New Web Site

This time, we're serious.

Many apologies to one of our Box of Stars supporters who e-mailed to question "the new direction of the film since we last spoke."

The link to the new Web site last week was a ruse ... a hoax ... nay ... a red herring to divert your attention whilst we put the final touches on:

The Official Hanged Man Movie Web Site

Caught on Film: A Growing Unease in Hollywood

From the NY Times ...

Films like the Peter Jackson “King Kong” were considered disappointments, despite bringing in $547 million at the worldwide box office. And like many of her industry peers facing similar oversight, she regarded the scrutiny of the studio’s quarterly returns as, at times, oppressive. So much so that Ms. Snider quit her job in February to become chief executive of DreamWorks, now a division of Paramount Pictures, to work with the director Steven Spielberg on far fewer projects.

Full Article

Memphis Music

From Memphis Daily News ...

In Jerry Schilling's new book, "Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley," Memphis music is as much a central character as Schilling himself, the youngest member of Elvis' famed Memphis Mafia.

The book, packed with stories of Schilling's 23-year friendship with Elvis, was released nationwide last Thursday.

"I owe so much to Memphis music, because it has been the soundtrack to my life," Schilling said by phone from a hotel room in New York City last week, in the midst of a whirlwind publicity blitz surrounding the book.

He's definitely not the only one who feels that way. While Memphis music has been the soundtrack to his own extraordinary life, it's also the literal soundtrack to no less than four separate local projects at the moment.

Among projects highlighted in the article: a cable TV show, The Hanged Man, and two major Hollywood films, one in wide-release now and the other to come soon.

Full Article

True Lies

True Lies
hosted by BrightCove

Courtesy of Daren Dukes, our producer and Web developer extraordinaire.

New Web Site's Up ...

Check it ...

Here.

Old School

Check out this blast from the past video of composer Robby Grant's band Big Ass Truck from "back in the day" ...

Robbyn Leigh: On a 'role'

Robbyn Leigh, who plays the character Spaceshot in The Hanged Man was recently interviewed by Trevia English of the Gadsden Times.

The article is available here (registration required) and is also included below.

On a 'role'

By Trevia English, Times Staff Writer
Published August 11, 2006

Robbyn Leigh had three major dreams in her life. First, earn any acting role. Check. Then, earn a paying role to prove that she could do it for a living. Check. And finally, showcase her skills in a major motion picture. Check.

Leigh, a 32-year-old Gadsden native, said that she's always wanted to be an actress, but being from such a small town limited her potential to explore.

"I always knew from the time I was a kid that this was what I wanted to do, but being from Gadsden, I didn't know how to express it so no one knew how to encourage it in me," said Leigh. "Even from my perspective, it seemed so far-fetched that I was really embarrassed to say it."

Leigh's parents, Bruce and Becky Parnell, who still live in Gadsden along with their son and two daughters, said she was the last child they expected to see on the big screen.

"Robbyn was extremely shy as a child," said Becky. "She did cheerleading and other activities in school, but she wasn't the one looking for the limelight. She's the one that I didn't think would ever leave Gadsden and she ended up being the only one who left."

After graduating from Gaston High School in 1991, Leigh briefly attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham before moving to New Orleans to broaden her horizons. She enrolled at the University of New Orleans and joined a small theater group, thus, a career was born.

"I was into theater in college, then I got involved with some short plays in New Orleans," said Leigh. "But when I got involved with a modern dance group and we did some dance plays, I said right then, `You know what, I have to do this professionally.'"

New Orleans is a historic district for music, dance and even food, but the theater and drama scene is a bit different. Los Angeles, however, is the place most serious actors need to be, so Leigh and her husband Greg decided to head west.

"New Orleans is very central to the arts, but at the same time, it's very isolated with the musicians and the artists," said Leigh. "There are many more actors doing their own thing. I guess you could say that moving to LA is selling out."

Her husband, who is originally from the San Francisco area, wasn't thrilled about moving back to California, but he knew how valuable the training and experience would be for Leigh.

After a short visit to LA, they returned home to research acting coaches, then relocated to LA within the month.

"The first thing I did was get involved in a serious acting program. In my acting classes in college, we'd sampled around with a technique called Meisner that was really interesting," said Leigh. "I started looking at teachers and I found this guy in LA who was Samford Meisner's director of curriculum at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York for over 20 years."

Leigh enrolled and completed the two-year program and even went into the graduate program for six months before earning her first role as a classically trained performer.

"I had heard that he was the last of the real deal acting coaches still teaching Meisner that had actually worked with Meisner," added Leigh. "That was my first move and probably the thing that I am most proud of."

Leigh has appeared in several plays and even executive produced the short film "Leah," in which she plays the title character.

"Leah" is being prepped for this year's film festivals while Leigh continues to work on her biggest project to date.

She is starring in her first Screen Actor's Guild feature, "The Hanged Man," which is being prepared for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

"The Hanged Man," which also features Adam Hatley (NBC's "Passions") and Cliff Weissman (CBS' "Without a Trace"), is psychological thriller in which seven strangers, who had only corresponded over the Internet, meet in an abandoned house for what is supposed to be their last day on Earth. Supernatural events cause the group to evaluate their lives and the circumstances that brought them to the house.

The movie, filmed partly in Travelers Rest, S.C., is now in its editing stage and producers hope to have it ready for a theatrical release by summer 2007.

"All of the other actors are working in TV or movies right now so it's a really great cast. We stayed in cabins in the mountains, and the set was very remote," said Leigh. "We were always isolated so it was a very intense and unique experience."

Hanged Man Street Team

Want to joing The Hanged Man Street Team?

Want to know what it is?

Send an e-mail to glenn at box of stars dot com if interested or to find out more information.

Please include your city in the e-mail.

Marketing Update

On the surface, it may appear Starbox Pictures has wrapped production and gone on hiatus in the South of France or some far away tropical island.

Sadly, this is far from the truth.

The most common question we hear these days is "Are you done yet?"

The answer is no.

Next month, the answer will still be no.

The month after ... nu-uh.

The month after that - still no.

The next month?

Nope.

The month after that?

Getting close ... but no.

While post production is a long behind-the-scenes process, we have moved very quickly on several marketing projects that are out in the public today. Our teaser has now been viewed by almost 2,000 people on our Web sites and on sites like YouTube, Google Video, VeOh, iFilm, V-Social, and a dozen others.

In the next couple of weeks, we will have our official movie Web site up and running, as well as another trailer.

We also have several guerilla and viral marketing projects coming up very soon. Rest assured, you will know when these are launched.

The Executive Producing Triumverate of Hopper, Weiss, and Hatley will meet for the monthly conclave in L.A. this weekend.

We will not know what they did or talked about during this double secret meeting.

They won't tell us.

Sadly, we spectators will have to sit on the sidelines whilst the filmmakers huddle, plan and edit ... eagerly anticipating every morsel they toss our way.

Timely Tale of Tarot

Looks like Starbox is riding this wave with some heavy hitters ...

Tarot Cards Deal Out Movie Chills and Thrills

From PR Web Newswire
The tarot has long been a staple of Hollywood's supernatural thrillers and mystical who-done-its. The cards are up to no good once again in Woody Allen's "Scoop" and in William H. Macy's current star vehicle "Edmond." But professional intuitive and tarot expert Paul Quinn says the cards are simply misunderstood.

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) July 31, 2006 -- They warned James Bond of foul play in “Live and Let Die,” haunted the dreams of a priest in “Exorcist III,” and foretold toothy canine encounters in “The Wolf Man.” This summer they turn up as calling cards for a serial killer in Woody Allen’s “Scoop,” and spell catastrophe for William H. Macy in “Edmond.” Yes, the tarot, that bedeviling deck of cards continues its legacy as Hollywood’s favorite prop and plot device for all things eerie. But according to Paul Quinn, author of the forthcoming book, “Intuitive Conversations with Life: Tarot for Insight, Guidance and Growth,” the cards’ creepy image is undeserved.

“There are seventy-eight cards in the tarot deck, and it’s the few scary-looking ones that get all the exposure,” says Quinn. He notes that in promotional posters for “Scoop,” actor Hugh Jackman holds a Death card depicting a black helmeted skeleton charging forward with a giant scythe. “Taken at face value the Death card screams of danger and demise -- a perfect movie visual,” he says. “But in the true tarot tradition it symbolizes not physical death but the letting go of anything that gets in the way of spiritual growth.”

In “Scoop,” a card called The Hanged Man is found alongside the body of a murder victim. With its formidable name and unsettling image -- a man hung by his foot, arms bent behind him -- the card’s niche in Hollywood horror and suspense films seems assured. But from Quinn’s perspective, the card is far from frightening. “The Hanged Man represents experiences that require us to surrender control and develop humility and patience,” says Quinn. “There are times we all feel ‘hung up’ by circumstances, as if our hands were tied behind our backs. But the images in the tarot are symbolic in intent, not literal.”

Asked to identify a movie that presents the tarot in a less sensational way, Quinn cites the 1998 film “The Red Violin.” In that film, tarot cards predict events befalling the owners of a violin across the span of three hundred years and several continents. “Though the deeper meanings of the cards weren’t explored, they were presented in a poetic, intuitive way,” he says, “without the atmosphere of pending doom you see in other movies.”

Upcoming indie thriller "The Hanged Man" uses tarot in a different way. Though the film gets its title from the 12th card, tarot cards and images are not used as plot devices, but as thematic drivers for the film. Writer Glenn Hopper believes using the image and journey represented by the major arcana of the tarot deck is a more powerful and accurate representation of tarot. "The story told in tarot is universal," Hopper said. "And for a filmmaker, one that presents a great opportunity to apply to contemporary society."

And the timing couldn't be better. Despite the cards’ predominantly dark role in filmdom, their popularity among the public has never been greater. Stuart Kaplan is founder and owner of U.S. Games Systems, which claims 75-80% of the tarot card market. “In 1970 there were three tarot decks available,” says Kaplan. “Since then, sixteen-hundred have been produced.”

Quinn believes movies and television may play a significant role in the increased interest in the tarot. “People see the tarot in movies and in shows like ‘Charmed’ or ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ and even though it’s shown in a dark context, it captures their imagination. They want to know what these mysterious looking cards are all about.”

A Chicago-based reader and teacher of the tarot, Quinn says most of his students come to the first class with equal amounts of fear and fascination. “I make it my mission to take the terror out of the tarot, but not the mystery,” he says. Indeed, the original intent of these cards just may be an esoteric mystery reminiscent of ‘The Da Vinci Code.’

When the tarot first appeared, in15th century Italy, it was enjoyed exclusively as an aristocratic gambling game. But according to Quinn, esoteric scholars believe the decks may have been devised to conceal and transmit mystical concepts about spiritual transformation in dangerous defiance of Church teachings. Heresies hidden within a frivolous deck of playing cards. Adds Quinn, “Now that would be a good movie.”

Recently listed by Chicago Magazine as a “top talent,” Paul Quinn is a professional intuitive with an international clientele, and is author of the forthcoming book Intuitive Conversations with Life: Tarot for Insight, Guidance and Growth.

(From wire and staff reports.)