THE HISTORY OF SALTY CRACKER PICTURES:

Salty Cracker Pictures (SCP) was founded in 1998 by Dennis Marston, Jason Smith, and myself, Garth Simmons. The three of us had the pleasure of taking a high school video production course, and for years we fine-tuned our skills in the class so that we could create bigger and better things, instead of the usual class projects. Now, before I go any further, let me clarify that this wasn't just a bunch of people with access to a video camera. It was a production quality studio, meaning it had all the essentials that any network television studio would have. We had digital editors, we had $20,000 Beta-cam units for the studio itself, we had a control room filled with all sorts of editing gadgets and sound equipment. It was nice... Ok, enough bragging, back to the story.

So in 1998, we'd been in the class for several years, Jason had actually already graduated by this time, and Dennis and I started doing work that was way beyond the class under the name Salty Cracker Pictures. Dennis and Jason came up with the name, which is fitting to the work we did. Off the wall humor, intelligent in a witty sort of way, and different. The themes that SCP express actually came from one of Jason's earlier films, "Attack of the Killer B-Rate Movie." It changed the way the class worked. Before, students had tried to be as creative as possible, while still fitting into the assignment's guidelines. But with this film, we as students (as well the the instructor Tom Landon) saw that we could do so much more.

The year following Jason's "Attack" Dennis and I set out to do our assignments in the way Jason did his, by totally throwing out the rules. We produced many short films, mostly in our spare time, and created some really good work, for what it was and the time given to us to work.

Our project "Explosive Adrenaline" won first place at the Cox Communications Media Festival in 1999, and we actually got some money out of it. To see a detailed list of our work, go here.

So after graduating, Dennis went into the Navy, Jason was already doing video work for the Air Force, and I went to college to study for Art/Theatre/Cinematic Arts. I tried to continue the traditions of SCP, but didn't really make anything. Anyway, I have started writing a screenplay for a full length version of "Explosive Adrenaline" and I began ideas for this website. Not just a place for me to show off our work, but more of a place where movie geeks can congregate to read and talk about movie stuff. Everything that has to do with movies, I want this site to have it. There are much better sites for up-to-the-minute news on upcoming films, (Coming Attractions at Corona, Dark Horizons) and there are plenty of other sites with more information on films (IMDb) so I decided to focus more on things that I would want on a movie page. All of the aforementioned stuff, movie reviews, and other misc. movie geek stuff, all with the feel of SCP.

I also wanted to continue something I started while in college. The SCP Movie Awards. There are so many good films that "other big awards groups" don't even pay attention to. So I started the Trinkle Hall Awards, named after the Visual and Performing arts dorm at Radford University. In Trinkle, there were others that shared the same views as Dennis and Jason, and they unknowingly became a part of SCP. Well, I dropped out of RU, and the Trinkle Hall awards became the Salty Cracker Awards, and I've been doing 'em since 1999. For more on the awards go here.

Well, that's about all I can think of to describe SCP, and if you have any questions or if you want to make fun of me for being a movie geek, contact us.

Garth Simmons.