video was produced as a 39-minute murder mystery, where an employee is killed on the job. Then using the details of how to spot a "troubled employee", flashbacks tell the story that lead to the murder based on a set of detailed "dangerous behaviors". When previewed at a Human Resources Convention in San Francisco in 1998, over 300 screening copies were requested the first day. His latest thriller, ICE44 (re-titled UNTITLED GEHENNA PROJECT), is in production at Universal right now, starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Ray Winstone and Ron Perlman and produced by former Universal studio head Sid Shienberg. Now a permanent resident of Hollywood, Keith was in town less than three months when Rock Shaink snatched up his primal social horror/thriller BROKEN.
A young woman becomes stranded on a deserted road when her car breaks
down. Soon a psychopath stops to help. She’s innocent but don’t let her
looks fool you, she’s badass!
Across town two kidnapped sisters are fighting for there lives in a
dirty basement at the hands of Edward Sawney. Edward makes the
psychopath look like a girl scout.
As these two stories weave closer together a twisted tale of cannibalism
and murder blossom into garden of darkness where heroines and killers
collide in the final scene.
"Go Figure" - A serial killer finds out that things are not always as they seem.
Starring Jilliann Zavala and Bru Galeen
Directed by Jilliann Zavala and Bru Galeen
Storyboards, editing and scripts by Jilliann Zavala and Bru Galeen
Produced by Jilliann Zavala
Special effects Provided By Harry The Head and Princie The Cat
Special thanks To Bill Zavala, Brett and Jessica Fishkin
This is just a little something we "cooked up" in about two weeks for the Chiller TV Dare To Direct Contest last year. It was shot with a single camera over a three day period and edited with Windows Moviemaker. Many thanks to everyone who voted for us, and expect even bigger things this year!
Thank you to everyone who submitted and good luck!!
