Auburn dad, daughter team up on big screen

An Auburn family is taking its shared passion for film to the big screen. Kel Owens, an Auburn resident and Screen Actor's Guild actor, has worked with some of the biggest names in film, playing a variety of characters such as cowboys, bikers, a serial killer, a coal miner, a judge and even the Devil. Owens has worked with directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Alex Ranarivelo, and has been on network television, in commercials and major motion pictures. During the pandemic, Owens began writing screenplays in hopes of creating his own movies. That project came to fruition this year when he teamed up with his daughter, Cheyenne Noel, to create Towering Entertainment Productions. The two made their first short film, called "The Legend Of The Bum-Barian," with Owens producing, directing and playing the movie's lead character and Noel serving as the cinematographer and narrator. Kel's wife and Cheyenne's mother, Traci, even served a role, using her skills as a local artist to create the Bum-Barian's costume. The film has debuted at film festivals around the world and has received several accolades. The Legend of the Bum-Barian will have two showings at General Gomez Arts on Aug. 10 at 11:30 and 12:30. "We've been doing this for a while because I've been in other movies and stuff. I've always wanted to make my own movies so I've been writing a few scripts," explained Owens. "One of the scripts was doing well but I realized I don't have enough money because there's like 20 speaking parts, and I got to feed all those people. So I wrote an easy, little short film that was fun and easy to shoot." The film tells the tale of the Bum-Barian, an endearing character that shows people you can't always judge a book by its cover. "He's like a loner. He just has lived alone for quite some time but you don't really know why. He's homeless but he goes around town fixing things for people," says Noel of the film's main character. "People think that he's kind of like a bad guy and they are afraid of him. He's scary looking, but he goes around fixing things and helping others." Noel, a 2016 Placer graduate, shares her father's passion for film. She has participated in theater productions, helped coach youth theater groups and filmed her dad's audition videos for years, which led to them teaming up to create a production company. While she's behind the camera for their first film, she will play a bigger role in future projects. "This is our first one. I just wanted it to be me by myself, and there's no other characters. My character only talks a little bit when he talks; he talks in rhymes because of something that happened to him years ago," says Owens. "This next one we're getting ready to film at the end of this month or so is going to have (Cheyanne) in it, too." Using their hometown as backdrop and inspiration, they began filming early in the morning along the railroad tracks and wrapped late that night on Lincoln Way, the heart of Historic Downtown Auburn. Noel shot the entirety of the 17-minute short film on her phone and spent hours editing the footage with her dad, something that was new to both. While editing was a challenge for Noel, she says there is nobody else she would rather be doing this with than her dad. "I love doing this with him; we have so much fun," said Noel. "I've never edited a movie. That was the hardest part. It was just months of editing. I'd never done it, but we got it done. The program we used had a real learning curve for me. I had never seen anything like it and now I have probably watched this movie a thousand times." The film won an award at the Milano Indie Film Festival, was a semifinalist at the Cannes World Film Festival and an honorable mention at the Absurd Film Festival. Owens said he never envisioned this project receiving the praise it did, noting he had his sights set on a few achievable film festivals to test the waters at first. "When we did it, we just did it for fun. I thought that we'll try to enter a few festivals and I had picked out a few that were maybe doable and a couple that were way out there," said Owens. "We got into one of the biggest ones and I'm like, 'What the hell's going on? Did you even watch the movie?' " Now with some success under their belts, Towering Entertainment Productions is looking forward to the future as they prepare for their next project, which will begin filming in Auburn in the coming months. Said Owens, "We kind of want to get some more people involved. I do know some local actors, and a lot of friends want to be in the background, but most of it's gonna be like this. Our next one's gonna be filmed in Auburn too, although we might have a shot or two in Folsom as well."