June 19 (Galveston Island, TX) - While studying film at UCLA I worked
with one my instructors from East Compton's City Cinema Studio, Ron Kray's company, Tenderness/Elevating Perception Productions in 1985. With film critic Andrew Sauerstein directing his next production company, Ron worked primarily to make films that were critical to Hollywood's film mainstream, with films focusing on what I now referred to as "American classics in Hollywood‒s view of cinematic values. Ron taught that great cinematic works didn't come as any other type; were independent, original and uncompromising - often based around a strong, intelligent sense of aesthetics. He argued that if filmmakers chose something as their medium to portray America's core values--freedom, equality, commitment– there was really nowhere that would exist in the outside public opinion who didn't see a great chance that they simply aren't being honest on those fundamentals!
As a member of one of East Central University "Buck's Boys Club Films" we screened The Crucible at the East Bay Museum before returning to the studios in East Los Angeles. For months, as filming for our feature documentary, We Are the Sons went forward, and even a year later we could still feel K'Tche's unique vision and style as much about "making films and sharing those films within other communities through cinema and movies, rather than just by screening films at festivals and to crowds." To find inspiration Ron was in Los-O... [see less]
Ron Kradshunovich teaches creative processes, story writing, script crafting, creative storytelling, screenwriting and other media, editing or directing at UCLA's Citywide Culture Lab, a graduate student course program established at Bix 9 Cinema to increase access to the creative industries here in BXLA. K.