My friend Justin McConnell and his team of producers and editors have been slaving away at his documentary Clapboard Jungle for, like, ever. Forever and ever. I'm reading the press release this morning (which I have decided to split up for emphasis) and am quietly surprised that he has been at it for six years now. Where has the time gone?
Since 2014 McConnell has sat down with industry experts, film-making legends and all sorts of personalities, gleaming from them a bounty of knowledge about getting indpendant films made. From icons like Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), Richard Stanley (Color Out of Space), Barbara Crampton (We Are Stil Here), Don Mancini (Child's Play) and the late George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) to the new generation of filmmakers like Gigi Saul Gerrero (Culture Shock), Jenn Wexler (The Ranger) and Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor), McConnell spoke to as many of our friends and heroes as possible. So many in fact he could not whittle it down to only a feature documentary and is currently finishing up a follow up episodic, eductional series of additional material.
“I set out at the beginning with the goal of creating a sort of film-school-in-a-box full of knowledge from people who knew a lot more than me,” stated director McConnell “At a certain point the project just grew into something else, and the decision to split it into two very distinct purposes seemed natural. The film now starting festival play has a lot of information, but it’s also emotional and a little esoteric, the goal giving a full story arc and not just an educational piece. The series is the film-school-in-a-box. With both of those and a bunch of extended web and Blu-ray material, this is the kind of thing I wish existed when I was first starting out. And I’m glad I surrounded myself with a great team that could give me advice and a little objective distance from the source material, as you can’t get any closer to the subject than turning a camera on yourself.”
But the end is in sight and Clapboard Jungle, the film, will have its World Premiere at the Canadian Film Fest here in Toronto on March 26th. At the same time Justin has released the trailer and poster for his feature documentary.
Clapboard Jungle is an emotional and introspective journey following five years in the life and career of an independent filmmaker, supported by dozens of interviews, posing one question: how does an indie filmmaker survive in the current film business? Featuring interviews with Guillermo Del Toro, Richard Stanley, Barbara Crampton, Paul Schrader, Tom Savini, George A. Romero, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Michael Biehn, Frank Henenlotter, and many more.
Have a look at the trailer below and catch our own Izzy Lee in there. Other Anarchists will also be a part of this overall project as well. Yours truly did not make the cut for the documentary but am told that I do make an appearance in the follow up educational series. Cause I'm all about sharing what little knowledge I possess to whomever will listen to me.
As long as I buy them a drink first.
The long-in-production film business documentary CLAPBOARD JUNGLE has just released the first trailer and a brand new poster. Director Justin McConnell’s stand-alone film will receive a World Premiere on March 26th at Canadian Film Fest in Toronto, before continuing a festival run at several soon to be announced dates, leading up to a projected full release later in the year.The project has been in production since 2014, and collected interviews with over 100 prominent figures from across the business. Simultaneously, director McConnell turned the camera on himself, tracking his career from then, through travelling to multiple film markets and festivals, up until the completion and release of the horror film Lifechanger. There was so much footage collected the project was split into two distinct entities: the standalone feature documentary outlined above, and a currently in post-production 8-episode educational series, with each episode covering a specific film business related topic.Produced by Unstable Ground in association with Federgreen Entertainment, the film will be distributed in Canada by Indiecan Entertainment, and represented in the United States by 79th & Broadway Entertainment. Clapboard Jungle was produced by Darryl Shaw and McConnell, with the feedback and oversight of a talented team of associate producers, and edited by 24x36 director Kevin Burke and McConnell.