Podtalk: World Premiere of Filmed in Chicago Sci-Fi ‘Wizdom’

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CHICAGO – It’s time to get some “Wizdom”! In the WORLD PREMIERE at the same Chicago studio (CineCity) where it was filmed, the completed short will premiere on Friday, September 20th (6pm), and that screening will be facilitated by Producer/Co-Writer/Lead Actor Ashton Swinford and Producer/Director Layne Marie Williams.

Ashton Swinford is Eos, a futuristic thief and outlier living in a dystopian time to come. She lives with her sibling Vayle (Simone Brazzini) and seeks to disrupt the controlling power of “Wizdom,” a corporation who has blotted the world in permanent darkness and uses brain-attached devices to assure the population that all is well. When Eos steals a powerful hallucinatory drug, what she experiences on that drug’s trip is a threat to the power, represented and discovered by Carbon (Elizabeth Laidlaw).

Wizdom
Photo credit: Poster by Jillian Adel, Studio of Earthly Delights for Paragram Productions

Actor/Producer/Co-Writer Ashton Swinford and Producer/Director Layne Marie Williams are both veterans in their respective crafts, and have participated in a six year process to get “Wizdom” to the screen. They both crystallized their careers in the Windy City, and even as they are now Los Angeles based they used Chicago cast and crew to complete filming. The short also serves as a “proof of concept” for a completed feature script, with the goal to make it a larger project with a production company backing.

In Part One of a Podtalk with Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com, producer/co-writer/lead actor Ashton Swinford expresses “Wizdom” …

In Part Two, it’s director Layne Marie Williams …

In Part Three, Ashton and Layne Marie both provide perspective …

In a Video Clip, Ashton Swinford and Layne Marie Williams introduces us to “Wizdom” …

By PATRICK McDONALD Editor and Film Critic/Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com