Tuesday, April 27, 2004 | 8:26 a.m.
In the one-story home he shares with partner-in-film Jeypee Franco, Kelly Schwarze scans over framed news clippings hanging on the wall.
"This is how it all started," Schwarze said about the early days of his production company, Vision Dynamics Entertainment.
But on this day, two days after the company's $6,000 movie, "The S.I.N. Special Intelligence Network," was shown at the Palm Beach International Film Festival, it's all about where the company is headed.
The festival was a big break for Vision Dynamics Entertainment, headed by the 25-year-old Schwarze.
Next month the crew starts shooting "The Indie-Pendant," a movie that will cost four times as much to make as "The S.I.N." The film will feature members from the Screen Actors Guild and the filmmakers will use a new Panasonic X100 DV camera. "For us, this is a big step," Schwarze said.
A giant step, even.
Vision Dynamics Entertainment is a small business that operates out of Schwarze's tidy and stylish Las Vegas home, where an open front room serves as a studio with production equipment and computer monitors. A closet lined with foam doubles as an audio room.
Until actual shooting begins on "The Indie-Pendant," test screens are shot in the front yard, extending at times into the street.
"The neighbors think we're nuts," Schwarze said, looking through the window. "There's always something going on."
"We'll be filming something with (fake) guns out in the street," added Jimmy Germano, the company's director of marketing, who is featured in "The Indie-Pendant."
In "The Indie-Pendant," a filmmaker pitches a film to a major producer, gets it declined, sees it made into a movie by the producer he pitched it to, then tries to steal it.
"It's a movie about movies," Schwarze said. "We thought it would be nice to take a cheap shot at Hollywood. There's a lot of good movies out there, but nobody's going to see them because they don't have product placement."
Written by Edward Dentzel, a former car salesman from Pennsylvania, the movie's premise originated when Dentzel was working at CineVegas and learned that films ($40,000 prints) often arrive at festivals in the mail.
"I thought, if I really wanted to, I could steal the film," Dentzel said as he sat on a couch in the living room.
But he didn't. He forsake mail tampering and joined Schwarze's team, and is now the company's vice president of operations and co-investor of "The Indie-Pendant."
"We've come a long way in four years," Dentzel said, referring to the company's creative progress and the fact that "The S.I.N." was picked up by Echelon Entertainment. Echelon is distributing the movie in the Netherlands and Signapore andpitching it as an ideal television series.
"In an industry where companies take 10 to 15 years to get distributed, our second movie got distribution," Dentzel said.
On site
The crew already has secured permits and picked out its locations for the shooting of "The Indie-Pendant."
"We're not guerilla filmmakers," Schwarze said. "We used to be. But now we want to do things the legitimate way. We're shooting a lot of this at the Greek Isles. They've been very good to us.
"Our actors are staying there."
Before, Schwarze said, "It was a handshake and a smile along the way. We were going into businesses saying, 'Hey, can we film here?' "
The company's first production, "Poking the Eye of the Storm" was a trial movie that drew more than 400 viewers to its premiere at the old Cinedome on Desert Inn Road.
" 'Poking the Eye of the Storm' was kind of a 'MacGyver' meets 'Get Smart' comedy film," Kelly said. "And it kept getting longer and longer. Soon I had a 75-page screenplay."
"The S.I.N" was a more serious effort and took two years to make. At one time, Schwarze and his team (who all have other jobs) were working on shooting two days a week every week for four months.
The movie starred local actors Sandy Hackett, Mike Matthews and Sharon Faetch, and focused on a man who wanted to drown the world by melting ice caps.
However, the premiere was scheduled for Sept. 13, 2001.
"We had a lot of publicity on the film locally," Schwarze said. "We sold close to 1,500 tickets. We had people from Miramax interested in coming out. Then came Sept. 11. By that point I didn't care about the film."
"On top of everything else, in 'The S.I.N.,' the first five minutes there was an explosion," Dentzel interjected.
The crew reshot some of the movie, and it was shown in May 2002 at the Starbright Theatre in Summerlin.
Getting the movie into the Palm Beach International Film Festival was a big break for the company, even though, Scwharze said, "We didn't have the turnout we were hoping for."
"We had a pretty bad time slot," he said. "It was on a Monday at 1:45 ... The people who did show up, they seemed very positive."
Such bumps in the road are never permanent for the company that has no managers or agents and essentially formed in the living rooms of Schwarze and Franco while they attended Cimarron Memorial High School.
Making progress
Though independent filmmaking is rarely a lucrative career, Vision Dynamics Entertainment has been teaming with other companies in between movies to make commercials and music videos.
"It helps finance some of the bigger projects," Schwarze said. "We started doing local underground groups, now we're getting guys in from California. We just did a video for Aaron Hall. We shot in Van Nuys and here."
Not bad for Schwarze, who was making his own home movies in high school using a VHS camera when he met Franco.
The two collaborated and soon were ditching class to shoot films. After high school Schwarze was planning to move to San Francisco to study animation. When his student loan didn't go through he registered at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
UNLV didn't have an animation program, so Schwarze took some film, management and small-business classes.
"Eventually I had to make the decision, 'Am I going to finish college or start my own company?', " Schwarze said.
"We always knew we could do it. It was how well we could do it."
Boom time
The idea of independent filmmaking exploded in popularity in the 1990s, when digital video became available at an affordable price. There are now more low-budget filmmakers out there that there were 15 years ago, but the competition isn't a concern for Vision Dynamics Entertainment, which sees its advantage in shooting feature-length movies.
"Everybody shoots shorts, but not feature films," Schwarze said. "It's not so much that they can't do it. It's that they don't invest the time."
Regarding his own efforts, Schwarze said, "If we shot on film, that would help us tremendously."
Right now, the new camera will help. It shoots 24 frames per second (the same as a 35 millimeter), which means it can be transferred more easily to film for distribution to larger audiences if the company chooses. But it also gives a more filmlike quality to the movies.
The company makes business trips to Los Angeles every month, but has no plans to move there.
"There's still really not a community here," Schwarze said. "If it happens, when it does happen, it's going to be the local guys who are going to do it. New guys coming out of college are starting production companies."
Thanks to technology
Watching a clip from "The S.I.N." that was shot on the top two floors of a parking garage near the Fremont Street Experience, a blushing Schwarze said, "Our skill level has improved immensely. It's almost painful to watch."
Though the action in the scene was pretty impressive, Dentzel agreed with Schwarze.
"From when we did 'The S.I.N.,' the bar has been changed so much in how your film looks," Dentzel said. "The camera we use now wasn't even available three years ago."
Vision Dynamics Entertainment plans to finish shooting "The Indie-Pendant" in September. The movie is scheduled to premiere after the first of the year.
Hackett plays a weatherman in the movie. Germano, a comedian/actor who jokes that this is "a break-out role" for him, plays a guy with a mullet who works at Auto Nugget.
Schwarze said the local premieres are invaluable.
"This lets people know we're serious," he said. "It allows the city, the community to know that we are legitimate and follow through."
The project will be demanding for the crew. Dentzel works at the "Star Trek Experience" and Franco works for DAV Productions. Schwarze works at Aaron Brothers framing and Germano works as a floor manager at The Venetian.
With Walt Disney and George Lucas as his favorite entrepreneurs, Schwarze is determined to be successful in the business, saying (without flinching) that he wants to someday compete with Miramax. He'd like to get to the point where he could be a full-time filmmaker. Having patience isn't always easy.
"It's very difficult," Schwarze said. "You want to keep moving forward."
"I think if we could make a comfortable living doing this we'd be pretty happy," Dentzel said with a smile.
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