Ronny Camaro and Seven Angry Women

Submitted by Paige Summers

First time filmmakers Bo Linton and Susan Soares made the Hollywood rounds in 2000 and 2001. You know, hanging out in the hip spots hoping to meet somebody important, pitching the studios, and keeping Kinko's in business by buying business cards by the thousands. "We'd still be there today" states Susan, "if we hadn't decided to join the digital revolution." It's their opinion that we will see unprecedented creativity because new and small production studios can avoid the overly powerful studios with their "oatmeal" attitudes that reduce stories to please all of the people some of the time. People that push the envelope run the risk of going too far, but if it weren't for those types of people, we would never see how far we could go. The digital revolution takes the power from the Hollywood elite and puts it into the hands of the people.

One day in August of 2001, Bo and Susan went to a HD seminar at Panavision in Woodland Hills. They were impressed with the beauty of the finished product and the creative and timesaving benefits to using the camera.

Susan remembers the day.

"After the seminar, Bo grabbed my hand and said come on honey, we're going to make a movie. He wanted to go in and talk to some big cheese at Panavision right then and there. I was a bit intimidated but I know that when Bo sets his mind to something, it's going to happen. We went through about three secretaries and then it happened. We got in. We had a great meeting and before I knew it, we were scheduled to make a movie in less than three months. Because of this camera, we were able to make our feature using our checkbooks and the credit cards of a few faithful friends."

Bo has this to say about the experience.

"As far as the camera equipment goes, we used the Panavision Sony HDW F-900 24P. The time and expense we saved not having to deal with developing dailies and also having the ability to see performances immediately saved us. As a director it is important for me to get the best performance from the actors. I took up to seven takes an angle. If we were on film that wouldn't have fit within our budgetary guidelines. Essentially, we recorded all the rehearsals since tape is cheap. For sound we backed everything up on a DAT recorder. If you use this camera, the second AC must wear headphones and listen to camera sound. We lost about twenty percent of our camera sound because of faulty cables. Our soundman could only listen to the DAT recorder and the camera department didn't always check the levels on the camera. If the second AC was wearing headphones it never would have been missed."

Although the feature has incredible production value, they were able to produce Ronny Camaro and Seven Angry Women for very little cash. Bo and Susan attribute that to several things including - the come hell or high water attitude they both had, brilliant writing with the budget in mind, imaginative financing, extensive pre-production to allow the opportunity for creativity during production, guerrilla filmmaking panache, well rehearsed actors, and the ability to turn on a dime.

Bo Linton/Susan Soares Productions is screening their feature at Panavision in Woodland Hills on January 29, 2002. If you would like to contact them, please email Susan at SusanSoiree0768@aol.com. They have already attracted over twelve major distribution studios to the screening and are anticipating a bidding war on their comedic debut.

Bo Linton reflects on the shoot.

"I hate the bad rap producers get. Without them, films would never get made. Susan made sure that I got everything I needed. Without her, well, I don't want to even think about that prospect. The woman can do anything she sets her mind to. Ronny Camaro and Seven Angry Women was an incredible team effort. It was fun watching Susan in command like General Patton. Susan and I made a pact that during the production common courtesy would not be the number one priority. We said "thank you" and "I'm sorry" before we started shooting because twelve straight twenty hour days doesn't leave much time for friendly gestures. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome of the movie."