An Austrian based production company is scheduled to shoot a documentary on the life of local Bluesman Leo “Bud” Welch beginning this fall.
Red Monster Productions and Let’s Make This Happen Productions have set Sept. 2 as the start day for the “Kickstarter Campaign” where the companies are looking to raise funds to help offset the initial costs of the production teams coming to the U.S. and touring with Welch.
“We are aiming for $15,000 and have a lot of great rewards for our backers,” said Wolfgang Almer, the producer and director of the movie.
Welch is an 82-year old Mississippi-based Blues and Gospel musician who released his debut record earlier this year, taking the blues world by storm. After decades of hard work in the cotton fields and the woods, missed opportunities and gigs in local Juke Joints and churches, Welch’s very late international success has received international attention.
“Our goal is to make a feature documentary called ‘I don’t know what you’ve come to do – The Story of Leo “Bud” Welch,’” Almer said. “The film will be a reflection upon country life in Mississippi over the past eight decades and how it formed Leo ‘Bud’ Welch’s music that touches so many people these days.”
The documentary will tell the story of Welch’s life – starting with his younger days, working hard in the cotton fields and playing his cousin’s guitar whenever he could. How he played his first concerts in schools and churches but couldn’t make decent money as amusician at the time. How he spent decades cutting timber, but still couldn’t afford the bus ticket to Memphis when blues superstar B.B. King invited him to an audition. How he played the blues at night in the fields and woods while cutting timber for days on end.
“Together with Leo, we will visit places that were and are important in his life. His birthplace, the farm he grew up on, the cotton fields and the Mississippi woods where he cut timber during the day and played the Blues at night,” Almer said. “We’ll visit the two local churches Leo still plays the Gospel in every other Sunday. We will talk to old friends, collaborators, family, his manager and discoverer Vencie Varnado (a retired US Army First Sergeant) and go on tour with Leo, both in the US and Europe.”
“We will talk about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement, religion, work life, American history, modernization, success, traveling and of course about gospel music and blues, and how Leo combines these two: The music of God and the music of the Devil.”
“We’re excited about the opportunity,” Varnado said. “Bud’s story is a great one that’s worth telling.”
Almer has 17 years of experience in music and multimedia work and has founded four companies on the way. He has discovered and promoted many award-winning music artists and currently works as artistic director of a big open air festival called LINZFEST (www.linzfest.at).
He was the first to invite Leo “Bud” Welch to Europe and has a long record of pioneering new music artists in Austria and Europe. Almer holds a Master’s degree in Film & TV-Production and has worked as actor, producer and consultant on local film productions. His film production company “Let’s Make This Happen Productions” is in the founding stages right now.
Wolfgang Almer
Stefan Wolner will be Co-Director and Editor for the project. With his company Red Monster, he’s also co-producing the Leo “Bud” Welch Documentary.
Wolner has been making movies since his early teenage years. He worked at ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Company) as director and was part of many successful projects there. He produced many short movies, advertisement and industrial movies and has won several international awards. Since 2012, Stefan also worked as production & unit manager, e.g. for the six-episodes TV-series ‘Wagner vs. Verdi’, for the nature documentary “The Triumph of the Tomato” and for ORF’s children’s program. Wolner holds a Degree in Media Design and a Master’s Degree in Film- and TV Production.
Viktor Schaider is the project’s Director of Photography. He has been studying in Klagenfurt, Vienna and Maine and lives and has worked as a cameraman and photographer in Vienna since 2004. His works have won ten awards, his latest film Attention – “A Life in Extremes” will hit the cinemas this coming fall.
David is the sound engineer. He has worked as a sound engineer for national and international music, TV, film and theater productions since 2004 and holds a degree in multimedia design.
For more information on the project visit www.leobudwelchmovie.com.