Justin Brauer | Fate Twisted Simply Coverage

Tempted by Fate

Article by Bruce Ingram

May 11, 2006

Film schools generally discourage people Steve Coulter’s age from attempting to make feature-length movies, but few film students have his years of experience as a writer, actor, editor, cinematographer and producer.

Fortunately, Coulter isn’t in film school.

The 22-year-old Rolling Meadows native makes his writing/debut Saturday night with the world premiere of his drama “Fate Twisted Simply” in Palatine’s Cutting Hall.

The film explores questions of fate in war and in love when Army Ranger Sgt. Kevin Hill (Charlie Franklin of Palatine) goes missing in action while serving overseas. Uncertainty about his survival is presumably a concern for Sgt. Hill, but the film deals primarily with the effect of his disappearance on friends and family at home.

“Fate Twisted Simply” was shot on digital video last May through August in the northwest suburbs. The war scenes were shot on a set in Cutting Hall and in the First United Methodist Church of Palatine, made to look like a war-torn building in Eastern Europe.

“There’s no mention of a particular conflict or country,” said Coulter, a business major at the University of Iowa. “I wanted to keep the story away from politics. It’s not about whether or not we should be in Iraq. It’s about families having to deal with young people going to war.”

Coulter first conceived of the story as a short film four years ago when a cousin in the military was assigned to duty overseas after the invasion of Afghanistan. But he felt he couldn’t do justice to the issues the subject raised with a short treatment.

“Some short films can tell you a lot in five minutes,” Coulter said. “But I like longer, more fully developed stories.”

He’s had lots of experience doing both.

Coulter and his friends Michael P. Noens, Nicholas Mikula and Marc Muszynski began making short films together in their early teens at Plum Grove Junior High School in Rolling Meadows and graduated to features at Fremd High School in Palatine. Two years ago, after they had all gone to separate universities, they formed CNGM Pictures as a not-for-profit company to maintain their creative partnership.

All four friends took turns serving as actors, writers, editors, cinematographers and producers on their collaborative efforts, drawing on a cadre of friends to serve as actors and crew members.

Coulter considers CNGM’s efforts to be part of the emerging microcinema movement.

“Microcinema is very low-budget and truly independent,” he said. “The attitude is: I only have one or two thousand dollars, but there’s some technology out there that makes it affordable and I know some people with skills so let’s make a movie.”

The CNGM partnership’s feature films to date include a horror movie, “The Legends of Cuba Road,” and a romantic comedy, “Please Wait to be Seated” — each made for less than $1,000.
“Fate Twisted Simply” has roughly 50 times as much production value, taking into account donated services and locations.

“Our earlier films were more genre-based,” Coulter said. “Now, instead of imitating what Hollywood does on an extremely low budget, which doesn’t really work, we’re trying to tell stories we don’t see in movie theaters.

“But our focus has always been on story, script and performance rather than blowing up cars.”

ISU Students Premiere Film In Normal

Article by Daniel Frederking

December 5, 2006

A group hoping to make a big splash on the entertainment world is bringing their talent to Normal. On Wednesday, Dec. 6, CNGM Pictures will be showing their new film “Fate Twisted Simply” at the Normal Theater.

“We’re very excited to be here,” Brian Wohl, a senior theatre major and an actor in the film, said.

Wohl is one of numerous ISU students involved in CNGM Pictures. This group is a not-for-profit organization that is meant to help its members gain experience.

“We use CNGM Pictures to grow as film maers. The idea is that we will eventually go from our not-for-profit status as an educational film company, to move up to professional film makers,” Wohl said.

“We’ve kind of created our own independent film school experience over here,” Steve Coulter, director of “Fate Twisted Simply,” said.

Coulter is one of the few members that is not connected to ISU. He is a business management major at the University of Iowa.

The group is based out of Palatine and has been making movies for a while now. The films have been entered in international film festivals and are now out on DVD. They also have a television series in the works that is being shopped around to networks.

“We’ll hopefully be making a living with this,” Wohl said about the future of the company.

Everyone involved in “Fate Twisted Simply” is very excited about the event.

“I think it’s one of the best ones we’ve had yet. The technical aspects have improved and the entire look of the film is coming together,” Nick Mikula, a senior theatre major and lead actor in the film, said.

“It’s a story about the friends and family of a U.S. Army Ranger who’s been serving overseas and is separated from his unit, missing in action. While that’s happening, basically we follow his father back home and the reason s why he hasn’t contacted him in a while. Also, his sister coming back from college and an old friend is trying to get in contact with the family,” Coulter said. “It’s kind of a mix of a family drama and a romantic comedy.”

“It is a story about how fate affects this one family in life and death and love. They have a son away at war and it’s about how they cope with him being away and broken relationships and moving on,” Wohl said.

This will be the first time they will have a showing of one of their films in Normal. “We’ve talked a bunch to our friends and to people we work with in theater and pretty much everyone, but we’ve never really shown them anything. We really wanted to do that at some point so they realize that we’re not completely full of it. This is one that we’re really proud of so we picked this one that would be a good first showing in a totally new marketing area,” Marc Muszynski, a senior acting major and assistant director of the film, said.

The group chose the Normal Theater as the venue for the screening after considering many other options.

“When I was a freshman, the Castle was really cool, but I don’t think they do screening things like this anymore. Then we looked at rooms on-campus, but none of them ever had what we wanted. We wanted a theater feel so that we could have people with popcorn and it could be an event that everyone could enjoy,” Muszynski said.

The Normal Theater has been very helpful throughout the entire process.

“They were really nice about everything,” Muszynski said. “They are really excited about it, which makes us really comfortable and happy to work there.”

The film actually premiered in Palatine on August 10 at the 6th Annual Microcinema Film Festival. They were very happy with the possitive feedback and look forward to hearing the reviews after the Normal showing.

After leaving Normal, the film will continue to be shown throughout the nation.

“We’ll be in a few film festivals coming up in the spring,” Wohl said.

This will not be the last time they present a film in Normal, however. In May, they will be showing a project that was actually filmed in Normal. This movie, which is based around a group of college students, will be titled “Normal Life.”

“Part of the plan for ['Fate Twisted Simply'] was to show something else here, so we could test the audience and see if people would show up for something like this here in Normal,” Muszynski said.

They also decided to show this movie in Normal before “Normal Life” because it can be accepted by a larger audience.

“The nice thing about ‘Fate’ is it’s a much broader audience range than a movie about juniors in college, which appeals to college kids and people who recently graduated college. This one is about a family with a son at war. It can really be accepted by a much larger audience. There’s also a lot of comedy,” Muszynski said.

“Fate Twisted Simply” will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 6. There will be a suggested $5 donation. Copies of the movie will be available for purchase at the screening. They can also be purchased at the CNGM Pictures Web site at CNGMPictures.com. More information about the movie can be found at FateTwistedSimply.com.