He’s been laughed at, cussed, and shot at, but Larry Gibson refuses to abandon his home. Gibson has lived atop Kayford Mountain in West Virginia for decades, fighting to save his family’s land from one of the biggest Mountain Top Removal mines in Appalachia. ”Mountain Man” is a 9 1/2 minute short documentary. It features interviews with West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Cabinet Secretary Randy Huffman, political strategist Mudcat Saunders, Jesuit Wheeling’s Dr. Ben Stout, retired coal miner Chuck Nelson, Coal River Mountain Watch’s Rory McIlmoil and UK’s Dr. Ron Eller, among other interviews.
“Toxic Soup” was named an official selection of the 2010 Twin Cities Film Festival, the Louisville International Festival of Film, the American Conservation Film Festival and the West Virginia Filmmakers Festival.
Including the KahBang Film Festival, the New Jersey Film Festival and the Atlanta Film Festival, that brings our total number of festival selections to seven to date.
Artist Rudy Martinez with director Rory Owen Delaney
In other news, we are pushing ahead with our new documentary about LA’s world famous Graff Lab. The documentary follows the setbacks and successes of the Pico Union Housing Corporation’s efforts to fight the gang violence and unemployment problems of this historic neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles.
About five years ago, Ricky Guerrero had an idea to start a public art space in the parking yard of the PUHC where local kids could safely and legally practice their graffiti art. Since then, Ricky’s dream have exploded with graffiti artists coming from as far away as Italy and Australia to leave their mark in the yard.
The summer’s highlights include artist Rudy “Rude” Martinez’s unveiling of one of the largest Michael Jackson murals in the world on August 28th as well as a Michael Jackson dance tribute performance by Thrill the World LA.
I would also like to take the chance to publicly express my condolences over the tragic death of Dr. Frank Ryan, who was kind enough to grant me a lengthy interview about his charitable work for the Graff Lab as well as for his own foundation, the Bony Pony Ranch just three weeks before his passing.
The Graff Lab's MJ Mural the day before its unveiling to the world
Go inside LA’s world famous Graff Lab, explore the radioactive oil fields in eastern Kentucky and beyond. Documentaries are our specialty, but we also dig music videos, fashion shows and everything in between. From super 8 film to HD video we do it all at Man Bites Dog Films.
Last week I filmed the Carlie & Doni musical comedy show live at the Edye Theater in Santa Monica, California. Afterwards we interviewed Lily Tomlin. Enjoy the excerpts.
Go inside LA’s world famous Graff Lab, explore the radioactive oil fields in eastern Kentucky and beyond. Documentaries are our specialty, but we also dig music videos, fashion shows and everything in between. From super 8 film to HD video we do it all at Man Bites Dog Films.
Yesterday was the first day of shooting for a new documentary I’m directing on The Graff Lab and the Pico Union Housing Corporation located off of Venice and Union here in Los Angeles.
The Graff Lab
The Graff Lab is known throughout the graffiti community as a national treasure that produces and encompasses the best Los Angeles free style aerosol art in an effort to encourage and support the right to self-expression and the creation of art and culture that does not infringe on the rights of others.
The Graff Lab
The documentary will go beyond the Graff Lab to document the work of the Pico Union Housing Corporation, the group from which the Graff Lab was born. You can read more about the Pico Union Housing Corporation here.
In any event, I drove up to Malibu with friends Dario Davis and Matt Berger where the Graff Lab crew was enjoying a day of relaxation at the 28 acre Bony Pony Ranch courtesy of Dr. Frank Ryan. En route we stopped at an antique shop off the side of the road where young Berger bought a Winston acoustic guitar for $50 after bumping into Garey Busey getting his mail in his pjs.
But back to the Bony Pony Ranch… that place is awesome. Dr. Ryan has llamas, long horns, buffalo, goats, donkeys, ponies as well as an enormous tipi village. Before Dr. Ryan acquired the ranch it was owned by country singer and actor Dwight Yoakam. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more updates on the Graff Lab documentary.
Here is the latest music video for 3nvious entitled “Go Hard.” The hardest / best part of making this music video was scouring Los Angeles for the best graffiti spots. And I think we found some of them… Directed by Rory Owen Delaney… Shot by Rory Owen Delaney & Kenny Lorenzana… Edited by Rory Owen Delaney… Special thanks to Kenny Lorenzana, Tony Toledo & Frank Montero for helping out.
Man Bites Dog Films is pleased to announce it is starting pre-production on “The Legend of Jenny Wiley,” a Ronnie Dee Blair production. The film is to be produced in association with Michael Crisp and Scott Hall of Remix Films.
Remix Films recently released “The Very Worst Thing,” a documentary about the worst school bus accident in U.S. history, an accident that happened in Floyd County, Kentucky. We are excited to have them on board as well.
“The Legend of Jenny Wiley” will be a feature documentary about the true story of Jenny Wiley, based on the book The Founding of Harman’s Station and the Wiley Captivity by William Elsey Connelley and Edward R. Hazelett.
Ronnie Dee Blair obtained the film rights from Mr. Hazelett and has researched the story for the last 32 years. Stay tuned for many upcoming updates on this project!
If you didn’t know, I’m a huge soccer fan. Grew up playing it. So I was probably going to watch every game of the World Cup anyway, but now that I’m reporting on it for Crave Online I can justify it as a legitimate use of time. In any event, be sure to check out my blog posts there. I wrote a piece on the USA-England match as well as on Germany-Australia. I’m basically covering any game involving USA, England and Australia.
