Filmmakers Take Another Shot at Short Film ‘Lords’

By Doug Pullen, El Paso Times, Texas

Jul. 26–EL PASO — A couple of guys get their hands on some editing software before it goes on the market and decide to check it out by making a short film about warring border drug families.

Six years, a couple of thousand dollars of their own money and a little momentum later, jazz-musician-turned-filmmaker Billy Townes and promoter-turned-filmmaker Mark Love are at it again.

They’re hosting auditions from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 2 for “Border Lords 2,” the surprise sequel to “Border Lords,” the little indie film that could.

That they’re even considering a sequel is the surprise. They never really set out to make a movie in the first place.

“Billy and I had no experience in shooting a movie, directing or screenwriting, but we thought, ‘Hey, why don’t we try this out,’ ” Love said.

Townes had become a tester for new computer audio software, known as beta testing. He was asked to check out Sony Creative Software’s Vegas audio-video editing software with friend Gerry Scott. The seed was planted.

“We thought, ‘Let’s shoot a mini-film,’ ” Townes recalled. “Around that time, me and my cousin had a screenplay outline for this mob picture we concocted. We named it ‘Border Lords’ and … decided to make it into a movie.”

Townes knew Love from various promotional projects they had worked on. Love, a former model, had dabbled in acting and threw in his two cents.

“I had experience in theater and acting, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we write 3 to 4 episodes for TV or something, just

for fun, and use this software,’ ” Love said. “We did that. Wrote a script. Asked some people if they’d be interested just for fun. It was a labor of love.”

The labor was filmed on a hand-held digital video camera, with an amateur cast that included a local policeman (Paul Jaso, who plays a mobster) and the saxophone player from The Mars Volta (Adrian Terrazas Gonzalez, who gets killed in the flick). It was shot in El Paso as a series of four 10- to 15-minute mini-episodes, which aired on Scott’s cable TV show, “Hype Radio,” in 2002-03.

Much to their surprise, viewers requested more. But the novice filmmakers’ day jobs and divergent schedules — Townes runs his own record company, Shade Records, performs and records; Love does promotions for local clubs and businesses and works with local models — pushed it to the back of the hard drive.

“Border Lords” went back on line last October when Love, who produced it, and Townes, who wrote and directed, decided to revive it. They already had nearly 60 minutes of footage in the can.

“We sat down and said, ‘Let’s finish this.’ Most of it was done; all the footage was shot. We just needed to clean it up and turn it into an actual DVD,” Love said. “We got a couple more scenes, got some people to brush up on some of their parts and decided in November that it’s done. Let’s go it one further and have a premiere.”

So they did, debuting “Border Lords” on Nov. 15 at the offices of Two Ton Creativity/Marketing in Downtown El Paso. The folks at Fellini Film Cafe heard about it and invited them to show it there. Some students at New Mexico State University’s Creative Media Institute, a digital film program, were in the audience that night and invited them to show it on the Las Cruces campus in January.

Now their story about the fictional, warring Cortez and Mendoza drug cartels — conceived well before the current wave of drug-related killings in Juarez — has its own Web site, www.myspace.com/borderlordsmovie, and the support of people like Gilbert Chavarria of elpasofilm.org, a clearinghouse for local filmmakers and film activity in the area.

“It’s a lot of work with little payoff in terms of financial payoffs,” said Chavarria, who helped organize the premiere. “It’s a lot of stress, you put a lot into it, so when you take it on for a second time, it means you got enough out of it to get re-energized to do that again. We just try to help with that stress.”

He describes the first “Border Lords” film as “pretty rough, it’s pretty raw,” but he praises the filmmakers because “they aren’t under any delusions that it is theater, Hollywood-quality stuff.”

“The fact they finished off that thing and put it to rest, put it out, packaged it and did some premieres, they had to be able to step away, having done that now and see what (they) can do for a second time around,” he said. “It was rough, but it was a good start. If they see it as a starting point, not an ending point, that’s a good way to to look at it.”

Townes, who had directed a handful of music videos, said they were in pre-production on “BL2.” Inspired less by current events than classic mob pictures like “The Godfather” films, and TV’s “The Sopranos,” Townes and Love say the sequel will pick up where the first one left off, with the victors of the drug wars facing new challenges.

The filmmakers say they drew from — but did not try to tell the story of — the real drug wars going on across the Rio Grande.

“It’s not a story about anything out now. A lot of people think it’s about the killings in Juarez, but this is basically our own story we’ve had,” Townes said. “We’re expanding on the story and, of course, it’s being influenced by what we hear.”

They will have better equipment — they’re shooting the whole thing in high-definition — “some semblance of a budget” and a more experienced crew going into “2,” he said. Filming should start in the fall and last about three months, Love said, and plans are to release it around June 2009.

This time, they hope to show the finished product at a local movie theater, enter it into some film festivals and, thanks to a connection, try to get it shown on cable’s Independent Film Channel. Townes is flying to Los Angeles this weekend to talk to some actors and other contacts.

He knows they are building from the bottom up.

“Even the Coen brothers had to start somewhere, know what I’m saying,” Townes said. “We’re not looking for a huge windfall. We just want to do the best that we can and entertain people with our own story.”

Doug Pullen may be reached at dpullen@elpasotimes.com; 546-6397.

Make plans –What: “Border Lords 2″ auditions. Aspiring actors and actress should bring a head shot and acting resume (no experience required).

–When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 2.

–Where: Elysian Entertainment, 11450 Rojas (near Goodyear), Suite 20.

–Information: E-mail elysianent@yahoo.com; www.myspace.com/borderlordsmovie.

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