Tony Malanowski got an early jump on his filmmaking education, making Super-8 and then 16mm shorts with friends. In 1975, he received a full scholarship to study film at the University of Maryland - Baltimore County, but less than one year later, Tony dropped out and joined a group of friends to co-produce and assistant direct The Alien Factor.
From this first film and those following, Tony earned enough to move to Hollywood, where he worked for almost every low to mid-budget production company in town, as a picture and sound editor. In 1996, Tony began his long association with the Walt Disney Studios, where he worked as the restoration editor for projects such as The Happiest Millionaire, Fantasia and the Davy Crockett TV shows. From 1999-2001 Tony acted as added-value producer and editor for Disney DVDs such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Swiss Family Robinson and Old Yeller.
In 2001, Tony partnered with Ascent Media, where he worked as the restoration editor on Seasons 1-9 of the smash hit Seinfeld and other popular TV shows. Then, in 2007, Tony decided to return to the director's chair with his own DVD Series, America: Her People, Her Stories, and the premiere installment The Battle of Bunker Hill. With this production, the filmmaking journey of producer/director Tony Malanowski has come full circle.
Christian-Movie.com: In a special features segment on The Battle of Bunker Hill DVD, you describe this docudrama as a "viable way to teach American History." What can your film provide that is lacking in America’s classrooms – and even home school curriculum – today?
Tony Malanowski: I was always a huge fan of epic historical films when I was young. Pictures like John Wayne's The Alamo, Gunga Din, War and Peace and many others gave me an idea of what life was like during those times.
Unfortunately, they often played a little "fast and loose" with the facts, in order to make "better" drama (laughs)! So, I thought, what if we re-created the epic feel of those pictures, complete with a full 5.1 Dolby Stereo Mix and a symphonic music score, but kept strictly to the true historical facts? And what if we presented the production in a traditional, faith-based manner that shows the United States of America as a country that was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs and values, which she was and still is? These thoughts gave me the impetus to make The Battle of Bunker Hill.
By putting together a DVD as I just described, we have several advantages over the usual ways of teaching history. First off, we are presenting the history in a way that's very attractive for today's young people - more exciting. Also, all the sound effects and scripted narrative scenes make us different from a standard History Channel documentary, more immediate and more like a "real" movie. We have a story to follow, and characters to care about and get involved in.
And by interweaving the commentary from our historians with the dramatic sequences, we have an opportunity to fit in more period details and facts. That was key because it not only filled in the backstory, but also bridged scenes which might have seemed disjunctive in their narrative without the commentary. In this way, the facts are presented as an addition to the story – an emphasis, if you will.
By making the facts help the storyline, we're making them easier for the viewer to remember. We're hoping that a student will want to watch The Battle of Bunker Hill more than once, and will remember more of what happened because of the multiple viewings.
Of course, we also present the Christian faith of our Founding Fathers as a foundation throughout the story. We don't make it intrusive, but rather a normal, every-day part of life for our early Patriots, as indeed it was. That particular approach may not be missing from a homeschool curriculum, but it is always good to have a chance to re-enforce it, I think. And if the DVD finds its way into a public school, so much the better, right (laughs)?
Christian-Movie.com: Is your film meant to function solely as a teaching aide in educational settings, or do you intend it for other purposes as well?
Tony Malanowski: Certainly, we intend for any productions that come from our company, Light A Candle Films, to educate and inform our young people. But also, by being entertaining and exciting, we make it easier to retain the facts.
I remember when my younger daughter Melissa (who, by the way, is the young girl lighting the candle at the start of our DVD) was having problems conceptualizing the French Revolution. I showed her the montage sequence from Ronald Coleman's 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities. There it all was, the French people starving, storming the Bastille and the soldiers joining in. In about three minutes, she had learned not only a lot of facts, but the flavor of that time in history. That opened up the entire time period to her, and she remembers those facts to this day.
Same with my older daughter Alison, when she watched some of War and Peace with me, when she was in second grade. She was able to tell her teacher who Napoleon was when his name came up one day in class! That Alison had so many facts at the ready stunned her poor teacher, but – really – why can't learning be made that easy by using movies? The trick is to make sure all of the facts presented are true and accurate.
Honestly, I hope people sometimes just want to put the DVD in and watch it, simply because it is a very well-made production!
Christian-Movie.com: How long did it take to complete this project – from pre-production through post?
Tony Malanowski: It took about three years from first getting the inspiration through working out the feasibility of actually doing the project, having my friend Bill Chemerka write the script, setting up the shooting schedule and all the thousand and one other details.
Bill was also one of our historians, and he acted as our on-set "field general" and stunt coordinator during shooting. I genuinely couldn't have done Bunker Hill without him!
Christian-Movie.com: Do you consider yourself a history buff? Have your past film projects delved into history as well, or is this a first for you?
Tony Malanowski: Oh sure...my first two directing efforts were a couple of no-budget "backyard movies" that involved the Civil War. The first concerned Confederate ghosts and the second, which was basically a "remake" of the first, concerned Confederate zombies (laughs)!
They were glorified student films, really. I made them as tests to basically learn all of the jobs that went into making a picture. In that regard, they worked well! I sold both of them and that financed my move to Los Angeles. There, I did picture and sound editing for several independent film companies, before I got a chance to work for major studios like The Walt Disney Company, Sony and Universal.
I have edited and produced several supplemental pieces for DVD releases and presently do a great deal of restoration, which, of course, involves knowing the history of the studios and their libraries. Reading all those Hollywood biographies and studio histories really paid off!
Also, I had been wanting to get back into production for a long time, but just couldn't find a project that I felt comfortable putting my own money in (yes, Bunker Hill is totally self-financed). It had been about 25 years since I produced and directed those "backyard movies" when I lived in Maryland. The market had changed and I couldn’t do the same kind of science-fiction/zombie/monster movies that I did back then – mostly because people usually do low-budget pictures in genres that the major studios don't do. And nowadays, the majors are making $150 million dollar zombie movies, so I certainly can't compete with that!
So then the question became, what kinds of films aren't the majors making anymore? Sadly, the answer is they aren't making pro-American, historical films with traditional values. So that's what we did.
Christian-Movie.com: You shot The Battle of Bunker Hill on film, despite rainstorms and 110° heat. In an industry that is going digital en masse, what is it about film that you can’t do without?
Tony Malanowski: In doing so much restoration work, I saw that productions which were shot on film, but posted on videotape – like most of the TV shows from around 1981-1991, for example – had to go back to their original film elements for any kind of proper DVD release.
Have you ever bought a DVD of a TV series from that time period and saw how soft and fuzzy the picture is? That's because they probably used an outdated 1" Analog Video Master as their source. But compare that to the sharpness on the DVDs for Seinfeld, which we transferred from the original film elements (which took me over two and a half years to match back to the Video Masters). The image is so much clearer because it came from the film negative.
So, yes, you can shoot on digital, but then what do you store it on? The studios are wrestling with this problem now, as well. And when a new digital format comes along, your old format will suddenly be obsolete. But if you shot on film, you can re-transfer to any new video/digital format and still look great! So, from a preservation standpoint, it made perfect sense to shoot on film and store my negative. And, for me, there is still a lot more latitude in the contrast of film than there is in digital.
But, also, film still has a more "expensive" look. Something shot on film still has a theatrical quality to it, while digital has more of a TV look. And it carries through our historian interviews and our images as well, which were all shot on film. Having the grain structure from film just has a specific look to it, and the audience responds positively to it as something unique, even if they can't exactly put their finger on the difference!
My only regret, and it is a big one, is that I couldn't shoot with an anamorphic image...that is, in 2:35 Cinemascope. We did shoot a 16x9 Widescreen format, which is very good, but I would have loved to have fit my cameras with the 'scope lenses. But when you shoot like we did, with five cameras going during the battle scenes, it would have been cost-prohibitive to have rented all those lenses, and they would have been too cumbersome on the handheld cameras. Still, it is something to look forward to doing eventually...
But that's why I shoot on film - picture quality and product longevity!
Christian-Movie.com: What are the top three things you wish you had known before you started working on this project?
Tony Malanowski: The first thing I wish I had known, and now would change, would be that I should shoot my historians first, rather than shooting them last. When filming them, they would come up with some great points that I just had to illustrate. So I spent a lot of time going through stock libraries, and even eBay, to get images to go with their remarks! If I had shot the historians first, then I could have filmed my actors relating to what was being said in the voiceover!
Second, I'll move faster in post. Since I was doing all of the editing and sound cutting myself, it had to sometimes wait while I worked on my regular paying jobs. So Bunker Hill got put on the back burner several times. This delay obviously cost more money, but seemed like the right thing to do at the time!Third, I now have a better grasp on how long each DVD will probably end up being, so scheduling and budget will be easier to gauge. I originally thought I would end up with about half of the final running time. But with so much great information coming from the interviews, I knew I had to include it somewhere, so the viewer would get the most impact.
So, like anything else in life, I was constantly learning! But all in all, I believe everything worked for the best because people have so many positive things to say about the production! Christian-Movie.com: What was the biggest hurdle that you faced during the filmmaking process, and how did you overcome it?
Tony Malanowski: Easily, scheduling was the hardest part. We only had a two week window, when the majority of the re-enactors were available and not committed to other events. And those open dates were at the end of July and the beginning of August, which of course was when we didn’t want to shoot because of the heat! If I had not shot the battle footage at that time, I would have had to wait another year to get the number of re-enactors I wanted for the action scenes.
To top it off, I was already scheduled to be in Hong Kong the month before filming began, so I was coordinating with Bill Chemerka through the Internet at night, and hiring and confirming production people at the same time!
To top it off, I was already scheduled to be in Hong Kong the month before filming began, so I was coordinating with Bill Chemerka through the Internet at night, and hiring and confirming production people at the same time!
I remember one instance when I checked costume fittings on my lead actors from email pictures on the computers that were set up in the Planet Hollywood restaurant in downtown Hong Kong! I just took the proverbial "Leap of Faith" and trusted in God that it would all fall into place, which, happily, it did. But boy, there were more than a few sleepless nights in the meantime (laughs)!
Christian-Movie.com: What was the most significant lesson that God taught you, from a personal standpoint, during the making of The Battle of Bunker Hill?
Tony Malanowski: I guess the easiest answer would be for me to say "patience," but I think it's safe to say that I'm still working on that (laughs)! When people would ask me how Bunker Hill was doing, I'd always say, "We have the faith in the project, it's just the patience that's hard to come by!"
But seriously, I'm still amazed at how the whole project just fell into place...in spite of problems like the rain delays, the heat and the rushed schedule. I really just trusted in God, and tried not to ask too many questions! And now that the marketing and selling of The Battle of Bunker Hill has begun, I simply trust again and hold on, hoping that the roof doesn't blow off!
Christian-Movie.com: What’s next for you, Tony?
Tony Malanowski: Realistically, if we can sell enough DVDs of Bunker Hill to be able to start on the next installments, I'd like to do Guadalcanal and First Bull Run/Manassas concurrently.
But we don't want to limit ourselves to just battles. If the interest is there, I would love to do biographies of famous Americans and presidents, as well as a series of state histories, which could be enormously challenging logistically, but also very rewarding from an educational viewpoint!
Christian-Movie.com: Any closing thoughts?
Tony Malanowski: It's odd to look back now over the last couple of years and see how Bunker Hill progressed. I always knew that the Lord had given me a talent for production, but I didn't know if I would ever use it again. Certainly, I didn't see a reason to go back to low-budget exploitation films...and producing the material for the DVDs for the major studios was fine, but there seemed like there should be something else.
When the idea finally hit me, it seemed so perfect and so obvious! I'm being guided to produce the same kind of historical, period pictures that I loved in my childhood, and to also perform a service to God by making them faith-centered! Not much more I can ask!
When the idea finally hit me, it seemed so perfect and so obvious! I'm being guided to produce the same kind of historical, period pictures that I loved in my childhood, and to also perform a service to God by making them faith-centered! Not much more I can ask!
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