Over 20 Years Creating Film
Email: fmarsawprod@gmail.com
Email: fmarsawprod@gmail.com
Our movies are truly a group effort, and —
Dark Landings – the Short and The Mythos Murders are just the beginning.
Director Sandra Scragg and producer Bry Troyer are key members — leaders — of our production team.
Sandra knows people, likes people, and people like her
It’s amazing how important that fact is in having made our productions as excellent as they’ve turned out.
Bry Troyer is another persons that ‘everyone likes’ – and deservedly so.
Always positive and smiling, he finds a successful way forward in every OMG situation.
The Mythos Murders was Sandra’s first feature film directorial effort. To say it was a huge success is an understatement. Of course she was also the Casting Director and totally involved with and coordinating every part of the production, along with Bry Troyer.
Dark Landings – the Short was Sandra’s first as the Director of a fully-funded professional production. She credited her success to her wide experience in many aspects of film-making and with having directed many stage productions.
At age 7, Bry Troyer, on a farm in Kansas, cast his horse and his 4-H pig in his first movie or musical, I Sing About Pigs. Since then, he has transitioned to making movies for people, co-writing, and producing the recent feature, They Reach.
Bry continues consulting and line producing on other features, writing and producing short films. He hopes that some of them never leave the Internet’s dark corners.
Bry attended the University of Washington’s film school program after earning a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and enrolling there for law. He is currently a producer at the e-sports and production company Evil Geniuses. Additionally, he teaches production management at Seattle Film Institute and has developed and produced commercial material for clients like Coca-Cola and the University of Washington.
Along with his work in video production, he has over ten years of experience in radio journalism and professional writing as an editor, news director, and freelance journalist on subjects ranging from drag queens to dairy cows. He resides in Washington with his husband Ron, their rat terrier Bilbo, and four house plants.
Wally Lane, Mark’s screenwriting mentor, can’t be described simply. But here is a summary:
— Professional Screenwriting Instructor
— Former Pro Boxer
— Poet
— Award-Winning Short Filmmaker (Winos and Pigeons, 2000)
IMark met Wally in 2007 at the PNWA Conference . He advised Mark to consider screenwriting, which the latter decided to try.
Now, going on two decades later, Mark says, “If my scripts don’t float your boat, it’s all Wally’s fault. If you think they’re great, then, Thank you!”
That’s not what Mark actually says. He’s not that big a dummy! Wally was a professional boxer, after all.
The truth is that he appreciates Wally for being so patient with him as a stumbling, too wordy, novelizing shambles of a sort-of apprentice. If not for Wally, he might never have got a copy of ‘The Screenwriter’s Bible’ and ‘To Save The Cat.” Thanks to that Dark Landings and The Mythos Murders have come about — something Mark could never have dreamed of if not for that fortuitous meeting way back when.
Maggie Reed was the first actor of national renown with whom Mark worked.
She’s done an immortal bit on Seinfeld, played on Star Trek – Next Generation, been on the Law & Order series in many guest roles, currently is on “The Equalizer,” and the list goes on.
Her ‘Captain Roe’ in Dark Landings – the Short made everything else work.
When a person like her shows up, lines learned, ready to go, and looks you in the eye, you damned well know you better be ready to give it your best shot, and now.
In short, she was super on camera and on set.
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Here’s more about Mark.
Along with his screenwriting, Mark has produced and directed promotional and educational videos for Buddhist Temples, children’s schools and orphanages, and Ajatananda Ashram in Rishikesh, Northern India.
In 2011, Mark attended Darin Scott’s professional film director’s course. “It was excellent. I’d recommend it to anyone just getting into filmmaking,” he said.
Mark said, “My years as a military policeman and studying martial arts have really helped me in creating realistic and exciting law enforcement and fight scenes in Dark Landings and The Mythos Murders. Having an ex-pro boxer like Wally Lane looking over my shoulder hasn’t hurt, either.”
Mark has lived in and traveled through most of western Europe and to much of Asia, including years in Japan and South Korea, and many long visits to Thailand, Bali in Indonesia, and to “always fascinating” India. The writer and producer has also visited “Hemingway country” in Africa, aboriginal Australia, and has spent winters in Alaska and Norway.
Ironically, Spain and Mexico are where he has come closest to Argentina thus far. But that will change when Dark Landings: The Episodic moves into production. Then a journey to Buenos Aires to capture b-footage for the episodic, to really meet the “Grandmothers,” and to conduct additional research will be very welcome indeed.
Mark holds majors, minors, and certificates in History, English, mid-level Math, and Technical Communications (focused on Writing, Editing, and Project Management), in addition to an MBA and a graduate degree in Education. He comments, “All of my history studies, in school and out, have been hugely important in getting my screenplays ‘right.’”