The Backlot Motion Picture Company
THE WORLD IS OUR BACKLOT
William Butland
Biography
1) I was born in New Jersey to a mother and father who loved to go to the movies, they shared that love with their 4 kids, of which I was the youngest.
2) The earliest movies I remember seeing in the movie theatre were THE EXORCIST, JAWS & CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, the last 2 really changing my life forever -- realizing that creating movies was all I was ever going to want to do--and though I have had brushes with success and not quite attained the success I thought I'd find, all these years late, I STILL have'nt given up.
3) I've worked many jobs in my life, including teaching American children living in Saudi Arabia, master puppeteer at The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, acting in many, many plays both in school and regional professional theatre, acting and film teacher at a small performing arts school WHILE owning and operating a small land development company in the Ft. Lauderdale area.
4) In 2006, I began taking Master Acting Classes at The Burt Reynolds Institute for Film & Television -- it was while working with Burt Reynolds that I was introduced to the people who would eventually help me produce our film ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND -- as the tagline says, it's a film about THE FAMILY DRAMA, we had some successful fundraising campaigns and had written a part in the film for Mr. Reynolds, but because it was a non-union film and various other reasons, we were unable to cast him in the film.
The Misadventures of Wallace Weaver
The Misadventures of Wallace Weaver was a short film produced at The Burt Reynolds Institute, the entire cast and crew all came from BRIFT -- this was supposed to be a series of 3 short films, but the producer of the project left the Institute and the other 2 films were never realized -- despite this short being a hit at the Palm Beach Film Festival...