By: Liz Parker
Pictures by Erin Gong, FORMzine
[via FORMzine]
On Saturday November 22nd, the premiere of the film “The Art of Power” was held at the Michigan Theater. There was a VIP party held at the theater starting at 6:30 P.M., which included a small buffet, drinks, and desserts, and the movie started at 8:00 P.M. There was also an after-party held at Sava’s on State Street. The movie is produced by First Element Entertainment, which is a Detroit-based film company, and Ann Arbor was the first to see the film in a theatrical setting. Adrian Walker, the founder and CEO of First Element, is a 2006 University of Michigan graduate with a B.S. in Engineering, and he started the company in 2009. He also is the writer and producer of “The Art of Power.”
The film takes place in D.C. and follows Wesley (Scott Norman) as he embarks upon a relationship with a girl he meets at a club (Erin Nicole). He doesn’t know that the girl, Alexis, is friends with his sister, Sienna (Marisa Stober, “Jingles the Clown”), who is trying to finish her degree in education at George Mason University. The film is “non-linear” so at the beginning of the movie we see Wesley being arrested for murder; however, we don’t find out who he is accused of murdering until the end of the movie.
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Marisa Stober, '05 U of M grad and
one of the stars of "The Art of Power" |
The movie was mostly filmed in D.C. but there were a few parts filmed in Ann Arbor, including scenes at the Blue Nile, Ten Thousand Villages, and Eve. There was also one short street scene filmed in Ann Arbor, as I recognized it as Washington Street. Erin Nicole, the actress who plays Alexis, is a reporter for local news channel WDIV, and Marisa Stober, who plays Sienna, is a 2005 U of M grad, so the film has a lot of local connections.
At the Q&A after the movie, Adrian Walker and director Nathanael Sherfield took the stage to answer questions from the audience. Adrian said that they did “preproduction in two months” and he started writing the screenplay in February 2009. It was “the fastest [I’ve] ever written a screenplay” – it only took him three months to write – and they began shooting in summer 2009, in both Ann Arbor, D.C., and other Michigan locations. The film was edited in early 2010.
The story is very “non-linear,” as Walker called it – it’s not in chronological order – and he said that “the only way we felt we could keep people’s attention was to keep them guessing, and a non-linear story can do that.”
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Writer/producer Adrian Walker and director
Nathanael Sherfield |
When asked how much their budget was for the movie, Walker laughed and joked: “If I told you that I’d have to kill you – we’re in negotiations for distribution right now.”
“The Art of Power” is planning on screening in Grand Rapids, D.C, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto, according to
its website, and I believe it will be as well received in those locations as it was in Ann Arbor.
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| star Erin Nicole, who is also a reporter for WDIV |
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| Local reporter with star Peter Carey, who plays a senator in the movie |
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| Delicious desserts at the VIP party |
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| Chandelier at the historic Michigan Theater |
See more pictures from the VIP party at FORMzine.
On Saturday November 22nd, the premiere of the film “The Art of Power” was held at the Michigan Theater. There was a VIP party held at the theater starting at 6:30 P.M., which included a small buffet, drinks, and desserts, and the movie started at 8:00 P.M. There was also an after-party held at Sava’s on State Street. The movie is produced by First Element Entertainment, which is a Detroit-based film company, and Ann Arbor was the first to see the film in a theatrical setting. Adrian Walker, the founder and CEO of First Element, is a 2006 University of Michigan graduate with a B.S. in Engineering, and he started the company in 2009. He also is the writer and producer of “The Art of Power.”
