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High hopes for low-budget movie photo by Bob Pennell Rodney Kuykendal of Central Point produced the independent film "Hard Luck," which was filmed in several Southern Oregon locations, including Lithia Park, Brookings and Ten Mile Lake near Coos Bay. He hopes to see the film released next year. Central Point producer gets a lot out of making independent film By Bill Varble Many a Hollywood movie has been made about people trying to make a Hollywood movie, an activity usually represented as a masochistic folly or a perilous learning journey, take your pick. Rodney Kuykendal just lived it, thanks. His verdict? "Unique, revealing, interesting, different, neat, exhausting." The Central Point resident produced the independent movie "Hard Luck" in association with the production company Filmkitchen.com, a Los Angeles-area firm in which his cousin is a partner. The picture was shot during three weeks in August in Ashland, the south Oregon Coast and Southern California. It stars actor Kirk Harris, Kuykendal's cousin, who also wrote and directed. In his day job, Kuykendal, 31, operates Wave.net, a Medford-based Internet provider. The Ashland High School and Southern Oregon State College graduate is a father of one daughter and has a new baby on the way. He put in his usual work during filming. He downplays the producer's role, saying the creative credit goes to Harris. But Harris says if moviemaking is a war, the producer is one of the warlords. "He was awesome," Harris says. "The producer's job is like plugging a dam with little fingers. You have all these egos ..." "Hard Luck" was shot in part at the Ashland home of Kuykendal's mother, Sandy, near Brookings and Gold Beach, and at the home of Harris' mother, Lavelle Kuykendal, at Lakeside near Ten Mile Lake north of Coos Bay. The picture was made for less than $100,000, small by indie standards and lunch money by major studio standards. Although it was made on a shoestring, Kuykendal believes it has a shot. Actress Karen Black has a key role. Others with solid credits are Renee Humphrey ("French Kiss,"), Matthew Faber ("Natural Born Killers") and Gareth Williams ("Palookaville"). Harris starred in "Loser," his 1996 directing debut, which the L.A. Times called "a `Rebel Without a Cause' for the '90s." "Loser" co-starred Peta Wilson (TV's "La Femme Nikita") and was shot by cinematographer Kent Wakeford ("Mean Streets"). Made for $38,000, it premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival, an offshoot of Robert Redford's popular Sundance Festival, and was released in some 50 cities. He also stars in "My Sweet Killer," which came out in January and won Best Breakthrough Performance at the Method Film Festival in Pasadena, Calif. There's more on the the company and its projects at www.filmkitchen.com . Kuykendal says the roots of "Loser" go back to the childhood he shared with Harris, his brother and Harris' brother. The cousins often went in summers to a cabin their families built over the years at Ten Mile Lake. Later both men lost loved ones to cancer, another central theme in the movie. "Hark Luck" is the story of Lucky O'Donnell (Harris), who escapes from a minimum-security mental hospital and goes home to see his best friend (Faber), who is dying. "It's a road picture," Kuykendal says. "He wants his buddy to die where he was happiest." The two pick up Lucky's former girlfriend (Humphrey, who is also his friend's sister), and the three head off for one last trip to Ten Mile Lake with the authorities in pursuit. Oh yeah: The girl is the top cop's daughter. Friends of Kuykendal and Harris worked as extras. Sometimes it was like a movie about making a movie. Cars broke down. One car rear-ended another. A grip truck smacked into a motel awning in Harbor. An L.A. film crew got lost on Highway 101. Meals were botched. Romances blossomed. Money ran out. Tempers frayed. Through it all the cameras cranked, long days, seven days a week. "It was like war or something," Kuykendal says. "The thing was to get it in the can." "It's completely fiction, but it ties into things that are really relevant to our family," Harris says. Kuykendal's only prior film experience was helping Harris in a short subject he did with actor Martin Sheen. Editing has begun. "Hard Luck" should be finished in early 2000. Filmkitchen plans to cut a deal with a distributor, which will market the film and take a large piece of the gross. They plan to submit the picture to film festivals such as Slamdance. Kuykendal says he sees film production as a natural offshoot of his Internet business. He says the Internet is becoming a major tool in film marketing and will soon be a serious broadcast source. Harris says of his group's pictures, "Hard Luck" is "closest to my heart." He admits there's a bit of himself in the flawed Lucky. He says the friend, Eric, is a composite of Kuykendal and actor Matthew Faber. Kuykendal's take on moviemaking sounds like everybody who's ever worked on a picture: "Pretty exciting," he says. "A lot of hard work." Harris says he'll call his cousin on some other film down the road. "He's gonna get drug back into it," he says. "Big time." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA