By Crystal McGough, Editor
TRUSSVILLE – Tickets are now on sale for Trussville-based film company Chog Media LLC’s latest release, “Jublowski (or What it Feels Like to be the Main Character)”.
“Jublowski” will premiere at the Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema, located at The Pizitz in Downtown Birmingham, on May 26, 27 and 28, 2023. Tickets can be purchased at https://sidewalkfest.com/events/jublowski/.
“It’s very much been a process,” said Director and Chog Media CEO Austin Scarborough. “We’d already made several other films, which in many ways had a more difficult time on set – the production values were more difficult in our earlier projects.
“Because (with ‘Jublowski’) we were making a movie that was about making movies, we knew how to do that. We had some difficulties with things like weather or equipment breaking down … things like that are going to happen. All those different things aside, it was a very difficult thing for me and my crew to get this done, and I certainly can’t take credit for all or half or any fraction of it, because it was so much a community effort.”
“Jublowski” is Chog Media’s third film in three years, following “Remember the Light” and “New South Cottage.”
The Chog Media team, consisting of Scarborough, CFO and Production Manager Anthony Berneche, Creative Director/Cinematographer Josh Hale, and Composer/Department of Music Head Ryan Owens, came up with the idea of putting out three films in three years immediately after the release of their first film, “Remember the Light.”
“We were going out to dinner after our very first premiere several years ago,” Scarborough said. “We were throwing out ideas for what we’d become (and) we decided we wanted to make three movies in three years. Right now, the post-production and the promotion of it, that’s another matter because you can’t always help how fast that’s going to go; but the actual production of it, I’m so proud of the various people – volunteers, the company members, the people in all these different capacities who were involved – I’m very, very thankful for them. They really did help me achieve my dream.”
“Jublowski” tells the story of childhood friends Chaz Jublowski and Wendell Benson who have known each other for years and have stuck by one another through thick and thin. Now, during their senior year of high school, Chaz is ready to coast through until graduation. However, Wen’s motivation to make a student film before graduation and involve most of their school’s student body throws a curveball into Chaz’s plans.
According to Scarborough, the subtitle “or What it Feels Like to be the Main Character” is “something that is intentionally a self-referential comedic reference, in that it’s referring to both musicians who like to put together playlists with humorous or ironic titles – like, this is a playlist that will make you feel like the main character – and that the main character of this film, Chaz Jublowski, is a musician and an actor in the story and the type of person that would put together a playlist like that.
“So the title of the film comes from that, and also from arthouse movies like ‘Birdman,’ which is also called ‘Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.’ Most people tend to use the abbreviated title,” Scarborough added. “We’re trying to make fun of pretentious movies because we, ourselves, have made a pretentious, yet also comedic, movie. We’re trying to not take ourselves too seriously; we’re trying to make fun of ourselves a little bit with that.”
The film also comes with the tagline: Despite what you might think, this is not based on a true story. Or is it?
Scarborough said the purpose of this is to encourage viewers to guess at what events actually happened and what events didn’t.
“I can safely say that quite a few details were turned around,” he said. “Some of these things were fabricated; some of them were entirely original; some of them have been all too real. It’s a combination of it and we want to keep people guessing.”
Scarborough was a junior in high school when he and some friends founded Chog Theatre Troupe in 2019. Chog, he said, was an acronym for Creatives Helping Out in Groups. From there, the group grew into what is now Chog Media LLC.
Admitting that a career in the film industry is no walk in the park, Scarborough wanted to offer encouragement to other young people who may be dreaming of a career in the arts.
“A lot of people say, ‘I want to go chase my dream; I want to go to Hollywood.’ I want to encourage people that you don’t have to go to Hollywood to do this, but you certainly can’t do it by yourself,” he said. “You absolutely have to have a great crew around you, a great cast around you, and great people where you can have those instances of bouncing ideas off of others and seeing what’s going to fall off and seeing what’s going to stick. I could not have done it without them. I’m truly blessed to call them friends and collaborators on these projects. I would encourage people to find that group of collaborators if they want to go into filmmaking, or if they have some other goal in the arts.”
More information about Chog Media LLC can be found on their Instagram at
https://www.instagram.com/chogmedia/ or their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075936591226.
Tickets for “Jublowski” can be purchased at https://sidewalkfest.com/events/jublowski/.