John Carpenter’s Halloween

February 14, 2017

Jason Klingensmith | Actor Highlight | MEET THE CAST | UNWAVERING

We continue our UNWAVERING Actor Highlight series today with Jason Klingensmith.

The role Jason played in UNWAVERING is Man in Doorway. As the name of the character states, he is the barrier and enforcer of the terrorists; no need for an actual name. As soon as Jason stepped into the auditions his size alone was an intimidating factor. Standing at 6’2″ and a solid, muscular build, he definitely had the look. He delivered his lines and I immediately knew he was the person for this role.

During filming, we were mostly in a warehouse with no AC and the temperatures outside were around 95 degrees. With the gear the terrorists were wearing sweat poured out of their sleeves when they would lower their guns. These guys were troopers!

Jason’s performance was incredible and he transformed into this sly, intimidating tyrant that kept everyone on their toes.

Jason also enjoys screenwriting and has a webseries called “Rivals.” You can watch the hilarious episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOOJ2T4I3f9YqjSya2mkz_w and check out his IMDB page

Here are the questions we asked Jason:

MPF: What was your favorite part of filming for UNWAVERING?

Jason: It certainly wasn’t the wardrobe in the warehouse, but I think I lost a few pounds that week. There were so many wonderful, talented people that it was a pleasure to be on set with. We had a lot of fun behind the scenes, between takes, talking about our favorite movies, our goals and ambitions, etc. I’ve been on a handful of indie sets, and this was by far the most professional, efficient, and well organized set I’ve had the pleasure of working on. I also gained several new friends. Kind of hard to top that.

MPF: What’s your favorite role you’ve ever played?

Jason: I don’t have one particular favorite role. I try to learn something from every role I play and improve myself as an actor. I did enjoy playing Man in Doorway, though, and it was nice to be able to lock into the character and film it in succession in a relatively short amount of time. I’ve had roles in the past where I’ve played one character, but it’s been stretched over the course of a summer, filming every couple of weekends, and it can be difficult to get back to that character to you were on set 3 weeks ago. Especially if you’ve done any work in between.

MPF: Which actor(s) inspire you?

Jason: There may not be a better, more inspiring, piece of inspiration than the Jim Carrey speech from the MUM Commencement Address in 2014. There are a lot of actors that inspire me, and that I admire a great deal. Some of my favorites are Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, and Terrence Howard.

MPF: What’s your favorite movie of all time?

Jason: A couple all time favorites are Monster Squad, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, and the original Halloween, as I tend to watch more comedy and horror than anything. But my all time favorite film is probably Forrest Gump.

MPF: What are a couple of your hobbies?

Jason: I love to play sports, any sport really, baseball, basketball, football, volleyball, softball, tennis, etc. and I’ve gotten into mud runs in recent years, which are a lot of fun. I also enjoy watching movies and playing video games. And I love screenwriting. I’ve completed three features, one short, and several episodes of a web series, and have several more in the works.

MPF: What made you interested in acting?

Jason: I always wanted to act, but really had no idea of how to go about it, especially living in Ohio, and I was too shy to try drama in high school. Fast forward to adulthood and I’m getting laid off from a job as Treasurer of a steel mill where I’ve been for almost 6 years. That layoff led me to go to the open call for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I ended up getting cast as a background SHIELD Agent, and a fire was lit. I truly caught the bug. I started doing more extra work, started working on student films, and eventually started booking indie films. I have a long ways to go to get where I want to be, but I have truly fallen in love with acting and filmmaking, and really found my passion in life in the process.

MPF: Favorite color?

Jason: A tie between blue and green, with purple a close third.

MPF: Who is your favorite character in the UNWAVERING film?

Jason: I think any of the girls in captivity. It’s easy to root for them. In the face of adversity, they could have just laid down and given up, but they chose to dig deep, find the courage within themselves, and fight their way out.

MPF: Do you have any advice for aspiring actors?

Jason: Perhaps the best acting advice I ever got, I didn’t even realize until a couple years after I got it. A director of one the first films I worked on, Cleanland, told me “don’t act… be”. It hit me a year or so down the road, when I realized what exactly he meant. If your character is angry in the scene, don’t act angry, be angry, if you character is sad in the scene, don’t act sad, be sad. Use whatever you have within yourself to bring those emotions to the surface. I would also say, if you want to be an actor, practice every chance you get. Act out scenes from your favorite movies, take drama class, audition for student films, don’t be afraid to do extra roles in major productions just to see what it feels like to be on a big set, and really just never give up. There is a lot of rejection in the process of acting and trying to become an actor, but treat every job, every audition, as an experience from which to learn something.

Thank you, Jason, for your intimidating performance! For information about the Grand Premiere of UNWAVERING be sure to sign up for the newsletter here: www.menningphotographicfilms.com/newsletter

Also, be sure to stay connected through Facebook | Instagram

February 6, 2017

Joe Morales | Actor Highlight | Meet the Cast | UNWAVERING

Continuing on the UNWAVERING Actor Highlight series, today we are featuring Joe Morales.

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In UNWAVERING Joe plays Tom who is the boyfriend of Sarah’s best friend Brittany. I was looking for someone who was cool, laid back, and charming. Of course, we chose Joe to fit that part.

Joe is very talented and has been a part of several films in the past couple years. He also is involved with radio and we’ve worked with him in Gretchen’s Lock.

Here are the questions we asked Joe:

MPF: What was your favorite part of filming for UNWAVERING?

Joe: My favorite part of filming Unwavering was getting to reunite with some of the Gretchen’s Lock cast and crew. It is always a pleasure to see all of the familiar faces and meet the incredibly talented new faces I had not gotten to work with before. What makes it even better is that everyone is just so kind and each person just wants to make a great film. I also liked getting to ride in a hummer limo for the first time and getting dressed up for prom again brought back good memories from high school.

MPF: What is your favorite role you have ever played?

Joe: It is very difficult to pick a favorite role I have played. They all serve many purposes and are vastly different from each other. I have gotten to play the good guy, the bad guy and the not so great guy, each of those being a learning experience. My favorite roles though are always the more comedic ones, such as Luke, a Chinese man who is addicted to gambling, in Anything Goes. What was fun about that role was making people laugh. I had to attempt a Chinese accent that I did rather poorly, and I had a scene where I lost my clothes in strip poker so I had to take off my robe and show some skin. It was embarrassing to say the least because I was and am a little on the scrawny side and this all happened when I was a freshman in high school where everything is awkward anyway, but it got people to laugh and made it all worth it.

I also enjoy getting to voice Lt. Adam Carson, a character from The Topnotch Tangler which is a segment of It’s All Been Done Radio Hour. The segment is in a superhero universe and Lt. Adam Carson works for the police department. He is always too eager and over joyed to help the superheroes save the city so it is nice to be someone who is usually happy. Check it out at www.itsallbeendoneradiohour.com and take a listen to the other segments of the show, along with the other programs we take part in with It’s All Been Done Presents at www.iabdpresents.com

MPF: Which actor(s) inspire you?

Joe: There are so many fantastic actors out there. The two actors that have always inspired me are Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks. Depp mainly plays very eccentric characters that have a tendency to go outside the box while Hanks plays many down to earth, but also very deep roles that have such power. Andrew Garfield has also become an inspiration to me because as I knew him as playing the snarky teenager Peter Parker from Spider Man, I recently watched him in Hacksaw Ridge and I was in awe. He brought such raw emotion to the role and I bet the real Desmond Doss would have been proud.

MPF: What is your favorite movie of all time?

Joe: John Carpenter’s Halloween will forever be my favorite movie. Aside from the performances and the cinematography, the score is what makes it just so creepy.

MPF: What are some of your hobbies?

Joe: I really enjoy going to the movies with friends, watching television, listening to music, taking my dogs for a walk and swimming. I have wanted to get more involved in photography and get back into music, but life gets in the way and I have not made time for that.

MPF: What made you interested in acting?

Joe: When I was little, my mom would tape my brother, sister, cousins, friends and myself doing skits of The Maury Show and Jerry Springer. We even did spoofs of Rush Hour, Tomb Raider, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. It essentially became our childhood and from there, I realized I enjoyed entertaining people with different characters from stories I wanted to tell. I then got into plays and musicals throughout middle and high school and after college, I started getting more into acting.

MPF: Favorite color?

Joe: Tie between Blue and Green, but I also really like Red to.

MPF: Who is your favorite character in the UNWAVERING film?

Joe: I have not gotten to see any of the film thus far, but from the script, my favorite character is Yusaf. What I like about the character is that you do not really know where he stands. At one moment, he seems to want to help the girls and cares about what is happening. Then he is the complete opposite. It is that mystery of whether or not he is good or bad. Even though I haven’t seen it yet, I know that Nick plays it extraordinarily well.

MPF: Do you have any advice for aspiring actors?

Joe: “If you dream of doing it, make it come true.” Even though the options are best in the big cities like Los Angeles and New York City, Ohio has many options for aspiring actors and filmmakers alike that make it happen, as the Mennings do with their films. Sometimes, it just takes some passionate dreamers to make something happen.

Thank you, Joe, for your stellar performance! For information about the Grand Premiere of UNWAVERING be sure to sign up for the newsletter here: www.menningphotographicfilms.com/newsletter

Also, be sure to stay connected through Facebook | Instagram

April 7, 2016April 7, 2016

Joseph Morales | Actor Highlight | Meet the Cast | Gretchen’s Lock

Next up on our Actor Highlight series is Joseph Morales. The character in the Gretchen’s Lock film who guides the other campers through the woods to the lock is Dominic. Dominic appreciates the history of where he grew up and wants to show his friends a place he used to visit with his grandfather. Joe sent in a video audition trying out for the role of Dominic and he had the calm, in control demeanor that I wanted for this role. While filming, Joe delivered his lines perfectly and the emotions he portrayed elevated his performance in each scene he was in.

Joe started acting at the age of 11 performing in school musicals and plays up through the end of high school. He graduated in 2014 with Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media Communication at The University of Akron. During that time, he worked as one of the music program directors at WZIP, the campus radio station. After graduating from Akron, he was involved in a student feature film and since then has been pursuing a career in acting. Over the last year he has done background work for a variety of movies and has completed a film acting course. Although Joe is relatively new to the film scene, he plans on improving his acting skill set and pursuing future film endeavors.

Here are the questions we asked Joe:

MPF: What was your favorite part of filming for Gretchen’s Lock?

Joe: My favorite parts of filming Gretchen’s Lock were getting to experience the lock itself (especially at night) and getting to work with such incredibly talented and overall fantastic people (and I am not just saying that to be a kiss up, I genuinely mean it haha).

MPF: Did you know anything about the local legends of Gretchen’s Lock before auditioning?

Joe: I had absolutely no idea Gretchen’s Lock existed until the audition came up. I looked a little bit into it beforehand for research, but getting to experience a little bit of the legends through the film made learning about it much more interesting. It’s a great ghost story and I am all about ghost stories.

MPF: Do you believe in ghosts?

Joe: Absolutely a thousand percent yes. Unfortunately, I myself did not experience one while shooting and I don’t think anyone else did either. I have been hoping to go back to maybe experience something out of the ordinary. My aunt, uncle and cousins have had experiences themselves with the paranormal and it is always interesting to hear what they’ve witnessed. It actually makes me jealous because I want those experiences myself haha, but I still believe even though I haven’t personally experienced it…or I have and just didn’t realize it.

MPF: What’s your favorite role you’ve ever played? (Don’t worry; it doesn’t have to be your role in Gretchen’s Lock). 🙂

Joe: Though getting to play Dominic was fun, I have one role that always stood out most. I played Luke from Anything Goes during my freshman year of high school. He was a Chinese addicted gambler who eventually bets away the clothes on his back, which I had to expose my scrawny chest to the audience, which was awkward and uncomfortable at the time. Looking back, it was quite hilarious. Getting to attempt a Chinese accent was also a lot of fun. Any role I received in school plays and musicals where I got to have a mustache or use an accent were always my favorites. I liked to be the comedic relief any chance I got and embarrass myself. I still enjoy it and get to do it every month during a podcast I am apart of that’s recorded in Columbus called It’s All Been Done Radio Hour, with a variety of characters. Funny voices and comedic relief all throughout it!

MPF: Which actor(s) inspire you?

Joe: I could list a lot of actors that have inspired me, but to save some space since I ramble, I would have to go with Johnny Depp. Depp’s characters for the most part are very eccentric and I have always admired his take on such dynamic characters like Edward Scissorhands and Captain Jack Sparrow. Even the more subtle roles like Glen from A Nightmare on Elm Street stood out to me since it was his first film role.

MPF: What’s your favorite movie of all time?

Joe: My favorite movie of all time is John Carpenter’s Halloween. I first saw it by accident when I was 6 and it really scared me, but I love being scared so I always enjoyed watching it. The score is so beautifully done throughout every scene that it helps make it that much more terrifying. The effects may be out of date, but it is the score ultimately, and the visuals at that time, that (in my opinion) helped define the slasher genre of horror films. Plus, you can’t go wrong with stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence and John Carpenter directing.

MPF: What are a couple of your hobbies?

Joe: I really enjoy going to the movies with friends, watching television, listening to music and taking my dogs for a walk. If possible, I also like to go swimming. There are a lot of things I say I want to do, like start running, get into photography, get back into singing, and work out, but I haven’t made time for them yet. The running and working out would definitely be a struggle because I can be active, but I’m not that active. Essentially, I kind of like to be lazy, haha.

MPF: What made you interested in acting?

Joe: When I was little, my mom would tape my brother, sister, cousins, friends and myself doing skits of The Maury Show and Jerry Springer. We even did spoofs of Rush Hour, Tomb Raider, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. It essentially became our childhood and from there, I realized I enjoyed entertaining people with different characters in stories I wanted to be told. I then got into plays and musicals throughout middle and high school and after college, I started getting into film.

MPF: Favorite color?

Joe: It would be a tie between Blue and Green.

MPF: Who is your favorite character in the Gretchen’s Lock film?

Joe: I couldn’t just pick one, so my two favorite characters are Jenn and Jason. Jenn is a bit of a smart aleck and will correct you any chance she gets so it’s very easy to get annoyed with her, which was what was intended. Emily Kelly plays Jenn so well and she is the complete opposite of that character, very nice and warm hearted. Jason, who is also a smart aleck and a bit reckless, is the opposite of Nick, who is kind, quiet and is quite the talented musician and photographer. I will point out though that Deanna, Pakob, Sarah, Emily Geary, and Tyler all did great in their roles. I think I did okay.

MPF: Do you have any advice for aspiring actors?

Joe: My best advice is “If you dream of doing it, make it come true.” Though the options are best in the big cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, being here in northeast Ohio has a lot of options from other aspiring actors and filmmakers that make it happen, like the Mennings did for this film here. Sometimes, it just takes some passionate dreamers to make something happen.

Thank you, Joe, for your excellent performance in the film! We’re so glad that you were a part of the production and you did a terrific job!

For more information about the Gretchen’s Lock film & for tickets to the ONLY local showings in Columbiana, go HERE. We’re thrilled to bring you a locally made independent film production featuring local legends and made in Beaver Creek State Park! Thank you for your support in our endeavors & we hope to see you at the Grand Premiere of Gretchen’s Lock on April 23. It’ll be an eerily good time!