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| Robin Peters is producing the feature “The Crab Orchard” in Champaign this June. |
Robin Peters was pitching sci-fi scripts to distributors at the NAB conference in Las Vegas last year when he ran into Doug Heller of New Mexico’s Zia Films. “Doug told me ?those scripts are too big, I need stuff for cable and foreign, I want a family, boy and his dog type of movie,'” Peters said.
Two weeks later Peters sent Heller a synopsis for “The Crab Orchard.” “He told me, ?if you can do this, I can sell it.'”
Peters is doing it. He’s scheduled to shoot his script this June for three weeks in Champaign and then go to New York for a week.
Peters is raising the under-$500,000 budget from private investors, many in the Champaign area, through his Champaign-based Dreamscape Cinema, a wing of high-tech commercial and corporate production company Dreamscape Design.
Jacobs’ wife, Ruby Handler, stars as a woman whose fireman brother is killed on 9/11. She takes her young son, leaves behind her husband (Judge Reinhold) and failing marriage, and returns to Illinois to live with her widowed, alcoholic father (Ed Asner) and rebuild their lives. The son has trouble with the move but finds solace in friendship with an Arab-American boy. And yes, he gets a dog.
Dreamscape partner Jason Cox is shooting on HD; editor is Derek Glusak. Dreamscape bought an HD camera and custom-built an edit suite for “Orchard.” “We’ll use the HD gear for our corporate clients and rent it out to other production companies” after “Orchard” is finished, Peters said.
Director is TV veteran Michael Jacobs of L.A. Crew includes first AD Cary Paller, sound mixer David Margolis and gaffer Joey Domaracki. Cast includes Chicago actress Betsy Zajko (“The Mothman Prophecies.”) Casting is by Geddes and Linda Jack Talent.
He’s in talks with a number of distributors, including Zia Films.
Peters started Dreamscape Design in 1989 and got in early on the digital revolution. He credits the company with creating one of the first multimedia authoring tools and building one of the first business web sites. Dreamscape provides video production, video and audio post, multimedia and web design services. Clients include NASA, Acme Packaging, Altheimer & Gray, and Palmgren.
He made the full-length doc “FAB 1: John Lennon’s Revolution” in the late ?90’s. He started Dreamscape Cinema in 2001. Peters’ first narrative film, a noir called “Link,” is in postproduction.
Reach Robin Peters at Dreamscape, 888/359-8484, dreamscapecinema.com or dreamscapedesign.com. ?by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com
