Email resumes to: therapturediary@gmail.com

Also, this feature is looking for military vehicles…

Picture vehicles needed for low budget feature film shooting in and around Grand Rapids, MI. Details are as follows:

2x Military style humvees (must be drivable and in working condition)
Any other military style vehicles such as 5-ton trucks, armored personnel carriers, etc.

Please send specifications and pictures via email to therapturediary@gmail.com

The film is also showing at select Celebration! Cinemas in Muskegon, Grand Rapids and Portage.

Well known Purple Rose actor Alex Leydenfrost will introduce the Canton 7 event and his wife Julia Glander, a prominent stage actress, will appear at the Quality 16 for the 7 p.m. screenings. Both appear in the film.

Waterwalk has been hailed by audiences across the heartland. It is based on the true story of Steve and Justin Faulkner’s attempt to become the first single canoe team to retrace the dangerous 1,000 mile discovery route of the Mississippi from St. Ignace, Michigan to St. Louis.
“This story of an Asian American adopted son and his workaholic father taking the canoe journey of a lifetime showcases spectacular locations in West Michigan and across the Midwest,” says director Bob Cicchini, a Detroit native who began his stage and film career at Wayne State University.
“We’re particularly proud of the fact that much of the film was shot at more than 50 locations across West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula with many outstanding actors from across the state.

Veteran Hollywood actor Cicchini (Godfather III, Dream Girls, The Mentalist
stars with Chase Maser who began his career on the Kalmazoo Stage at Farmer’s
Alley and Portage Central High School. Twenty year-old Maser has three other
features coming out this year.

The movie was filmed in the Muskegon, White Lake and Newaygo areas on Lake Michigan, the Muskegon and White Rivers. It also has many scenes on the northern shore of Lake Michigan.

Shot at 35 Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois locations by cinematographer Bruce Schermer (his credits include Sundance Grand Prize Winner Chameleon Street and he also shot most of Michael Moore’s Roger & Me), the film is a love note to the American heartland. Schermer filmed Cicchini’s first student project at Wayne State.

WaterWalk has been “family approved by the Dove Foundation. For more information and to view the trailer, go to http://tinyurl.com/7qkfsca and visit the website www.waterwalkthemovie.com.

Goodrich tickets are $5 for this special screening. They can be reserved at http://www.gqti.com/waterwalk.aspx Celebration can be reached at https://celebrationcinema.com/
To schedule an interview with Bob Cicchini or Chase Maser, to arrange for photos and b roll footage from the film contact:
WaterWalk Publicist, Kelsey Pulis at kelseyjp@hotmail.com or call 734-578-5662
Director Robert Cicchini bobcicchini@gmail.com 310 202 6965.
Producer, Roger Rapoport roger@waterwalkthemovie.com 231 720-0930
Social Media Coordinator, Jacqui Bernhardt Jacqui@waterwalkthemovie.com 231- 286-9655

http://tinyurl.com/7qkfsca (Trailer)
www.waterwalkthemovie.com
www.facebook.com/waterwalkthemovie
http://www.youtube.com/waterwalkmovie

That’s the message that emerges from an analysis conducted by TheWrap of the annual reports of five major media companies in 2011. And it’s a dramatic change from the way things used to be, when movies were the straw that stirred Hollywood’s drink.

“I remember when international buyers had to be forced to take TV product, and they only wanted movies — now it’s the other way around,” Jeff Sagansky, former president of CBS Entertainment and a former senior executive at Sony, told TheWrap.

The latest annual reports show that film has become a very small piece of the overall revenue pie. Television can be counted on to generate roughly half of a company’s revenue and up to 80 percent of its operating income, such as at Time Warner. (Sony does not break out its TV and film revenues and thus was not included in the survey.)

Read the full data comparison here: By the Numbers: Television Trounces Film (Slideshow)

Though Paramount has began to ramp up its film production in recent years with hits like “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” and “Star Trek,” its big screen successes cannot match those of Comedy Central, Nick at Nite, MTV and Nickelodeon. From ad sales to SpongeBob SquarePants merchandise, the margins and opportunities for ancillary revenue are more generous on the television side of the business.

The strength of cable networks like ESPN and the Disney Channel and the affiliate and advertising revenue they generate enabled the Mouse House to emerge relatively unscathed from its recent “John Carter” and “Mars Needs Moms” debacles.

In a recent presentation at Barclay’s Global Technology, Media and Communication Conference, Warner Bros. Television Chief Bruce Rosenblum boasted that Time Warner’s small-screen divisions are responsible for about 80 percent of its profits. Although its film side has produced global smashes like “The Dark Knight” and the Harry Potter franchise, it cannot match the combined earnings of HBO, Turner and Warner Bros. TV Group. Plus, Warner Bros. hit programming like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and Half Men” earns countless millions more in syndication.

Fox News continues to dominate the cable-news ratings, while the company’s broadcast network has churned out hits like “Glee” and “Family Guy” that allows them to paper over misfires like “Terra Nova.”

NBC may be a ratings also-ran, but MSNBC has carved out a niche for itself in the crowded cable-news space, and overall cable operations have benefited from higher licensing fees. It is easy to see why Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts’ first love is cable, not film.

Top executives such as Roberts have publicly acknowledged that programs like “The Voice,” not to mention cable subscription fees, are driving earnings.

Speaking at the Sanford Bernstein Strategic decisions conference last week, Roberts said the film business was much more volatile than the television industry and made no secret about why Comcast plunked down $13.8 billion for NBC Universal in 2011. Let’s just say it wasn’t for the rights to “Jurassic Park” and “Jaws.”

“We want to continue to invest in cable programming,” Roberts said. “That’s why we bought the company.”

For television, the increase in the number of cable networks and video streaming services has created fresh opportunities to leverage hit programming through syndication. Plus, content companies like Disney and News Corp. are adept at extracting retransmission fees for the right to carry their channels from cable providers.

“The value of successful programming has grown exponentially as new platforms have been created,” Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming at Katz Television Group, told TheWrap. “More shows fail than succeed, but when shows succeed the upside is so dramatic that it’s sort of the tradeoff.”

After recent flops like “Battleship” and “Dark Shadows,” it’s not hard to see why film is out of favor. Movies are growing more expensive to produce and market, and attendance, at least domestically, has declined in recent years.

“There is no doubt that television has become more important than the film business and has been for some time,” Hal Vogel, a media analyst and CEO of Vogel Capital Management, told TheWrap. “There’s more stability. With films you can have ‘The Avengers’ or you can have ‘Battleship,’ but it’s hard to predict.”

Lucas Shaw and Sharon Waxman contributed to this report

The lull should be ending this summer. A killer-tornado movie is heading to town. There’s also potential interest from a big-name comedy and a TV pilot.

“People will start to see film crews in their neighborhood soon,” says Michigan Film Office director Carrie Jones.

Approval is expected to be announced today for incentives for a found-footage-style thriller from New Line about high school students encountering devastating weather. It’s set to film at Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac.

The untitled tornado movie, formerly called “Category 6,” has requested about $12 million in incentives on $40.7 million in estimated in-state spending.

Shooting is set to begin locally this month on “AKA Jimmy Picard,” an independent film with a noteworthy premise and team. Its producer, Pascal Caucheteux, has lengthy credits that include “A Prophet,” an Oscar-nominated 2009 French crime drama. Its director, Arnaud Desplechin, is well-known in Europe.

The screenplay, based on a real story, is set in 1948 in a veterans hospital and explores the origins of post-traumatic stress treatment. The movie has gotten the OK for incentives, according to producer Jennifer Roth.

There also are some noteworthy possibilities on the horizon. An application is under review for “Last Vegas,” a movie starring Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman. It’s a comic romp about four longtime friends who head to Las Vegas for a bachelor party.

The AMC network, home to prestige hits like “Mad Men,” is looking at Detroit as a possible location for a new pilot, according to a network spokesperson. “Low Winter Sun” is described as a Detroit-based drama involving cops, criminals and the sometimes gray area between them.

By this point last year, the local filming scene was already buzzing. George Clooney’s “Ides of March” had wrapped, Jason Segel’s “Five-Year Engagement” was under way and an extras casting call was scheduled for the mega-budget “Oz: the Great and Powerful.”

Still, the Michigan Film Office is anticipating that summer will be busy here.

“It will look a little different than other summers,” says Jones. “But I think we have a wide range of projects that will be utilizing our infrastructure and workforce, as well as our locations.”

Another project on the radar, “Gametime,” was approved last year and has been stalled for months after losing an investor. It’s now supposed to begin prepping for filming in early July.

The indie about the big-money world of college basketball has an investor who hasn’t signed the paperwork yet, according to producer Jeff Spilman. He says the same cast — including former Michigan State University basketball star Delvon Roe, Romeo and Danny Glover — is still with the film.

The film office continues to work to spread the message that the state is open for business. Jones is going to Los Angeles next week for the annual Association of Film Commissioners International locations show, an event she thinks could help lay the groundwork for next year.

A budget deal unveiled last month would double the state’s film grants to $50 million in fiscal 2013. That money wouldn’t affect this summer.

While Michigan is temporarily quiet, other states are swamped. About 20 films, one TV pilot and four TV series were expected to be shooting in New York as of June 1, according to a government source from that state.

Contact Julie Hinds: 313-222-6427 or jhinds@freepress.com

Are you or someone you know an ordinary person doing extraordinary things to enrich your community or the lives of others? Reaching out to people or animals in need? Stepping in to give a voice to those who aren’t heard? Running a nonprofit organization out of the goodness of your heart?

LET US KNOW! We are casting for an exciting new series featuring country star Trace Adkins to be shown on Great American Country. This show will feature role models, heroes and champions of causes in several cities in America:

Salina, KS
Charleston, SC
Davenport, IA
Atlanta, GA
Easton, PA
Bakersfield, CA
Hyannis, MA (Cape Cod)
Grand Rapids, MI
Philadelphia, MS
Knoxville, TN

If you live in one of these cities and know a hero— or if you feel you ARE that hero– don’t be shy, email us at heroes@rivr.com with the following information:
Hero Name
Hero City and State
Hero Description
Reasons for nomination
1-3 photos

APPLY NOW!

According to writer/director Don Handfield, the movie is essentially about how a small community comes together to help one of its members in a time of need. And for a small, independent film, it took a lot of support from Coopersville residents, who came out in droves to be extras, or let the production use their property or vintage cars for filming.

“We shot it in 20 days, when any studio film is 90 or 120,” Handfield said in a recent phone interview. “Everyone (in Coopersville) was so enthusiastic – it was a blessing. They’re good, hard-working community people – that’s what the movie’s about.

“There’s something romantic to me about small towns and communities. It’s really beautiful.”

“Touchback” boasts a reported budget of $15 million, according to the Internet Movie Database. Handfield said the last year-and-a-half was spent showing the movie to test audiences and shopping for a distributor. When crowds responded well to the heartfelt drama – which is as much a love story as it is a sports film – Anchor Bay Films picked it up for distribution in November. It opened last week in 20 markets, and will expand further this week.

“The goal is to see it in theaters nationwide in three or four weeks,” said the movie’s star, Brian Presley, calling from New York City a day prior to taping a segment for “The View” to promote the movie.

Presley will attend the opening-night party for “Touchback” at 7 p.m. Friday at Celebration Cinema North, where he’ll meet and greet fans. The event will benefit the West Michigan Film Office, which helped coordinate the movie shoot locally.

Handfield said he loved “the spirit of community” he finds in the Midwest, having spent summers with his father in Indiana, and attending Ohio State University. In “Touchback,” Coopersville passes for Coldwater, Ohio, where Scott Murphy, played by Presley, is a farmer struggling to make ends meet for his family. Haunted by a potential football career waylaid by a crippling injury incurred in high school competition, Scott harbors thoughts of suicide, but gets a chance to re-live the week prior to the fateful game when he wakes up 20 years in the past.

Filmed in the summer of 2010, “Touchback” used Coopersville High School as a base of operations, with many scenes filmed at the football stadium or inside the school. Kurt Russell has a key role as the football coach. Melanie Lynskey plays Scott’s wife, Christine Lahti is his mother and Marc Blucas is his best friend.

Local radio personality Bill “Huge” Simonson has a voiceover role as a play-by-play announcer, and former Detroit Lions superstar Barry Sanders has a cameo.

Handfield wrote the script during a painful part of his life, after his first marriage fell apart.

“As a child of divorced parents, I said I’d never get divorced, and the story came out of that feeling of failure,” he said. “When you write in the middle of failure or heartbreak, you write from your core, not your brain.”

Although a strong character attracted Presley to the role, what drew him in was the ability to put the pads on once again. The actor, 34, played football in Jenks, Okla. when he was in high school, and excelled to the point where he attended the University of Arkansas. But he left after one year to go to Los Angeles, where he finished a business degree and started the company, Freedom Films, which produced “Touchback.”

He said one of the film’s goals was to make the football scenes as authentic as possible, so he trained hard for the role, and did a lot of his own stunts.

“I paid the price,” Presley said. “But the hard work paid off. We wanted to get me and Blucas into the action. It was pretty brutal.”

Handfield laughs when talking about filming the football scenes in the humidity and heat of a West Michigan summer.

“It’s easy to direct that stuff,” he said. “The football players were working for 12 or 14 hours straight, and it was a Herculean task. If I had to do that, I’d have pulled a hammy.”

Handfield said he will not be able to attend Friday’s party because he’ll be out of the country working on a movie project with Jeremy Renner, star of “The Hurt Locker” and “The Avengers,” with whom he started a production company. Presley found time to return to West Michigan while working on pre-production for his next movie, “Thunder Run,” about soldiers fighting in Baghdad in the Iraq War; his co-stars will be Matthew McConaughey, Gerard Butler and Sam Worthington.

The two echoed each other’s statements about how grateful they were for the support they received from the people of Coopersville during the shoot.

“Without them, this movie wouldn’t be what it is,” Presley said.

I hope all is well it’s been a while!  I just wanted to let you know I am holding 2 summer performing arts intensives this summer.  One at the Saugatuck Center For The Arts, July 16th-21st & the other at Lowell Performing Arts Center, August 13th-18th. Our summer intensive will include Master Classes with star of TV’s Smash Megan Hilty, So You Think You Can Dance Winner, Melanie Moore, 8West’s Rachael Ruiz, myself and several more.  Additional classes will be taught in acting, voice, singing and many more medias. The camp will also feature a Student Film Festival; where the students will conceive, write, director, edit and produce their own short films.  The films will premiere at the end of the week along with performances of the student’s class work.

Below is our latest eblast announcing our Lowell location and a link to our movie promo trailer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alqyv84WtJE

For additional information and to register people can go to www.BroadwayBreakThru.com.

We are only accepting 100-150 students per location and are offering scholarships and financial aid, so I’m not worried about the attendance but I always appreciate help in spreading the word.

Hope to see you very soon my friend!

My Best,

David Petro

The local debut of the football movie, which stars Brian Presley and Kurt Russell and filmed in West Michigan, will be celebrated with an opening-night party April 20, the day it debuts in theaters. Presley is scheduled to attend a special screening of the film at Celebration Cinema North, and the event will benefit the West Michigan Film Office. Local radio personality Bill “Huge” Simonson, who is the voice of the radio announcer in the movie, will also attend.

An independent production, “Touchback” filmed primarily in Coopersville in July and August of 2010, occupying numerous locations in the small town, using Coopersville High School as its primary base of operations. It also occupied many of the town’s residents, who were either extras – notably for football scenes at the school stadium, which required hundreds of people to fill the stands – or allowed the production to use their automobiles as props or their property for locations.

So don’t be surprised if the theater is packed with Coopersville folk on April 20.

“If you lived in Coopersville, you were probably part of this movie,” said Rick Hert, director of the West Michigan Film Office. “The pride of the community definitely comes out.

“A lot of people want to rejoice in the film. They’ve been waiting for it. Everyone has their story about it.”

Grand Rapids MI – After waiting for the past one and half years since the filming of Touchback in Coopersville and Grand Rapids MI., the much anticipated first public showing theatrical release in Grand Rapids will be Friday, April 20th. Be one of the first to see the film on opening night at 7:00 pm April 20th at Celebration Cinema North!

In cooperation with Celebration Cinema, the city of Coopersville, MI and the West Michigan Film Office a benefit showing including a red carpet event is planned for the night of April 20th at Celebration North. Tickets are only $20 which include “Be a star” and walk the red carpet complete with paparazzi, and sponsored pop and popcorn.

Brian Presley, star of Touchback is scheduled to be at this showing and available to sign autographs and give attendees insight into the making of this uplifting family movie. Local celebrity and Touchback football announcer Bill Simonson from the Huge Show on WBBL FM will be doing the play-by-play for this not to be missed showing of this made in Michigan soon to be classic.

Join the rally before the showing at Pals Diner at 6503 28th St Se, Grand Rapids at 5:30 pm on April 20th. Participants are encouraged to wear their “Coldwater HS shirts, football jerseys or costumes” used during the making of Touchback to this rally.

Pals Diner has a starring role in Touchback and we have invited the 1200 extras and their 70’s vintage automobiles to rally in the parking lot prior to car caravanning to the showing at Celebration North located at 2121 Celebration Drive NE in Grand Rapids.

Reserve your tickets before they sell out for this benefit at Celebration North and WMFO showing of Touchback.

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