Strange Stuff - Indie Films and Filmmaking

Indie Gathering 2005
By Christopher Cook

The Indie Gathering was held June 3-5 in Cleveland Ohio this year. Organized by Ray Szuch the independent film event featured movies, lectures, vendors, actors, demonstrations, and more. Ray did a spectacular job organizing and running the event… and he’s a heck of a nice guy to boot. Here are my notes from the convention:

Arriving on Friday afternoon, I noticed the hotel was full of activity. Apparently, the Cleveland Browns had an event going on the same weekend and had booked the top two floors of the hotel. No wonder I couldn’t book a luxury suite. I dragged my two tons of luggage (1.5 tons of which consisted of alcohol) to a standard king room with a large bed and small sofa.

I was at the event to work the Fearmakers Studios table and promote StrangeStuff.com. Fearmakers is an independent production company I’m involved with based out of Wilmington, North Carolina. I don’t live in North Carolina, but that’s a story for another time.

Two other members of the Fearmakers team, Bo Buckley and Eric Holloway, arrived later that evening and we quickly started discussing our display…we didn’t have one. Sure we had posters and such, but Bo and Eric didn’t have enough space in the car to bring a display from North Carolina, so we planned to build one that evening. Crazy you say? HA! I say!

You see, Bo is some kind of freaky genius when it comes to PVC pipe. Without even a drop of booze in his bloodstream, he sketched a display system on paper

and we were off to the local building supply store and Walmart. Some companies spend $30,000 or more for a display, but not Fearmakers. We do more with less.

To make a long story short, we built the display for a total of $60 and it looked great. The pictures below show the progression of the display from start to finish.

The Indie Gathering included awards for almost every activity during the weekend (except for drunken debauchery since winners were too numerous to count) and enormous trophies were conferred.

During the course of the weekend I was selected to be on a panel of judges for a martial arts competition. I took my responsibilities seriously and didn’t simply vote for the hottest chick. I was sober at the time and my judgment was obviously impaired. (Sorry no pictures are available.)

Cruising the vendor’s room, I talked business with Zara Phythian (actress and martial artist)…

…and Staci Swain (Executive Producer, Trail of Terror & Nightmare Society) among others. Staci is on the left with the trophy.

I also had the opportunity to talk a couple of times with Michael Berryman.

You’ll recognize him from “The Hills Have Eyes,” “Weird Science,” and a host of other films. He’s an extremely nice guy and was fun to talk to. He presented two programs during the event and was happy to have his picture taken afterwards. Michael has a book of nature photography coming out soon, so keep an eye out for it.

Overall the event was a success and Ray tells me he is doubling the size of it for next year (August 2006). I plan to attend and I hope to see you there.

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