‘Dances with Films’ festival gets underway in West Hollywood

Ronalds Brothers Productions and Locked Horns Productions presents COWBOY DREAMS Red Carpet LA Premiere

Paul DeNigris(Director), Steve Briscoe(Writer/Co-Star), Bill Engvall and Danny Trejo get interviewed on the Red Carpet at the Dances with Films Film Festival.

Writer/Co-Star Steve Briscoe Interviews on the Red Carpet with ABC

Brian with Director/Producer Paul DeNigris

Co-Executive Producer Brian Ronalds with THE GRAVES star Clare Grant

Brian, Paul and Steve with COWBOY DREAMS stars

Danny Trejo and Bill Envall

BIG PICTURE SHOW Story: Tyler Perry Hires Indie Filmmakers The Ronalds Bros.

A little background on The Big Picture, in case you're fairly new: This site - or more correctly, its predecessor - began in 2002 as a companion to a movie show I used to do on radio. Remember radio, by the way? Whatever happened to it. Anyway, the show was on in Phoenix, so I was and remain pretty plugged in to the local film community here because of that.

Among the filmmakers I've met who have cut their teeth in the Valley of the Sun areBrian and Dean Ronalds. They started out making short films, graduated to the featureNetherbeast Incorporated (now available on DVD), and recently wrapped up a horror movie they produced called The Graves, directed by Brian Pulido and starring Tony Toddand Bill Moseley.

The brothers just informed me that Tyler Perry has signed them up as writers for hisTBS sitcom, Meet the Browns, which has its season premiere on June 17th.

“We had just started commuting back and forth from Gilbert [Arizona] to L.A. in January when we got the call from our manager,” Dean says. “After a few meetings with the executive producer and head writers for the show, the next thing we knew, we were on a plane to Atlanta.”

And even though Netherbeast and The Graves aren't exactly in the Madea wheelhouse, Brian Ronalds says that because of Perry's independent status, there's still a lot to learn from the guy. “I know we’re nowhere near his level, but we were very inspired and our dream would be to create a sizeable studio in Arizona as Mr. Perry did in Atlanta.”

Good for those guys. They've busted their asses for years, so I'm happy to see it pay off for them.