Tulsan Shows His Movie â€œChopsâ€ At The Tribeca Film Festival

Friday, May 11th 2007, 8:21 pm

By: News On 6

A little documentary with Tulsa ties made its big screen debut in New York City last week. â€œChopsâ€ was shot in Florida, but the film's executive producer is local, and much of its post-production was done right here in Green Country. The News On 6â€™s Ashli Sims reports around 5,000 films jockey for a spot at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, only a fraction of them are shown and Tim Cremin's film is one of them.

The Tribeca Film Festival is Robert DeNiro's brain child to showcase blockbusters and up and coming films.

Bon Jovi was there, Scorcese, Christie Brinkley, and Oklahoman Tim Cremin.

"I was scared, I was nervous," said Executive Producer Tim Cremin.

Tulsan Tim Cremin found himself at the star-studded affair because of a little documentary he produced called, "Chops."

"Because once you pick the story up you just couldn't let it go," he said.

The movie chronicles a jazz band in Jacksonville, Florida, taking them from middle school to high school. Cremin was introduced to the film's director through a mutual friend.

"So he contacted me and sent me some of the footage he shot and I didn't know where it was going, I just knew I had to get a part of this ya' know," Cremin said.

For Cremin and â€œChops,â€ the stars seemed to align. The musicians in the film showed their chops and scored a spot at the elite Essentially Ellington music festival in New York City, judged by Jazz great Wynton Marsalis.

"The thing is when you do a documentary like this is you don't know how it's going to end up. And I couldn't have wished for anything better than what happened," said Cremin.

It took 10-months to whittle down 180-hours of footage into a documentary film. It won over Wynton Marsalis, and the Tribeca Film Festival followed suit, debuting the film in New York last week.

â€œYou sit down and watch this movie and you feel good and the end. You probably cry. I hope you cry,â€ Cremin said. â€œBut it's nice to do that every once in a while with a documentary."

Tim Cremin says since their Tribeca debut they've gotten calls from several distributors, and they're working on getting the film into theatres.

Watch the video: Oklahoman Shows Off His "Chops"