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NAME:
Kirk
Sanders
Jon Gaunt
TITLE /
ROLE:
Writer/Director
Producer
COMPANY:
Walking Shadows
Productions
PRODUCTION
CREDITS:
"Broken Echoes," "Macbeth"
LIVES:
Old Town/Lincoln
Park
Day to Day
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A short hop across the street from
ChicagoFilm.com's editorial compound are the offices of
Walking Shadows Productions, home base
for talented young writer/director Kirk Sanders and his
English business/production partner Jon Gaunt. The group
recently premiered "Broken Echoes," a short film about a
couple dealing with the death of their daughter at Chicago Community Cinema and continue
to screen the film at festivals throughout the country.
Perhaps most notably, Walking Shadows has it
sights set on a feature-length production of Bill
Shakespeare's MacBeth, to be shot in and around
greater Chicagoland. We caught up with them to talk
about shooting the Bard, "Broken Echoes" and living in
the 'hood.
Walk me through how Walking
Shadows got started...
KS: Jon and I had worked
on some projects together in the past... He got involved
in the development of "MacBeth." He had been a real
supporter throughout my history in the theater and had a
high regard for this kind of material. So we decided to
go out and promote this film and we went and shot the
trailer, which helped get the vision for "MacBeth" off
the ground. Even the name of our company 'Walking
Shadows' comes from a line in the play.
Since
then, we've gone on to shoot "Broken Echoes," which has
won a number of awards at some festivals, and developed
a strategic media business, where we do commercial work
and corporate videos.
JG: I got involved with
Walking Shadows largely because my entrepreneurial
spirit had kind of tapped out or was unchallenged with
certain other avenues I've explored since I've been in
this country. This one has just bitten me a lot more a
lot deeper than in other industries I’ve been involved
with.
How is "Broken Echoes" faring in the
festival world? KS: It's going well. We just did
D.C. last month and it was a finalist in the Direct
Narrative category at Newport Beach last week. We're out
waiting to hear more from Boston, Tribeca, another
festival up in Canada that has accepted us as an
official screening. It's a little hard to keep track of
all the submissions, but the film is doing really well.
Is Ontario Street Chicago's filmmaking
corridor?
KS: I don't know if it's really a
corridor. Sometimes it seems like a vacuum. Being in the
Loop is nice – this seems to be where a lot of the
rental houses are. Fletcher's (Fletcher
Chicago) just right around the corner, SMS is down
the street. The area also seems to have a lot of post
houses. It maybe started on the post-production side
with all these big loft buildings, then all the office
buildings popped up, and it sort of all worked
backwards. But yeah, this is where everybody sort of
seems to be. Somebody's always shooting something in
this neighborhood.
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