New Trailer

Check out the new trailer from our international distributor Artist View Entertainment. Click here to view.

Endure Pictures, LLC Signs International Deal

After a long summer of sorting through offers, vetting companies and negotiating terms we have selected Artist View Entertainment (AVE) to represent Endure in the foreign markets. It has been a tedious process and many factors lead to the decision to go with AVE, not the least of which is their sterling reputation in the business. Being in film sales for 19 years, they have seen their fair share of ups and downs in the marketplace and have weathered them all.

Artist View Entertainment will begin introducing Endure to the world at the MIPCOM market in France next week. Their launch strategy includes a full foreign market campaign at the American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica, CA starting November 4 and will continue in other markets next year including Berlin and Cannes. They will market 48 territories (excluding U.S. and Canada) and the rights to Endure will be sold separately for TV and Theatrical/Video in each territory.

NFocus remains in negotiation for a distribution contract for North American rights including the United States, Canada and Bermuda so stay tuned for this announcement. It is from this deal we will know when and where Endure may be seen in the future.

Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival

"Endure" will be screening at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival on Saturday, October 30. Judd Nelson will be a special guest at the festival so please join us all for the 8pm showing and after party. Tickets to both can be purchased at: http://fliff.com/event_details.asp?eventid=408 Who's coming?

Two More Festivals For 'Endure'

Interest in 'Endure' continues to grown in the festival circuit, as it will be screening at two more festivals this fall.

Central Florida Film Festival
September 3-6
Orlando, FL
www.centralfloridafilmfestival.com

Jacksonville Film Festival
October 14-17
Jacksonville, FL
www.jacksonvillefilmfestival.com

Cape Fear Independent Film Festival

'Endure' is screening this weekend, May 1 at 5:30 p.m. at the Cape Fear Independent Film Festival.

Movie Swag

Before and after the Lakeland premiere of Endure, you can buy office movie swag. Get a can koozie, shirt or hat and show your fellow Lakelanders you're one of the cool kids in town.

If you're unable to fly in to Lakeland for the show, you can order said items online.

Lakelridge Police Department Press Conference

Lakeridge Police Press Conference from Endure on Vimeo.

A Florida Southern College Connection to Endure

When Lakeland rolls out the red carpet this weekend for the screening of the new movie "Endure," Florida Southern College will be well-represented.

In Jesse Larson '09 Gets a Close-up Look at the Art of Making Movies With "Endure", Florida Southern interviews one of their own who helped make Endure a reality. FSC grad Jesse Larson served as an associate producer on the film.

Larson was among 70 people who worked on the set every day during the shooting of the $1.5 million independent film. In addition, several FSC alumni including--Trippi McGlinn '00, Toby McGlinn '99, John Hickman '99, and Angela Rogell '02--worked as extras on the film, some of which was filmed just blocks from the College.

Read the rest of the article....

Lakeland Premiere Activities

There are a number of festivities surrounding the upcoming Lakeland Premiere of Endure on April 16 at the Polk Theatre. You'll want to get your tickets before Friday. We've had four straight sell-outs.

For those planning on attending make an extra effort to take advantage of these fun opportunities....


7:00 PM Photo Opportunities on the Red Carpet (BYoC -- Bring Your Own Camera)
7:30 PM Doors Open - Mad rush for seats
8:00 PM Screening Begins -- If no one falls in the mad rush for seats.
9:45 PM Question & Answer Time With Filmmakers -- Not just any filmmakers...the ones that made Endure.
10:30 PM After Party at Molly McHugh's Irish Pub (10% off tab with ticket stub) - (With that kind of savings you may temped to run Molly's out of Guinness. Please designate a driver or ask for cab)
2:00 AM Go Home. -- No, seriously go home.

Sarasota Film Festival

Gary, Jim and Rob respond to questions from audience at Sarasota Film Festival.

Endure played before a sell out crowd at its first screening during the Sarasota Film Festival yesterday. Audience reaction was tremendous. Great comments on all aspects of the film. One encouraging comment was that "this film should be playing in theaters everywhere". Thanks mom! Looking forward to another sold out crowd today.

Endure on the Radio

The podcast Movie Geeks United feature Endure on their Indie Film Spotlight. You can listen to the full episode right here....

Hometown Celebration - Lakeland Premiere of Endure

When: April 16, 8:00 pm
Where: Polk Theatre, Lakeland, FL
Tickets: Polk Theatre


Come and be a part of the Lakeland premiere of Endure as we roll out the red carpet for a Hometown Celebration! The film will play at the historic Polk Theatre on Friday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. Join us for photos on the red carpet at 7:00, and a Q&A session with the filmmakers after the film. Tickets are available at www.enduremovie.com.

The crime thriller was filmed in Lakeland and Bartow last spring. It stars actors Judd Nelson, Devon Sawa, Tom Arnold, and Joey Lauren Adams. Endure had its world premiere before a sold out crowd at the Gasparilla International Film Festival, where it received the Best Florida Production award. It will also screen in two sold out shows at the prestigious Sarasota Film Festival April 12 and 13 as well as the Nashville Film Festival April 18 and 19.

Click here for the Endure trailer...

Video Update 04.06.10

'Endure' Video Update 04.06.10 from Endure on Vimeo.

Sold Out! (Again)

Endure has sold out at yet another festival. The Sarasota Film Festival just let the producers know that both showings of Endure have sold out. If you'd like more information or want to know where you can go to stand outside and hope for an extra ticket.... http://www.sarasotafilmfestival.com/2010/

OR...

You can still find a ticket for the April 16th Lakeland showing of Endure. Get the details here.

Polk Theatre Rolls Out the Red Carpet for the Lakeland Premiere of ENDURE

Endure, a crime thriller locally produced and filmed is set to make its Lakeland debut April 16th at the Polk Theatre. Coming off sold-out shows in Tampa and Sarasota, the film is scheduled for one showing at the historic downtown Lakeland theater.

Written and produced by the local production company, Nfocus. the story revolves around a young woman abducted and tied to a tree in the middle of an isolated swamp in central Florida. The only person who knows her location is dead. Called from the bedside of his ailing wife to unravel the mystery, veteran detective Emory Lane teams with new partner detective Zeth Arnold. As the men sift the clues they come to a startling revelation; they're not the only ones looking for the woman.

Filmed in Lakeland neighborhoods, the Green Swamp and in Bartow last spring, Endure stars Judd Nelson, Devon Sawa, Tom Arnold and Joey Lauren Adams. Endure received the Best Florida Production award at the 2010 Gasparilla International Film Festival. It is scheduled to appear at the prestigious Sarasota Film Festival April 12 and 13 as well as the Nashville Film Festival April 18 and 19.

Lakelanders can order tickets for the exclusive run at http://www.polktheatre.org. The film's writer/director, Joe O'Brien, editor Jim Carleton, and producer Rob Tritton will attend a question and answer session immediately following the film.

Endure is a hit at GIFF

The Endure filmmakers, Jim Carleton, Joe O'Brien, and Rob Tritton, stand in front of the screen at the Gasparilla International Film Festival.

The film premiere sold-out and gave the festival a reason to add a second show on Sunday, March 21st, at 1:30 pm at the CinéBistro.

Tickets are on sale only at the door. Based on the standing ovation the film received Saturday night...you might want to get into line early for Sunday's show.

Invitation from the Filmmakers

The production team at NFocus has completed its first feature film, Endure. NFocus entered the narrative film market in 2002 when they produced their first short film, Blackwater Elegy. After filming Endure last spring, the team spent the remainder of the year editing the picture and adding the final touches in sound design, music, and color correction.

The film will have its world premiere at the Gasparilla International Film Festival this Saturday, March 20 at the Muvico Theatres in Ybor City, FL. Tickets are available for sale at the festival website www.gasparillafilmfestival.com. Join the filmmakers for a great evening and be among the first to see Endure. Ticket holders will also be invited to the premiere after-party at the Aja Channelside, just a short trolley ride from the theatre.

If the premiere sells out, or if you are unable to attend but would like to see the thriller, it will be screening at the Sarasota Film Festival on April 12 at 5:00 p.m. and April 13 at 6:00 p.m. The following weekend it will screen at the Nashville Film Festival on April 18 at 6:45 p.m. and April 19 at 2:30 p.m. To read the synopsis, view behind the scenes photos of the stars, see the trailer, and gather the latest festival information, visit www.enduremovie.com.

Endure Featured in Article on Technology Used to Make Film

There are some amazing technology tools used to make independent films like Endure. We are the subject of an article on how we used RED cameras and the Assimilate digital workflow tool. Take a look, the article isn't just for the technonerd...

http://bit.ly/ahXclZ leads to a PDF of the article. Enjoy.

Find us on Twitter and Facebook

In addition to our primary site at http://enduremovie.com you can follow our tweets at: http://twitter.com/enduremovie and on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Endure/136850538591

Devon Sawa on the set of Endure

Devon Sawa on location in Lakeland, Florida, on April 20, 2009.

Photo by Pierre DuCharme

Endure Key Art Designed By Local Creative Firm

Key artwork for 'Endure' was designed by local creative at Smart Creative. The artwork will be used for marketing materials during festivals and screenings prior to distribution.

Five Years Later, Lakeland Film 'Endure' to Be Screened

Tom Arnold plays Simon in the thriller 'Endure'

By Gary White
THE LEDGER

Published: Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 2:18 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 2:18 p.m.

What might have seemed a quixotic project four years ago will soon be projected onto movie screens. "Endure," a movie conceived and filmed in Polk County, is at last a coming attraction. The detective thriller has been accepted into three film festivals and will have its premiere screening next month in Tampa.

The making of the small-budget movie has been a long and sometimes agonizing process for writer-director Joe O'Brien and his fellow filmmakers, Rob Tritton and Jim Carleton of Lakeland-based NFocus Pictures. O'Brien conceived the plot in 2005 and began writing the script in 2006, and it took the company about three years to gather financial backing for the project, which had a budget of $1.2 million.

"Taking something from the very beginning, looking at the empty page, to the last step, it was well worth the anxiety and I don't even know what to call it over the last five years," O'Brien said. "I think we have a picture that's better than what we had anticipated, better than what we, I think, imagined it would be."

"Endure," starring Judd Nelson and Tom Arnold, was shot in just 16 days last spring in Lakeland and Bartow. The Ledger has reported on the project in an ongoing series since 2007.

The movie has been accepted to film festivals in Tampa, Sarasota and Nashville. The "Endure" team had submitted rough versions last fall, as the post-production process continued.

The Gasparilla International Film Festival was the first to respond. "Endure" is scheduled to screen March 20 at 7 p.m. at the Muvico Centro Ybor 20 Theater in Tampa. It will be the first time the completed version is shown to the public.

Tickets for the screening will go on sale soon at the festival's Web site, www.gasparillafilmfestival.com.

"Endure" revolves around the frantic search by small-town detectives for a young woman kidnapped and bound to a tree in the Green Swamp. Nelson plays Detective Emory Lane, who leads the case even as his wife (Joey Lauren Adams) is gravely ill.

Each member of the NFocus trio shepherded one segment of the project. Co-producer Tritton led the quest for financial backing from local investors, O'Brien oversaw the shooting and Carleton, the editor and co-producer, headed the post-production work.

Carleton said it was sometimes almost overwhelming to keep the project going while the three worked full-time at their video production company.

"Every part of the process feels like the most difficult while you're in it," Carleton said. "When in the early part you're trying to raise some dollars, you think ... once we get past this it'll be smooth sailing. Then we got into the production part, and it was, 'Wow,' and then in post-production it was like, 'Wow, this has got to be the toughest part.'"

For the final post-shooting task, O'Brien, Carleton and Director of Photography Stephen Campbell traveled to Atlanta to supervise color adjustments at CineFilm, a production company. Carleton said they aimed to create distinct moods for the movie's main locations - dark and eerie for the scenes in the woods, warm and intimate for scenes in Emory's home.

O'Brien, who moved last fall to the Washington, D.C., area, said the final product was a revelation.

"You're sitting in this small theater environment, and you're seeing your picture on a big-screen format for the first time ... so you're really getting a first peek at the impact it could have on an audience," O'Brien said. "We were pretty thrilled with it because we were able to get into the story, and if we who are intimately familiar with the details of each scene and how it was made, if we can still transcend all the technicalities and still get into the story I think we've met our expectations and exceeded them."

The screenings at film festivals will give "Endure" exposure that could lead to a distribution deal. The Nashville Film Festival, founded in 1969, is one of the nation's oldest. That one and the Sarasota Film Festival both take place in April.

Carleton and Tritton plan to attend all three festivals. O'Brien, who is at work on a new screenplay, said he expects to make Sarasota and Nashville but is uncertain about Tampa. The filmmakers said it is unclear whether any cast members will attend the festivals.

The "Endure" team still hopes to hold a screening in Lakeland at some point, possibly at the Polk Theatre, where some scenes were filmed.

With the movie complete, NFocus Pictures hired a Lakeland advertising company, Smart Creative, to create a motif for the movie poster and other promotional material. The motif features a green-tinged image of woods seeping from a black background, along with the title in block letters and the tagline, "Pray he doesn't find her first."

The filmmakers have posted a trailer online at www.enduremovie.com.

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. ]

Festivals Announced

Endure is currently set to have screenings at the following festivals.

Gasparilla International Film Festival ~ March 18-21
Sarasota Film Festival ~ April 9-18
Nashville Film Festival ~ April 15-22

Check festival websites for upcoming announced screening dates and times for Endure.

Final Coloring At CineFilm

Jim, Stephen, and Joe with Colorist John Petersen at CineFilm.

Jim Carleton (editor/post production supervisor), Joe O’Brien (director) and Stephen Campbell (director of photography) spent the week February 1-5 in Atlanta coloring the film. The final coloring and conform was done at CineFilm studios. This is the last step in the post-production process.

'Endure' Sound Editor Practices Addition, Subtraction

RICK RUNION | THE LEDGER

By Gary White

Published: Monday, November 16, 2009 at 4:16 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, November 16, 2009 at 10:49 p.m.

More than 80 years after motion pictures learned to talk, most viewers probably still regard sound as secondary to images in the movies.

Not Rick Morris. A veteran sound editor whose credits include the major-studio films "Face/Off" and "Blow," Morris knows that sonic elements are crucial to a movie's impact. Inaudible dialog can ruin a scene, whereas well chosen sounds can make an audience squirm, laugh or weep.

Morris, a 1977 graduate of Lakeland's Kathleen High School, is the sound design editor for "Endure," a Lakeland-based thriller whose progress The Ledger has been chronicling since its early stages. Morris, owner of the one-man company Maverick Sound in Winter Garden, has two general objectives for the small-budget film shot this spring: removing sounds that might detract from the story and adding sounds that will enhance it.

On a recent morning, Morris sat before three flat-panel computer monitors in his office, a crepuscular room with walls covered by blood red sound-dampening panels. Two mixing boards occupied his desk, their knobs and switches giving him command over every detail of the soundtrack.

Morris said he decided to be a sound man at age 12 as he watched a man at his church operate a four-channel sound board at services. Morris lat er learned more about sound mixing while playing bass guitar in a rock band.

Morris ventured to Hollywood in his early 20s and found work with one of the movie industry's premier sound companies. In addition to his film assignments, he worked on the TV shows "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order." He received an Academy Award nomination for best sound editing on the 1997 film "Face/Off."

Since returning to Florida, Morris has also done sound design for the likes of Universal Studios Florida, the Daytona Speedway and Kennedy Space Center.

Morris, a youthful 50, received the digital video files of "Endure" in mid-October. He said the sound editor's first task is to conduct an aural cleansing. He uses a computer program to remove unwanted noises, such as humming from air conditioners or electrical generators and camera crew clangor.

He also tweaks some vocal elements. He said "Endure" lead actor Judd Nelson has a much deeper voice than co-star Devon Sawa, prompting Morris to do some equalizing of pitch.

Morris adds sound in various ways. He layers on ambient noises, such as cricket drones, wind and thunder in outdoor scenes and background murmuring - known as "walla" - and ringing phones in interior scenes.

Morris' software program offers 96 separate audio tracks, 12 of which he has allotted for music. But Morris resists the temptation to fill every possible sonic nook.

"One thing I've learned from doing backgrounds is less is better," he said.

His role also involves "foley" work, the creation of sound effects to match visual actions.

"Basically, if you see it you have to hear it," Morris said. "If you see a car go by, you have to hear it. That's kind of the general rule."

A car crash occurs in the early moments of "Endure." Morris embellished the scene's recorded track, inserting sounds of a fracturing windshield, a ferocious thump as the car slams into a guardrail and the hiss of steam escaping a punctured radiator.

Other foley additions are less obvious. Morris inserts "body grab" audio and even the rustling of clothes, sounds often too subtle to register during filming.

Morris has a catalog of thousands of audio clips, but he often goes into the field to record fresh sounds. His office includes a soundproof booth, in which he regularly creates sound effects.

As the film's sound designer, Morris supplements the musical score of brothers Adam and Dennis Davidson with extra-musical noises.

"Sometimes in feature films I never get to hear the music," Morris said. "Independent films I love. I can usually interact directly with the composer and hear the music. I love to do sound design to actually make it part of the score. I hear the music, hear the pitch it's in, and I'll pitch things to make it part of the music."

He played the movie's opening scene, in which a young woman lies on a floor, a gag in her mouth. As she is dragged by the unseen kidnapper, an eerily warbling metallic sound blends with the music, compounding the sense of dread.

Lakeland resident Jim Carlton, the film's editor, said Morris' efforts are particularly important for the scenes in which the young woman, Daphne, is shown bound to a tree in the woods as the local police search for her.

"In this film, especially with Daphne on the tree and her inability to verbally communicate with the audience, the sound design is a critical element," Carlton said. "It's almost a character in and of itself. It's setting the mood and tone for each of the scenes."

Morris said his task is more than half finished. The producers are beginning to submit rough versions of "Endure" to film festivals and hope to have it completed in December.

Carlton spent months editing the film.,"It's amazing the difference from the sound we've given him and what he's added," Carlton said.

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. ]