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BSP



Black
Summers
Productions, LLC


BSP is in Production on a New Documentary

An Isolated Incident  is about San Francisco's Ongoing Failure to Control Dogs.

The video to the right is a preview.

Below is a link to video from one of the 
vicious and dangerous dog hearings.

Teaser from
BLANCHE DUBOIS IN PURGATORY

A Comedy Somewhere Between Life and Death
You can view the entire 56-minute performance on YouTube

On September 6 and 7, 2014, three consummate professionals, Seton Brown, Matthew Martin and Nancy French, went into the empty Southside Theater at Fort Mason in San Francisco and performed this original one-act play in real time for the cameras.  At the top of their stagecraft and working beautifully together, the trio pulled off a small miracle given the ridiculously tight schedule and production constraints of this extremely low-budget experiment, delivering three marvelously vivid characterizations more than worthy of attention.  In spite of all the technical challenges, the artistry of these gifted actors is very much on display here and very much something to be celebrated.

M. Black's 14-minute meditation on Alfred Hitchcock’s use of a subjective camera angle in one specific context:  Depicted on screen is a character in motion looking at something off screen.  A moving camera then captures the object of attention, simulating the shifting perspective of the moving observer.

A Cold Reading

BSP is in preproduction on A Cold Reading,  a dark comedy set in San Francisco.

This is the "begging" video we posted on Kickstarter.  We imagined ourselves going door to door asking people to contribute money so we could make a movie and wondered what would happen if we went to the wrong door.  The film clips are from Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, which is in the public domain.

Queer Icon: The Cult of Bette Davis

Premiered in San Francisco at the Roxie Theater on July 2, 2009.  This documentary examines the many aspects of the gay fascination with Bette Davis, featuring film clips of Bette's most iconic moments, juxtaposed with camp burlesques of her by San Francisco actor Matthew Martin and others, including Charles Pierce and Arthur Blake; a profile of Martin highlighting his long identification with Davis; and interviews with fans, entertainers, and gay cultural historians. 

In conjunction with Face to Face Sonoma County AIDS Network, there was a special screening of Queer Icon: The Cult of Bette Davis at the Rialto Cinemas Lakeside in Santa Rosa, California on February 18, 2010.  After the screening there was a Q&A with Mike Black, Carole Summers, Michael Guillén, Bernardo Espi, Matthew Kennedy, and Scott O'Brien. The Q&A was moderated by Gary Carnivele of KRCB 91FM radio.  A transcript of the Q&A is now available on Michael Guillén's blog The Evening Class.

Reviews:  "More than simply a lovefest, Queer Icon questions whether gays still need a role model like the fabulous Miss D."
Michael Fox 

"Queer Icon is a bona fide treat." RATING: THREE BOXES OF POPCORN.™ Buzzin' Lee Hartgrave


Cassandra's Echo

BSP's first movie was Cassandra's Echo, which premiered at the 2006 FAIF International Film Festival in Hollywood, California on October 10, 2006.

Bradford York

BSP made this 5-minute documentary as part of a collective effort by Bay Area filmmakers to commemorate 30 years of the AIDS pandemic.  For more stories, visit The HIV Story Project.