KETTERING — Blake Sorenson has a story that is becoming all
too familiar for many struggling citizens in today's economy — no job and no
house.
Sorenson's situation may be a real life issue, but Sorenson
himself is fake. He is the main character in the independent film, "$6
Man."
Greenmont-Oak Park Community Church, 1921 Woodman Drive, will
have a free showing of the film at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9.
The film was produced by The Extra/Ordinary Film Project Co.
in Nashville, Tenn. The company is owned by Columbus, Ohio-native Jon Russell
Cring.
The premise of the story has to do with how the character
Sorenson, a widowed father, and his daughter live on $6 a day while being
homeless. Phillip Roebuck of Washington plays Sorenson and Constance Owl of
North Carolina plays Sorenson's daughter, Natalie.
"Very heartwarming. It's what movies should be,"
Cring said via telephone from his Nashville office. "Movies should touch
you emotionally."
Cring said the idea for the film occurred during a discussion
he had with his father Jonathon Richard Cring after the two saw the 2006 movie,
"The Pursuit of Happyness," which starred Will Smith and his son Jaden
Smith. In the movie,
The Smiths play a father and son who suddenly find themselves
homeless as a result of the struggling salesman career of Will Smith's
character. The movie was inspired by the real-life story of Chris Gardner, who
is now an author, entrepreneur and public speaker.
"$6 Man" was filmed in Nashville and surrounding
cities, Cring said. The film company finished shooting the film in June 2007.
Cring's creed
For Cring, making movies is a full-time gig. "We're
either making movies or out there showing movies all the time," he said.
Having movie showings like the one that will take place at
Greenmont-Oak Park Community on Sunday, is one of the ways that Cring spreads
the word about his films. He said he also uses his Myspace web page to advertise
and solicit acting talent.
"Hopefully we will get mentioned in someone's Oscar
speech," Cring said.
Cring said he likes to do movies about common people and
thinks "that the everyday person should be the hero of films. ... I just
want to keep on telling the human story."
Cring hopes he makes the type of movies that prompt viewers to
say, "I understand that or I have had an experience like that."
He also believes that "a good story never goes out of
style."
A good movie story would involve "telling the way that
the world is or the way you would want the world to be," Cring said. A good
story would not try to make people superhuman, turn them into gods or animals,
in Cring's opinion.
"It's not a filmmaker's job to preach anybody any sort of
ideas. It's (the filmmaker's) job to portray life as it is or as you would like
it to be and then let the people make the decision of what the film meant to
them," he said. "There shouldn't be any agenda in making a
movie."
Tips for young filmmakers
• Have a story, but don't write it yourself. Look for a
story from those who like to write.
• Don't wait for anybody to tell you to do it, just do it.
• "I recommend that you work as quickly as possible and
finish it as quickly as possible," Cring said.
• Make a lot of movies
• Have a "realistic dialogue, a story that people can
relate to and a passion to finish the movie," Cring said.
For more information, visit
www.extraordinaryfilmproject.com.
A
Father and Son Project The
latest byproduct of the ongoing Extra/Ordinary Film Project was written by
Jonathan Cring and directed by his son Jon. Tuesday, April 29,
2008 at 2:50 PM By FilmStew
Staff
ExtraOrdinaryFilmProject.com
Photo
A commentary on today's
celebrity culture
Shot over a period of ten days in various northern California locales, the
feature film Has Been is coming home to roost this Thursday, May
1st for its world premiere at Sacramento’s Colonial Theater. Though the
cast is made up of relative unknowns, the low-budget movie’s premise
echoes the ones being played out all over the TV airwaves these days by
the famous, semi-famous and formerly famous.
In the film, seven borderline celebrities ranging from a former porn
star to an aging rock musician are brought together at Montana’s
Bumblehead resort by a publisher seeking to profit from their stories. The
Has Been players include former child star Kris Kjornes, Pixar
Animation camera artist Craig Good, L.A. (PSA) Emmy Award winner Oto
Brezina and one-time Queer as Folk recurring guest star Marcus
Proctor.
Though the Extra/Ordinary
Film Project fell short of its 2007 goal of producing 12 films in 12
months, Has Been is one of this year’s carry-over projecs,
helping the spirit of the enterprise live on. In addition to Sacramento,
shoot locations encompassed Folsom, San Francisco and portions of the Napa
Valley.
Writing
on the movie’s pre-premiere blog page, director Jon Cring broaches the
film’s broader theme of celebrity. “Will we ever be famous—any of
us?” he muses. “ Who knows about such things? But for one brief
moment, we all came together as a community and did something that we can
be proud of.”
January 9, 2008
Director Jon Russell Cring
Special film at Saguaro
Theatre
The Saguaro Theatre in downtown
Wickenburg will host the award-winning independent film “The $6 MAN,”
on Saturday, Jan. 19 at 11 a.m.
This film was produced by the Extra/Ordinary Film Project, which is
headquartered in Hendersonville, Tenn., and has set a goal to create and
premier 12 feature-length films in 12 months.
“We believe in making films that
are ‘a return to the great story,’” said Jon Russell Cring, director
and co-founder of the film company. “The stars of our movies are the
story-lines, plot twists, humorous dialogue, banter and general good fun
and entertainment that tickles every part of us that once believed in all
things funny and warms up all the parts of us that need warming back
up.”
“$6 MAN,” a recent entry at the Sundance Film Festival, is the story
of Blake Sorenson, a young father who having lost his wife and job finds
himself on the streets with his young daughter Natalie, trying to survive
off of a mere $6 a day, while attempting to assist other homeless
individuals around him and battling the government powers-that-be.
“’$6 MAN’ is not a story about homeless people, but rather the tale
of a father and daughter trying to discover how to make a path for
themselves when all the poles and props that hold life up seem to be
yanked away, and all that’s left is a sense of humor and whatever love
you can carry,” said Cring, father and screenwriter.
The Extra/Ordinary Film Project is in Arizona filming its latest movie,
“Melvyn’s Clock”—the ninth in the series of the 12 feature-length
films.
Tickets, which are $5 general admission, can be purchased on-line at www.extraordinaryfilmproject.com
or reserved at the door by calling 615-715-1578.
Christmas comes in October to Flint via movie shot here
FLINT -- Jon Russell Cring gestured toward the sunny skies
above the Soggy Bottom Bar and smiled.
"It's kind of weird making a Christmas movie in
October," he said.
But Cring is a director on a very tight schedule --
committed to shooting one movie per month for 12 months -- so Flint's
relatively balmy weather today couldn't spoil his plans.
Cring brought his cast and crew to the Soggy Bottom to shoot
a Christmas-themed comedy, "Wonderful." It's the eighth of 12
proposed low-budget features that Kring's Hendersonville-Tenn.-based company
is planning to make for its year-long Extra/Ordinary Film Project.
The endeavor is taking Cring around the country as he shoots
scripts of various genres written by his father, award-winning novelist
Jonathan Richard Cring. The younger Cring said the company, F-3 Films, plans
to enter the 12 features in film festivals and sell them as a package for
theatrical release.
Cring, 36, said he decided to take on the project
"because it was like (Mount) Everest -- I had to climb it because it's
there."
"Wonderful," a tribute of sorts to the Christmas
film classic "It's a Wonderful Life," is a fable about a
ne'er-do-well dreamer with a fixation on "It's a Wonderful Life" who
dreams of reversing his fortunes as Christmas Eve nears.
Cring and his wife, Tracy, the project's cinematographer,
shot outdoors Sunday in the Carriage Town district and some downtown locales.
The film also will be shot in Orion Township -- at the Canterbury Village
museum/restaurant -- and in Allegan.
The mainly regional cast was recruited through Craigslist,
YouTube, and other online sources, the director said.
"It's like one filming continuous movie with different
parts to it," Cring said of the year-long commitment. "You really
build up your muscles. I've worked with kids and adults, old people, and young
people. I've had lots of sets and no sets."
He said his production budget is $5,000 or less for each
film.
An Ohio native, Cring became interested in making a holiday
movie in Michigan through memories of childhood visits to the famous Bronner's
Christmas store in Frankenmuth. He said the Victorian architecture of Flint
buildings inspired him to shoot here.
Cring said he hopes to premiere "Wonderful" in
Flint by this Christmas -- schedule allowing.
Full-house sees local premier
10-year-old local Constance Owl co-stars in "$6 Man" DWIGHT OTWELL Cherokee Sentinel Editor
Dwight
Otwell/ Sentinel Photo Constance Owl gets a big hug from her
sister Patience outside the Henn Theater before the premier of
the movie "$6 Man", in which Constance is the co-star.
MURPHY - Constance Owl stood on the sidewalk outside the Henn
Theater giggling, smiling and receiving hugs and flowers.
She was about to enter the historic Murphy theater to sit with a full house
who were there on a Saturday morning to view the premier of her new film
"$6 Man".
"I am really excited and nervous," 10-year-old Constance said. Many
of her friends and relatives were present to see her co-star in the movie filmed
mostly in Nashville, TN.
Constance co-stars with Philip Roebuck, a veteran of 33 feature films, in the
full-length independent film about a man who decides to be homeless with his
daughter (Constance) rather than hold a full-time job and be absent from her.
The film follows the travails and joys of Constance and her father as they move
from place to place, trying to find a place to sleep at night. The father
decides on a plan to work an hour a day and live on $6 daily. The budget of the
self-financed movie was $1,500.
After the movie, director Jon Russell Cring and Constance fielded questions
from the audience.
"It was a lot of hard work but it was fun," Constance said of the
less than two weeks it took to make the movie.
Constance wasn't allowed to comb or wash her hair and she had only two
outfits for the two weeks of filming. Constance said that she convinced the
motel owner to open the swimming pool after hours so that she could swim after a
long-day of shooting the movie.
Cring said they were outside 24-hours a day while making the film. They began
to see what it was like to be homeless. Most of the time, their environment was
loud and brass and there was no sense of quiet.
"It is always a great endeavor just to find a place to rest, " said
Tracie Cring, cinematographer and editor of the movie.
"At times is was beautiful, seeing the sunrise, but it was also
ugly," Jon Cring said.
"We met many homeless people," Tracie Cring said. "Many of the
locations where we (were shooting) were places that the homeless were."
"I felt homeless playing the part," Constance said.
One of the bad parts of making the movie was the ticks, Constance said.
Constance found a tick on her head and one man associated with the film found
five ticks on him.
"They were gross," Constance said of the ticks. "I never want
to see a tick again in my life."
One woman in the audience, after seeing the movie, said she wants to see
something done for the homeless.
"It was one of the finest movies I have ever seen," a; woman said
of the movie.
Jon Cring said the ending of "6 man" has been a point of contention
and he likes it that way. Art should make you think, he said.
Constance is the daughter of Cliff and Janis Owl and the granddaughter of
Joan Hollingsworth and Clifford and Maggie Owl, all of Murphy.
New local film explores themes of fatherhood and
homelessness
$6 Man,
the story of a father (Philip Roebuck) and his 10-year-old
daughter (Constance Owl) who become homeless, will screen
Thursday at Watkins College of Art and Design Theater. Directed
by Jon Russell Cring, the film was shot mostly in Nashville.
By BILL FRISKICS-WARREN Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, 07/22/07
Hendersonville filmmaker Jon Russell Cring gives new
meaning to the word prolific. Since January, he and his company, F3
Films, have completed a handful of feature-length movies. By the end of
the year, they plan to have produced and premiered a total of a dozen
features.
Cring calls the initiative the Extra/Ordinary Film
Project, a moniker that refers to more than just the rate at which he
and his team, which includes his wife, Tracy, a cinematographer, crank
out movies.
"We make films about ordinary people who are
put into extraordinary circumstances," Cring said, speaking by
phone from Crossville, the site of Extra/Ordinary's sixth feature of
2007.
Their latest completed project, $6 Man, tells
the story of a young father who, due to a conspiracy of forces,
including the death of his wife, finds himself homeless and living on
the streets with his 10-year-old daughter.
Cring said that the film, which is being shown at
the Watkins College of Art and Design Theater at 7 p.m. on Thursday,
isn't as much about being homeless as it is about the relationship
between a father and a daughter.
"The man loses his wife and he's lost; he
doesn't know what to do," he explained. "All that he's sure of
is that he wants to be with his daughter as much as he possibly can. But
they have to eat, so he comes up with this concept, this '$6 plan.'
"
According to his scheme, which the father devises as
an alternative to panhandling or availing himself of soup kitchens and
other social services, he works an hour a day in order to earn $6. This
gives him and his daughter $2 each day for breakfast, two more for
dinner, one to buy a book that they can read together and another for
the girl to buy something else with.
It's a quixotic notion, to say the least, and Cring
pointed out that throughout the film, the father has a habit of doing
"the wrong thing for all the right reasons."
And yet the goal of the movie, he added, is less to
provide answers than to get his audience to think.
"People might have one opinion of the father at
the start of the movie, but once they see what he has with his daughter,
they look at him in a different light. They might yearn for that sort of
connection with their own children."
'Not a downer film'
$6 Man stars Seattle actor Philip Roebuck in
the role of the father, Blake Sorrenson, and Constance Owl, a
self-possessed 10-year-old from North Carolina, in the role of his
daughter Natalie. The entire movie was shot on the streets of Nashville
except for those scenes filmed at the urban settlement of converted
dumpsters that the Sorrenson's call "home." All of those
scenes were shot in nearby Columbia.
Despite its gritty setting, the movie, Cring said,
is "not a downer film. It's about what it means to be a father.
It's about trying to preserve family connections."
The inspiration for the movie, he went on to
explain, came from such dialog-driven '70s films as Ordinary People
and Dog Day Afternoon, pictures that tell the stories of everyday
people struggling to make sense of the often challenging situations in
which they find themselves.
"Everybody's life is Ben Hur, they just
don't know it," Cring said. "Everybody's life is an epic, but
for some reason, we're not getting those stories anymore, at least not
from Hollywood. All that anyone out there seems to care about are
biopics and cars blowing up.
"Most people live in a world that lies
somewhere between Michael Moore and NASCAR. That's where most of us
live, I really believe that, and that's the world that the
Extra/Ordinary Film Project is committed to exploring."
Proceeds from Thursday's screening of $6 Man
will benefit the Nashville Rescue Mission.
Published: Sunday, 07/22/07
IF
YOU GO
What:$6 Man Where: Watkins College of Art and Design Theater,
2298 Metro Center Blvd. When: Thursday at 7 p.m. Tickets: $5 at the door Contact: 715-1578
The
$5,000 Anti-War Film When
your goal is to produce and premiere 12 feature films in 12 months, the
budgets have to be portable. Monday, October 8,
2007 at 12:35 PM By FilmStew
Staff
ExtraOrdinaryFilmProject.com
Photo
Seven down, five to go
The Drive, the seventh feature-length product of the Extra/Ordinary
Film Project, is set to premiere in Gallatin, Tennessee on October
18th. Submitted to the 2008 Sundance Film Festival for consideration, it
tells the story of grieving parents mixing revenge with a trip to the
Gateway Arch in St. Louis to scatter the ashes of their son, a casualty of
the ongoing Iraq war.
Completed in early September, The Drive will be followed by Wonderful,
the tale of the number one fan of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life
and his own attempts on Christmas Eve to find meaning in his life.
Previous entries in the 12-month marathon moviemaking session have been
the waitress comedy Bernee, the hit-and-run drama Ought, the
high school teacher drama Budd, the coming of age drama Too,
the homeless father-daughter drama The $6 Man and the all-female
ensemble, escaped convict drama Summer’s Morn.
Begun in February of this year and continuing on through January of 2008,
the Extra/Ordinary Film Project is the brainchild of
wife-cinematographer-editor-co-director Tracy Nichole Cring,
husband-co-director Jonathan Russell Cring and the latter's father,
screenwriter-composer Jonathan Richard Cring. The Henderson, TN based trio
shoot from the first to the tenth of each month, working with local actors
and a budget of $5,000 or less, before quickly editing down the final
product using Final Cut Pro software.
Film fans can purchase a DVD of each film online for $12 or sign up for
all twelve entries for the package price of $99. Amazingly, much of the
money for these films comes from average folks around the country who, by
donating to one or more of the films, gain entrance to a group of
supporters dubbed Heroes
of Creativity. It’s truly grassroots filmmaking on a whole new
Internet level.
And as far as the four remaining films needed to complete the Crings'
12-by-12 series, our favorite logline is that of #11, Perchance to
Dream. It reads: 'A man suffering from narcolepsy is on a desperate
search to discover where reality meets the dream world and whether he
lives for now, for later or exists only in a former time.'
Film
May 3, 2007
Budding Director
Hendersonville’s Jon Russell Cring keeps on cranking a movie a month
In the time it takes many indie auteurs to complain they just can’t find
any funding, Jon Russell Cring will have premiered his third completed
feature in less than four months—with another in the can and another ready
to shoot. With the premiere 7 p.m. Thursday of Budd at Gallatin’s
Palace Theatre, the Hendersonville filmmaker and his F3 Films will be a
third of the way through their Extra/Ordinary Film Project—an attempt to
produce and premiere 12 locally made feature films in as many months.
After January’s comedy Bernee (which has played at regional
festivals) and March’s thriller Ought, Budd comes as
something of a palate cleanser—a comedy about an English teacher (D.R.
Smith) whose classroom meltdown prompts a round of regression therapy with a
psychiatrist (Paige Trewitt). Of special note is an appearance by Valri
Bromfield, a veteran film and TV comic who performed on the very first
episode of Saturday Night Live and worked early on in a comedy team
with Dan Aykroyd. Now a Nashville resident and customer-service rep with the
Nashville Symphony, she appears in the film as what Cring calls “Budd’s
slightly psychotic, masochistic mother.”
Co-directed with Cring’s wife Tracy, who also serves as cinematographer
and editor, Budd is said to be appropriate for ages 14 and up. Next
up: the high school romance Too, followed by a nine-day shoot this
month for the homeless drama $6 Man. If only Terrence Malick worked
at this pace. Tickets for the screening are $5; for more information on this
and future films, see extraordinaryfilmproject.com.
The Lebanon Democrat
April 4, 2007
Tinseltown
comes to Lebanon
By EVAN McMORRIS-SANTORO
Wannabe moviestars, here’s your chance: the lights, cameras and
action that make movie magic are coming to Lebanon.
F3 Films, a Hendersonville-based production company, will be shooting
the final scenes of its latest project at Walter J. Baird Middle School
on Saturday, April 7. To fill out the cast, the company is seeking
locals to serve as extras on the Saturday shooting day.
The film, entitled simply “Too”, centers around a teenage boy’s quest to
eat his lunch alone on the bleachers at school. To get what he wants he
has to battle his way through a seemingly impenetrable wall of authority
figures and school rules. (Oh, and of course there’s a love interest to
complicate things further.)
“It’s “Breakfast Club” meets “Napoleon Dynamite”,” said Jon Cring,
director of “Too”. “It’s a coming of age story, where a kid learns how
to take on authority and win.”
Cring is the writer-director behind most of F3’s films. His wife, Tracy
runs the company with him and acts as the cinematographer on many of the
company’s projects. “Too” is part of F3’s Extra/Ordinary film series, a
ambitious project to film and release 12 feature films in 12 months.
Cring said the dozen films focus on the extraordinary events that can be
found in everyday lives.
“These are character- and story-driven movies,” he explained. “There are
lot of movies out there right now where explosions and special effects
are the main elements. Don’t get me wrong, I like those movies too. But
we’re trying to focus on everyday people and their stories.”
“Too” is set to release in May. Two other F3 films have recently been
admitted to film festivals across the Southeast. “Lenders Morgan”, a
drama about the disappearance of a young girl in an Ohio town is
scheduled to be in competition at the Appalachian Film Festival in West
Virginia and “Bernee”, a comedy about waitress trying to raise a
daughter on her own has earned a place in the Top Ten Films in America
festival held in Galax, Virginia.
Film with local ties premieres Thursday
By Brandon Puttbrese
The News Examiner
Denton Blane Everett (left) and Jasson Cring pose for a
photo
to publicize their upcoming film “Ought,” premiering 7 p.m.
Thursday at The Palace Theater in Gallatin. (Submitted photo)
A Sumner-based moviemaking family is set
to unveil its latest movie, “Ought,” about a man struggling to cope with
his guilt after hitting a child with his car — and getting away with it.
The full-length feature film will
premiere at the historic Palace Theater, 146 N. Water in Gallatin, on Thursday
at 7 p.m.
Director Jon Russell Cring says
“Ought” is a thriller about a hit-and-run seen through the eyes of the
notorious driver.
The story — written by the filmmaker’s award-winning novelist father
Jonathan Cring — is loosely based on actual events, says Jon Russell.
A close relative was injured by in a hit-and-run accident in the 1990s, the
director said. “We never knew who the driver was.”
The movie picks up from there, says Jon Russell, owner of F3 Films, a
production company operated by him and wife Tracy Cring.
“It’s a fictional account of the life of a person who hits, runs and gets
away with it,” he said.
The main character, Johnson Reynolds, a self-destructive lawyer played by
Denton Blane Everett, injects himself into the life of the family he scarred,
attempting to “find redemption without asking for forgiveness,” Jon
Russell says.
“It’s a sinister tale,” he said, adding that the film is not suitable
for young children.
The movie also features some local actors.
“Ought” is the first installment of a yearlong, 12-movie deal called the
“Extra/Ordinary Film Project” — orchestrated by Jon Russell and wife
Tracy Cring, who own the movie production company F3 Films.
Jon Russell shot footage for the entire movie over 10 days in February. Tracy,
who is F3’s editing specialist, spliced and cut film, making the story
tighter and better flowing for another 10 days.
In the remaining eight days of February, the husband-wife team put the
finishing touches, including adding music and additional editing, on the film.
The plan, Jon Russell says, is to produce one movie a month for 12 months.
“I love working with my wife,” Jon Russell said. “We just love creating
art together. It’s a tremendous amount of work, but at the end of a month
you have something that lasts forever.”
The filmmaking duo has already finished shooting the second installment,
“Budd,” the story of a high school English professor who has melt down in
front of students and then utilizes a shrink to find where his passions led
him astray.
Tracy is currently deep into the editing process, and postproduction will
finish by the end of March, Jon Russell says.
The couple is looking for actors, extras and investors for future projects.
Those interested can inquire by e-mailing the Crings at f3films@comcast.net.
1/25/07
JIM RIDLEY- NASHVILLE SCENE
BERNEE While Thong Girl grabbed the headlines, this locally produced feature from Hendersonville filmmaker Jon Russell Cring also set up shop in Gallatin last year. The comedy stars Nashville stand-up comic Heather Horton as a sassy single-mom waitress struggling to make ends meet in a small town, with no help from her tactless ways. The premiere 7 p.m. Thursday at Gallatin’s Palace Theatre is also a kickoff for Cring’s wildly ambitious Extraordinary Film Project, a plan to make 12 feature-length films in 12 months. The first one, Ought, a thriller about a lawyer haunted by a hit-and-run accident, begins shooting Feb. 1, with the flashback-heavy drama Budd to follow in March. “If nothing else, I’ll have a hell of a eulogy,” Cring says of his daunting schedule. Co-starring Buddy Farler, Jenson Goins, Chris Whitsett and Alicia Ridley (no relation), Bernee will also be available the same day on DVD; see extraordinaryfilmproject.com for more information. —JIM RIDLEY
Friday, 01/19/07
Film tells story of waitress and her big mouth
Heather Horton (left) stars as Bernee, and Buddy Farler (right) plays Jib in the
locally produced film “Bernee.”
(Jennifer Easton/The News Examiner)
Locally produced comedy opens at the
Palace
By Jennifer Easton For The News Examiner (Gallatin, TN)
Cinema fans will get a rare chance to attend a hometown movie premiere at
Gallatin’s Palace Theater Thursday evening when the locally produced comedy
“Bernee” makes its debut.
The film was shot over two weeks in August at
several locations around Hendersonville and Gallatin, including the Blue Goose
Cafe, H.G. Hill’s, and St. Joseph’s of Arimathea and Gallatin’s downtown
city square.
The 109-minute feature film tells the story
of Bernice Jakes, a loudmouth waitress who suffers from carpal tunnel syndrome
and the struggles she encounters in everyday life.
“She’s an outrageous character. She says what’s on her mind — no matter
if it’s appropriate or not,” said Jon Russell Cring, the film’s director
and producer.
Nashville actress and standup comedian Heather Horton plays the title character
as Bernee.
“Bernee definitely doesn’t beat around the bush. She calls it like it is,”
Horton said.
Cring said that inspiration for the film came from a bold waitress that his
father, Jonathon Richard Cring, encountered while dining at a restaurant.
Cring’s father, an accomplished composer and writer, wrote the script after
the waitress insulted him. “She said, ‘you’re such a big man, you really
don’t want to sit there,’
“She was actually trying to be nice, but she was so bold to say that. We
wondered what the rest of her life might be like.”
“Our movies start out with a little nugget like that and we fictionalize the
rest,” Cring said.
The filmmaker believes that moviegoers will see a little of themselves in Bernee.
“Everybody’s life has been hers at some point. Our movies are about common
folks … ordinary people put in extraordinary situations. I believe that
everyone’s life is an epic movie,” Cring said.
“There aren’t enough interesting characters in Hollywood.”
The filmmaker is putting his money where his mouth is.
His independent production company, F3 Films, is launching the Extraordinary
Film Project, an ambitious endeavor to make 12 feature films in 12 months.
“It’s sort of like Mount Everest. It’s there and we have the ability to do
it,” said Cring.
The project is a family affair for the Cring family. Cring’s wife, Tracy, is
the cinematographer, while his father writes all the screenplays. Brother Jasson
acts, and brother Jerrod helps score the music for the films.
Filming for the project’s next film, “Ought” begins Feb. 1. Cring says he
will shoot in Sumner County again and hopes to get other cities around Middle
Tennessee involved.
“Bernee” premiers at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Palace Theater in Gallatin.
Tickets are $5. DVD copies of the movie will be for sale.
F3 Films will be looking for “ordinary folks” to participate as extras in
front of the camera and behind the scenes in upcoming films. Visit www.extraordinaryfilmproject.com
for information.
For one day in August Hendersonville's Blue Goose Café on Main Street became a
movie sound stage as it was the primary shooting location for "Bernee,"
an independently produced film made by F3-Films.
Now the café, along with the cast of the production as well
as some Hendersonville firefighters and police officers will see the results of
their work during the movie's premier on Thursday, Jan. 25 at The Palace Theater
in Gallatin.
F3-Films owned by Russell Cring and his wife Tracy is a
family operation taking stories of everyday people and giving them life on the
movie screen.
Cring believes there is a market for this type production, with two of his
previous films having been screened at national film festivals.
"I believe there will always be a future for independent film," Cring
said, adding as long as people are willing to take a chance on producing them.
The local entrepreneur believes so strongly in independent film he is planning
the, "Extra Ordinary Film Project" that will have him producing 12
films in 12 months.
Helping with this task is his father, Jonathan Richard Cring, a local composer
who also has his hand in script writing.
It was his father's story that Cring turned into "Bernee" a story
about a single mother trying to make a living as a waitress.
Most of the film was shot at the Blue Goose, but there were scenes at local
businesses and at St. Joseph of Arimathea Church.
The plot also involved a fire and Cring, with the cooperation of the city as
well as the fire and police departments, used city employees as extras.
Nashville-based standup comic Heather Hudson had the lead role, however Cring
used local talent for most of the remaining parts.
The lead character is based on a waitress Cring said his father met while on a
trip to Florida.
"We want to make stories about ordinary people," he said.
Hendersonville residents for five years, Cring and his wife are committed to
independent film production in this area.
"I believe there is a future for me here," he said.
"Bernee" has a one-night showing at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25 at
Gallatin's historic Palace Theater. Ticket cost is $5.
Nashville, Tenn., filmmaker Jon Russell Cring is taking his films on the road, and Bloomington will be one of his stops. He’s bringing his independent movie, “Bernee,” his first film in a series of 12, to the Ryder Film Series on Sunday.
“Bernee” is part of the Extraordinary Film Project, something Cring and his crew developed to create 12 feature-length movies in 12 months. The director’s new mission is to bring the films to audiences, and he’s grateful the Ryder is willing to help the independent directors.
“There was a time in the ’70s when marketing independent movies was simpler,” he said. “You put your actors in the back of your car and drove around to little theaters and drive-ins and hope they’ll take a shot. We lost that with corporate Regal Cinema, but places like the Ryder across the country are still open to that.”
In this day and age Cring said, artists such as himself need to seek out their audience and stir up the change they want to see.
“It’s a grassroots thing,” he said. “You have to go out there and create the movement. It’s not going to move on its own.”
Cring said he tries to be different from current Hollywood, which he said is fixated on movies about extraordinary characters. He wants to rejuvenate the film industry by delivering stories about ordinary people who get caught up in the wheels of circumstance, he said.
Peter Polita, Ryder Film Series program director, said “Bernee” will be special because the director will come for a question and answer session after the film.
In “Bernee,” a small-town waitress faces a series of mishaps after the people in her life ignite controversy. Her teenage daughter’s religious enthusiasm creates trouble at school. Meanwhile, her lesbian roommate is a constant target for the townsfolk and her boss tries to involve her in his get-rich quick scheme – selling synthetic marijuana.
But as her life spins around her, Bernee stays true to herself, said actress Heather Horton, who played Bernee in her first leading role.
“She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed,” she said, “but she’s been given some homemade advice and she tries to do right by everyone in her life.”
Cring said his goal with “Bernee” was to go beyond entertaining audiences to inspire them as well.
“Bernee goes through what some people would call a living hell, but what she just calls her life,” he said. “After a series of adventures and misadventures, she comes out the other side of it. I hope the audience comes out of the theater feeling a little more hopeful than when they walked in.”
‘Bernee’
WHEN: 8 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Bear’s Place
MORE INFO: Tickets are $4.
Movie:
BERNEE coming to Sedona on Jan 12
Sedona,
AZ - In
the midst of a two-month stint to film their latest movie, Melvyn's Clock,
the Extra/Ordinary Film Project is pleased to announce that they will be
presenting one of its latest releases at the Dream Theater here in Sedona on
Saturday, January 12th, 2008, at 11:00 AM, admission $5.
The
feature will be BERNEE, a delightful and wacky comedy about a
waitress battling the rigors of hormones and a young teen-aged daughter
putting her through the paces as she struggles to balance a life of her own,
a life with her daughter and a life bespeckled with some of the most
interesting characters to come up the pike in a generation or so.
BERNEE is the winner of the Best Feature and Best Screenplay at the
Top Ten Films in America and Best Actor for star Heather Horton. One critic
described the movie as, "The Lucy Show if Lucy actually had the freedom
to do and say everything she felt and wanted to do."
The Extra/Ordinary Film Project has set out to make twelve feature-length
films in twelve months, premiering their ninth movie, Melvyn's Clock,
at the end of February in Phoenix itself.
"We just saw a really wonderful opportunity while we were here in
Arizona to take some of these films to area communities and premier them in
front of new audiences," says Jon Russell Cring, director and
co-founder of the company.
For more information, please feel free to contact (615) 715-1578 or to
purchase tickets, log onto www.extraordinaryfilmproject.com and make use of
the Paypal account.
BERNEE is rated PG-13 for adult situations and some adult language.
APPY
FILM FESTIVAL: 'I'M TELLING HUMAN STORIES': Director Jon Cring Emphasizes
Stories of Ordinary People
ByTony Rutherford Huntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) – Welcome to a visual land where the
“ordinary” becomes memorable. That’s the philosophy of Jon Russell
Cring, Hendersonville, Tennessee, director and producer of F3 Films.
“One of the exciting things about my films is love them or hate them,
people walk out the door and they talk about them,” Cring said during a
telephone interview. “I’m telling human stories.”
Calling “everybody’s life a Ben Hur,” he explained viewers are
“fascinated” about how you “got through” a challenge. And they nod
affirmatively, “That’s just what happened to me” or “I’ve been in
that situation before.” Thus, Cring ignores the spaceships and car crash
popcorn crunchers in favor of films that closely resemble reality styled
1970s films , such as “Scarecrow,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” and
“Chinatown.”
“If a movie is relatable emotionally, those movies last,” he said.
Two of Cring’s films, “Bernee” and “Lenders Morgan” screen at the
Appalachian Film Festival which starts today, Thursday, April 19, 2007, at
the Keith Albee, and continues through Saturday. “Bernee” screens at
3:45 p.m. Thursday and “Lenders Morgan” rolls at 6:45 p.m. Friday.
Cring, whose wife Tracy serves as technical director and associate producer,
has special excitement about the inclusion of “Bernee,” which is one of
the films made during what he calls “the extraordinary film project,”
where he and his crew intend to make 12 films of entirely different genres
in twelve months.
“We shoot it in ten days, we edit it in ten days and we do post production
which includes scoring and color correction [in ten days].”
F3 Films recently premiered “Ought,” which tells the story of a hit and
run driver from the driver’s perspective. Over the course of four years,
the film follows how the driver “injects himself into the lives of a
family … just so he can be close to the boy he hit.”
Cring will speak to a gathering of Marshall students today at 6 p.m. in
Smith Hall Room 621.
“What I like to talk about is how I make them. Here are my tricks of the
trade. Here’s the way that I get things for free. This is how you can
break down the process of making films. I get sick of people making it
difficult on people so they will not do it. I want to encourage people to
make films. I want it to be an easier process so more of those independent
stories are being heard by people.”
Instead of approaching the goal of twelve films in twelve months from the
broad perception, Cring starts with simplicity: “I have to get eleven
garbage dumpsters. I take it one piece at a time.” In fact, he laughed
that “the making of one of my movies will be much more interesting than
the movie itself. That’s one of the great things about independent
filmmaking.”
BERNEE
Coming to Sedona
On
Saturday morning, January 12th, 2008, at 11:00 A.M., Sedona's very own Dream
Theater, 6615 Highway 179,will
be the hosting location for the presentation of the award-winning
independent film, BERNEE, produced by the Extra/Ordinary Film Project,
headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee, a production house which has set
a goal to create and premier twelve feature-length films in twelve months.
BERNEE
is the story of a single mother/waitress trying to raise a teen-age daughter
while battling raging hormones, a lethargic, dead-pan but enterprising boss
and a roommate who's trying to figure out her identity in too many ways to
even explain.The movie won the
award for Best Actress and Best Screenplay at the Top Ten Films in America and
also at the Appalachian Film Festival.
The
Extra/Ordinary Film Project is in Arizona filming its latest movie, Melvyn's
Clock the ninth in the series of the twelve feature-length films. Tickets,
which are five dollars general admission, can be purchased on-line at www.extraordinaryfilmproject.com
or reserved at the door by calling 615-715-1578.
BERNEE While Thong Girl grabbed
the headlines, this locally produced feature from Hendersonville filmmaker Jon
Russell Cring also set up shop in Gallatin last year. The comedy stars Nashville
stand-up comic Heather Horton as a sassy single-mom waitress struggling to make
ends meet in a small town, with no help from her tactless ways. The premiere 7
p.m. Thursday at Gallatin’s Palace Theatre is also a kickoff for Cring’s
wildly ambitious Extraordinary Film Project, a plan to make 12 feature-length
films in 12 months. The first one, Ought, a thriller about a lawyer
haunted by a hit-and-run accident, begins shooting Feb. 1, with the
flashback-heavy drama Budd to follow in March. “If nothing else,
I’ll have a hell of a eulogy,” Cring says of his daunting schedule.
Co-starring Buddy Farler, Jenson Goins, Chris Whitsett and Alicia Ridley (no
relation), Bernee will also be available the same day on DVD; see
extraordinaryfilmproject.com for more information. —JIM RIDLEY
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Director Jon Russell Cring
