My profound thanks to these folks, whose contributions made this film possible.
Christopher David Gauntt
Director/Producer
The Art Of Conversation
Ava Shevitt / Village Studios
Ava is an amazing casting director and friend who provided the space where we built the art gallery. We initially thought about using a real gallery, but there were way too many complications, technically and financially. Ava was a real life-saver.
The Flying Morgans
The Morgan Family (Gary, Susan, Molly and Bonnie) have been some of my best supporters. They are an entire family of artists: actors, stunt-performers, acrobats, fashion designers, sculptors, contortionists, etc. etc.
Special kudos goes to Susan Morgan, who is an incredible painter. She not only did the actual portrait of "The Artist" that is represented in the film (me), but she was also kind enough to lend us her art studio to help shoot some of the opening sequence for the film. We completely thrashed it, but it was worth the 41 seconds of footage that we ended up using. And to show our appreciation, we repainted her entire studio. Boy was she surprised... at the mess and the clean up job!
James and Kari Conser-Hornsby
James and Kari were kind enough to lend us their recreation room to let us reshoot the ending spirit sequence with a green-screen set up. It was a pivitol moment in the film, and the original footage ended up being a technical nightmare. We had already taken down the set, and needed a new space, and theirs was perfect.
Ken Schafer / Innoventive Software
Ken and I go back a long way. He is an incredible guy, writer/producer/software developer. He created ScriptThing/Movie Magic Screenwriter, Power Structure, and his latest creation: Frame Forge. Frame Forge is a great program that lets you build a set in virtual 3D, set up your shots, and create a storyboard. You can see the storboards for the Art Of Conversation created in Frame Forge in the Gallery section of this website. This program was so valuable, because it really helped prepare the cast and crew. Everyone knew what was going to happen and when. It allowed us to do a three camera shoot, 15 pages of dialogue and around 40 setups in two days. If you are a director, producer, set designer, you should really check it out:
Design Setters
Design Setters is a top notch set design/construction company. They helped provide space in which we could build the Art Gallery set, which we then transported over to the location. They were extremely helpful with providing us space and resources, and they do great work.
N.A.S.A. and the Earth Observatory Team
N.A.S.A. is just an amazing organization. They do so many wonderful things in the realm of space exploration, and are nice enough to let the public have tremendous access to what they have discovered. In addition to a variety of still images of the stars and galaxies, they allowed me to use their "Visible Earth" image for my opening sequence. It is a composite representation of the earth rotating, made from pictures taken of it from the farther edges of earth's orbit. Even though it's only used for a split second, I really feel it helped kick the opening sequence up a notch.
For more information about these images, click on the following links:
VisibleEarth.nasa.gov
EarthObservatory.nasa.gov
Sue Chastain, About Graphics Software
Sue is great graphic designer, and good person. Although we haven't met, she was nice enough to let me use her her amazing snowflake images for one of the animated clips of the film. For more info about her and her work, please visit:
A.F.T.R.A.
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists were a big help. They arranged an experimental contract that allowed me to use union actors, whose talent really made my job so much easier. For more info, please vist: