Writer, Director, Occasional Funnyman Performer, and All Around Good Guy
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin in Communication Arts, director Bill Kelman got his start in college at PBS affiliate WHA-TV while studying film and theater lighting design with Gilbert Hemsley (lighting designer for the Metropolitan Opera, NY Ballet Co., Alvin Alex, Martha Graham, Ballet Folklorico, etc.) After leaving the Midwest for Los Angeles he moved on to ABC Wide World of Sports and CBS Sports. Moving quickly through the production ranks, he production managed the Hawaiian Pro Surfing Tour, Acapulco Cliff Diving and the Baja 1000 Off Road Race, amongst others. Realizing that television sports was not going to get him into feature filmmaking, Bill shifted his focus to writing. He first started writing for magazines ranging from Los Angeles Magazine, Millimeter and the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Inside Kung Fu and others, while starting to work on feature films, commercials and music videos in various capacities to learn feature filmmaking. Shortly after, he made it to the American Film Institute on a screenwriting fellowship. Once out of AFI, he wrote projects for New World Pictures, Steven Krantz Prods., Cannon Pictures, Full Moon Entertainment and a Warner Bros. project that was sold by ICM as a big weekend read spec script sale as well as other writing projects for other independent producers. During this time, Mortuary Academy for Columbia-Tri-star was made, starring Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov and Christopher Atkins. With films not getting made the way they should, Bill started producing his own projects as well as acquiring others for his production banner. As a producer he sold a projects to Imagine Entertainment and Image Organization. Again, with projects in development and not getting made, Bill decided to make his own film. His next step was to finance, produce and direct and his comedy script The Almighty Fred. The film appeared at the British Film Institute's London Jewish Film Festival, the Newport Beach Film Festival and the Hermosa Beach Film Festival, the Hard Acre Film Festival (Best Comedy Feature), the Temecula International Film, the Idyllwild Film Festival, the San Luis Obispo Film Festival, New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, the Austin Big Stinkin' Comedy Festival and the Manchester Film Festival. The domestic video and cable rights are being handled by All Channel Communications. His next project directing is The Perfect Dad, starring Ralf Moeller is being packaged Concrete Films. He has also sold a television film, Mr. Perfect Germany's Pro-7 network and is writing, Hoteldesaster, an ski/ action movie for RTL also in Germany. In addition, he has just started to direct commercials having done a spot for Ducati Motorcycles and Trojan Condoms and is finishing up one for Pepsi and Miller Beer. He has just signed with a Japanese company CM Bid as a commercial director in Japan. Kelman is also a member of the Writer's Guild of America and is a judge for the Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting contest sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He advises new filmmakers on low budget filmmaking.
