Tony Luti

Tony is a California Superlawyer, a rising star in the LA legal community, real life hero, patron of the arts, and our own personal angel with regards to the production of Prince of Swine.  The distinctive red walls and ambience of our fictional hero and heroine’s firm are, in reality, The Luti Law Firm, located right in the heart of Hollywood, on Sunset and Vine. 

We could not have had a more gracious host.  I cannot think of any attorney in the world, who, at the prospect of having a film crew bearing down on their well ordered practice for the weekend, would not have a heart attack.  Our crew are experts and know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t appear that way to non-movie people, it appears instead, as barely organized chaos.  Tony was never anything but calm, curious, helpful, and incredibly generous, without expecting anything in return.

In a case of life imitating art, The Luti Law Firm is actually much like our fictional firm.  Tony practices Title VII employment law, and much like the fictional head of our firm, is an African American entrepreneur, who walked away from a safe ticket and big firm practice to strike out and succeed on his own, practicing the sort of law he believes in.  I knew we’d found our movie home upon walking into his offices and seeing, not only the red walls (which look stunning in hi-def!), but the pictures of Malcolm X and Dr. King lining the walls (which you can see in the film), some of Tony’s greatest heroes, and my own as well.

Finally, I want to make clear here, Prince of Swine has a lot of meanings.  Obviously, it refers to the swine of the title, the defendant in our fictional lawsuit, but at the same time it refers to Princes amongst swine, i.e., not wide-eyed idealists or do-gooders, but rather, honorable and hard-nosed men of the world, who can look corruption in the eye and defeat it, change injustice into its opposite, and right a lot of wrongs in the world instead of merely wringing our hands in despair at them.

The Machiavellian, which our title also refers to, has acquired a sinister connotation in modern use.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The real Machiavelli was not only a great artist, but put his life on the line (and was indeed tortured by the Medicis) for standing up for women and children, being raped, brutalized and murdered in the warfare of his time.

Tony Luti is a man in this mold, the good, strong, and humane Prince of the sort we aspire to, and we couldn’t be prouder to be associated in real life with someone who so perfectly embodies the ideals of our art.

Michael Creighton Rogers

Michael was the music supervisor and general friend of the production of Prince of Swine.  He is also immortalized in the role of Kong Dong, seen briefly, in his full bodacious buffitude, at the beginning of the movie.

Michael has music supervised features include The Mercy Man, Ten ‘til Noon, Love, Ltd., and Ugly Naked People.

Gina Marks

Gina was our canine coordinator for Prince of Swine.  Her very own darling Luky gives a great performance early on in the movie, and we all carry Luky in our hearts (Prince of Swinewas his last and greatest performance).

Stephen Eckelberry

Stephen is a brother filmmaker (whose work includes Double Duty, The Mirror, Edna McCoy’s Festival, and Charades) and longtime friend, whose technical genius saved the movie at various crises in post production.

Stephen’s wife, the legendary actress Karen Black, is also a longtime friend, who gave me guidance and inspiration when I first came to Hollywood.

Matt Radecki

Greg Lanesey

Matt and Greg run Different by Design and are the Hi Def Masters of Prince of Swine.  Prince was shot and then captured digitally using state of the art technology of which Matt and Greg are some of the foremost experts in the country. 

Matt and Greg are also filmmakers in the their own right, responsible for such excellent work as Chasing 3000, TV Junkie, Zerophilia, Red White and Blue and Loveless in Los Angeles.

Jimmy Williams

Jimmy was our propmaster for Prince of Swine.  The list of things we were able to get from him is too long and diverse to include here, anything from a police uniform to a stun gun, but I’m sure if we needed a jet plane to do a fly by he could have found that to.  In short, if you need God knows what, God knows when, but immediately, give Jimmy a call and he’ll probably have it laying around or know where he can find it.