It’s been nearly 18 months since we opened our doors and in that time, our process, our plans, and our team have all evolved. We’ve had the opportunity to work with many new clients (Tree House Edit, Dallas Market Center, MarriageToday), and we’ve gotten a chance to work on our own projects (Seven Poets & the Assassin’s Secret, Secretive Second Film).
We’re excited about what lies ahead, and we’re especially excited about the new additions to the BFM Creative team who we feel will take us to a new level of production:
Allison Graham, Producer
Allison is a very accomplished producer (which is why her bio is egregiously long) who began her career at ad agency, DDB Needham, where she managed the 150 million dollar GTE account for the FOCUS division of DDB. After more than a year of agency work, Allison set her sights on bigger and better opportunities transitioning as a key coffee getter for the cast and crew working on Dallas – JR Returns.
Having had a taste of the exciting and magical world of movies, Allison packed up her model T and moved to tinsel town where she worked for Artisan Entertainment, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Miramax and Dreamworks SKG. Working her way up from coffee to light snacks and beverages, Allison quickly rose to the ranks of Assistant Director, Production Manager and Producer working with such titans as Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, Timur Bekmamvetov and Tim Burton to name drop a few.
She was one of the Key Business Strategists behind The Blair Witch Project marketing campaign, leading the team responsible for revolutionizing the way the Internet and film marketing were viewed.
Allison brings a grassroots upbringing with the sophistication of intelligent marketing and strong production background to successfully design, implement and complete all types of media projects, and her response to any type of challenge can be summed up in a single, simple phrase: “Bring IT.”
Josh Pickering, Director of Photography
Josh’s bio is significantly shorter, mostly out of utility and partially because Allison’s bio is, as mentioned, very, very long. Josh is an award winning cinematographer and visual storyteller who we’ve worked with quite a bit in the past. He entered the film industry in 2003, and has since shot features (including ours), numerous shorts, music videos, commercials, and documentaries.
A graduate of Baylor University, Josh bleeds green and gold. He loves to share his art with others, and he claims the film industry isn’t work, but fun with paychecks tacked on (this view does not necessarily represent the views of BFM Creative, Inc., it’s other employees, or it’s subsidary, Boy From Mars Films). Josh continues to work on features and national commercials. No job is too big or too small as he enjoys the different challenges and opportunities presented by indie filmmaking and big budget work.
Dustin Bailey, Motion Graphics & Visual F/X
Dustin is a graduate of UNT and a very skilled motion graphics and visual f/x artist. Like Josh, we’ve worked with Dustin for several years, but we’re very pleased to be making it official by bringing his talent under the BFM banner.
Dustin is highly sought after, having worked on motion graphics, F/X, and titles for projects like: CBS’s Seve Ballesteros documentary that ran before the 2012 Masters, the recent, much praised, video featuring legendary street artist Shepard Fairey, and the brand new Henry Rollins Capitalism Tour among many, many others.
In Conclusion
We have a really, really good team that can handle everything from treatment through post production, and we can handle any size project. From the $10,000 to $50,000 industrial/trade show/web spot you just need to get done professionally without straining your in-house team or worrying about farming it out to LA. To the six figure and up narrative spots that need professional storytelling and craft and not just good looking footage.
We’re very excited to announce the newest member of the BFM Creative team, Dustin Bailey. We’ve worked with Dustin off and on now for several years, and he’s done a lot of motion graphics and visual f/x work for us, but we’re excited to have him as an official part of the team.
We’ll be adding Dustin’s name and likeness to the site in the next couple of weeks. But in the meantime, you can check out one of his most recent projects done with local filmmaker, Justin Clemons, here: https://vimeo.com/42620146
Justin and Dustin worked with Dallas Contemporary to create this piece based on legendary street artist Shepard Fairey’s work in Dallas.
I’m sitting at a long, simple table looking at the door pictured above. It’s sunny outside. A little water stands by the door, a reminder of yesterday’s violent weather. This is the new home of BFM Creative, and the headquarters for our own creative endeavors–Boy From Mars Films, Edmund Pevensey, Seven Poets, and others.
It stands in what was once the original automobile district of Dallas, or so says Reggie Graham, the man who owns this building and others like it. We’re surrounded by creative companies, agencies, branders, product placers, developers, some of whom we know, and others of whom we are sure to meet.
The bricks, the timber, the concrete, tell the story of a long century. A story we hope to continue. But a story that will no doubt carry on long after we are gone.
If you’re reading this, you’re clearly aware of the new website (though you might not be aware it’s new). We’re still in the process of adding content–specifically updates on our most recent projects, but we’re really excited to finally have something that we feel represents our brand.
We’d like to give some kudos to web designer, Charles Williams, and developer, Caleb White. We’ve known both for several years and have had the opportunity to work alongside of them on a lot of projects. In fact, we mostly grew up together at the same agency. Thankfully, now that we’ve all taken out on our own, we’ve been able to maintain the connection.
They’re very very talented, and we can’t recommend them enough, although it might be difficult to get on their schedules.
You can find Charles here: http://charleswilliams.me/ (His technical savvy is evidenced by his Twitter handle, @charleswilliams. At least 30 million people have that name, but Charles was the first to claim it.)
Caleb is also the founding father of #tietuesday, so if you’re in a creative environment that doesn’t require you to dress up, feel free to join the #tietuesday movement and those of us who choose that one day to honor that greatest of all fashion accessories: The Tie.
Between Notes was released on November 22, 2011, and after six weeks of competing against the likes of Moneyball and Citizen Kane in the traditional Drama category where we had a good run in the top 40. Then, we were properly relocated to Independent and quickly shot into the top 10 where we remained for another week.
It’s been fun to see our work hanging around with films and filmmakers we’ve admired for a long time. However, at this point, we’re all very much ready to move on to our next film which is scheduled to begin shooting this summer.
It’s quite a departure from the anti-plot, musical meditations of Between Notes. More to come on that soon.
“The Cattle Baron’s Ball is the world’s largest single night fundraiser for cancer research.”
So the VO goes.
Cancer sucks. It destroys things. Cells, organs, life. So we fight it because there’s really nothing else to do other than give up, and that’s just not the way we’re wired. Instead, we have massive fundraising events like the Cattle Baron’s Ball and try to support men and women who know a lot more about cancer than we do. The American Cancer Society funds a lot of men and women who fit that description.
Several of us had worked directly with ACS at a previous agency, developing the videos for Relay for Life, so when TracyLocke came to us in August we were excited for the opportunity to be involved.
Bryan Faux (CD), Chris Rainey (ACD), Sherry Krekeler (ACD), Jeff Richey (Writer), and the team at TracyLocke had developed a great concept around this year’s Rhinestone Cowboy theme. They laid out their vision for the piece, delivered some rough storyboards, and we went back and put together our plan to execute.
We were on a tight timeline with the spot needing to air the first week of October leading up to the event on the 15th which meant we had just a couple of weeks to pull together location, talent, and everything else for the shoot, but thankfully the pieces fell into place quickly.
We worked with Linda McAlister to track down our talent (Gary Floyd), our friends at MP&E made sure we had the equipment we needed, and my aunt’s family gave us access to their several thousand acre ranch just west of Fort Worth that was the picture perfect setting.
Within a week we had everything lined up. Unfortunately, the 21st century had encroached on our empty scenic views, so we couldn’t use any of the existing miles of fenceline—we had to build our own. The old fashioned way. In fact, all of the tools you see in the commercial were used to build the fence earlier in the day—many were the original tools used to build those fences nearly a century ago.
You can catch the final spot on WFAA Channel 8 up until the event on October 15th, or you can click here to watch on YouTube. We’re really pleased with the way it came together.
Thanks to Linda McAlister, Anna and Bryan Mayo at MP&E, the Ekstrom and Kennemer families, and of course everyone at TracyLocke.
- Matthew (A) Brown and the BFM Team
From the BFM side:
Executive Producer, Molly Spencer
Creative Producer, Matthew Brown
Producer, Kent Rabalais
Director, Matt Brundige
Director of Photography, Josh Pickering
Visual F/X Artist, Dustin Bailey
Sound Design & Post Audio, Vicki Brundige
We had the opportunity to walk the red carpet before the World Premiere of Between Notes, and as luck would have it, we ended up right between Dennis Quaid who was there for the film Soul Surfer, and Morgan Spurlock who was there for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.
We snapped a couple of photos with our phones, but in the chaos of interviews and flashbulbs we didn’t have too much time to chat. There were a few highlights to the walk besides being sandwiched between two well-known celebrities:
1. The number of reporters who asked David (Ramirez) to say something in Spanish. He knows none.
2. A reporter asked David if he would sing something from the film. David sang “A Whole New World.” He expressed his chagrin at Disney having stolen that from us some years past.
3. Splitting our team into two so we could effectively navigate the interviews without holding up Dennis Quaid who was lamentably stuck behind us for the duration of the walk.
We’re sorry Dennis.
Like us on Facebook and Follow @betweennotes on Twitter to stay up to date with the latest.
Between Notes is the first feature length film produced by Boy From Mars Films, the film division of BFM Creative. We were fortunate enough to have our World Premiere at the Dallas International Film Festival on April 2nd. The screening sold out, and as you’ll see in the video, it was a great time of celebration with friends, family, supporters, and quite a few strangers.
Joel Bernsen, a very talented friend and former co-worker, came out to capture the evening. He also cut the trailer for the film which was featured on Apple Trailers. In short, he’s very talented (as mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph) and we enjoy and recommend working with him if you get the chance.
Visit betweennotesmovie.com or facebook.com/betweennotes to find out more about the film.
