Welcome to my world! I'm a banquet waiter, at a Las Vegas
casino. I grew up in Arizona and have always had an interest
in movies. Anyway, I've been making low budget flicks, since
the 80's.. In 1989 I shot a Super 8mm feature, called THE
BLACK CRYSTAL. That was my first experience with a
distributor changing the title of my movie. (It was called
THE BLACK TRIANGLE and I didn't like it being confused
with Jim Henson's DARK CRYSTAL.) Here is the box:

FRONT COVER

BACK COVER

Though THE BLACK CRYSTAL was internationally released,
I never made money on that movie. In fact, I was saddled with a
$19K debt, for the next several years. Was it worth it?
Absolutely !

NEW!! You can now see THE BLACK CRYSTAL clips
on the Downloads page!

I also love synthesizers and samplers. My most recent addition
is the Korg OASYS. Here is a song I composed, using just the OASYS:

Guitar and Vocoder pad

THE AWAKENING Trailer and the movie's soundtrack make
extensive use of this instrument.

Here are pics of my room full of gear:

MUSIC GEAR #1

MUSIC GEAR #2

Other songs:

Old Boy demo trailer

Epic Song

Boulder Trek (STAR TREK parody)

Here I am, with my son Shawn, on THE AWAKENING set:

BLACK OP SQUAD

Mike Conway and Tamra Ericson Frame

Though THE AWAKENING was made for a ridiculously
low $5000 budget, it is a great ride. Don't take my word for it;
read the reviews and watch these small Quicktime clips
(2 megs or less). This is a Superchick movie, like you've
never seen. Think ROBOCOP meets WONDERWOMAN!

BENSON SHOOTS

HALF A MAN!

LARA ESCAPES

LARA HIT BY POOLSTICK

Clay Finan and Tim Daley

MARINE BASE ALARM

BREAKOUT

LAST CHARGE

BENSON CHASED

OPS SHOOT MARINE

NEW!!! This CLIP from GUNS, GIRLS & CLONES, the
DVD documentary, reveals some of THE AWAKENING's
incredible FX.

To buy THE AWAKENING DVD,
Click Here.

Mike Conway and Kelly Johnston

Filmmaker Notes:

I wrote the following, a while back, when TERRARIUM was
still .... TERRARIUM.

It takes place at night and has a lot of flashlights, so watch it in the dark! When people ask about TERRARIUM, I tell them not to expect STAR WARS from what is probably the lowest budget sci-fi feature, shot on film. (Notice I didn't say video, because then the budget would have seemed large!) Sometimes, true Indie films and videos can be hard to watch, but reactions to TERRARIUM have been mostly positive.

We didn't say "Hey, this set looks kind of fake and we don't have Hollywood actors, so let's bring out the naked people and tell lots of jokes!" We believed enough in the story to play it straight, otherwise the tension and fear factor would not work. This is not an effects laden spectacle, it's very retro. These astronauts use walkie talkies and M-16s.

The strength of TERRARIUM is that it avoids cliches and relies on a lot of subtlety, whether it's a closeup on someone's face during an entire attack, a romantic exchange, motivated mainly by lonliness and fear, rather than chemistry, or even a definitive conclusion. This style keeps the viewer guessing, instead of letting them figure out the whole script, before it unfolds. If you have a little patience, you should like it.

Just recently, TERRARIUM was picked up for
distribution, through Lions Gate Films. Release date
is Nov. 15, in N. America. The title has been changed to WAR OF THE PLANETS. Although that might sound
a bit strange, the potential exposure could be good.
I figure that many people will eventually discover the
movie as TERRARIUM, anyway.

Mike Conway