Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Powers.
Hi Justin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started volunteering to crew on local microbudget films in the early 2000 met local filmmakers and actors and started making my first comedy/horror feature Pot Zombies. I continued making my own projects as well as shooting other filmmakers low budget movies in Dallas. I started working as a grip on bigger productions to learn lighting and camera movement to improve my own projects and ended up joining the union and have had a decent career as a grip and dolly grip this last decade or so. I never lost my drive to produce my own projects, even though I have been so busy earning a living on bigger studio movies and shows. In 2013 I started a documentary about Dallas punk rock called Everything is A-OK and finished it up mostly during the 2020 covid lockdown. Recently, that documentary has been made available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. It’s hard to make movies with little money… hell, it’s hard to make a movie even with a lot of money. My biggest struggle producing my own stuff is having time to do it while working insane hours on set on bigger productions, which is what actually pays my bills and supports my family.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m most proud of my documentary work. I really enjoy deep-diving into subjects that I’m passionate about. It’s long hard work, but if the subject is something your love and actually interests you, then the project can be a lot of fun even though it’s so time-consuming.
Two things I love is punk rock and cheesy movies, so those are the subjects for my first 2 documentaries. My Dallas punk documentary, Everything is A-OK, was so much fun to make because I can talk about music all day. Editing it was a blast because it was so much fun editing a movie to music I love so much. I recently started my next documentary, It Came From Texas, which is about b-movies shot in the Lone Star State from the drive-in era to the straight-to-video era.
Everything is A-OK is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video and on Tubi
It Came From Texas info at facebook.com/itcamefromtexas
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Even as a child, I was obsessed with making movies. In the ’80s, my family got a VHS camera, and I pretty much took it over. My brother and I would make little horror movies where he would play several victims, and I’d be the killer, or we made different music video-type shorts with our cousins. I still have a tape with some of our stuff on it, but I’ve also lost some of them over the years.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/fringemedia
- Facebook: facebook.com/dallaspunkdoc
- Youtube: youtube.com/fringemedia
Image Credits
Doc Strange
