We move now to a new movie made without any help from Hollywood.

Its cast and crew are all from Las Vegas.

The film is called Action!

Action!

and it premieres on Friday, April 25 at Stadium Swim at Circa Resort & Casino in Downtown Las Vegas.

-Freeze!

-My painting, where is it?

-Benny, we're friends.

-Some of my best friends want to kill me.

-Just conned my way into a gala of one of the most ruthless mob bosses in the world.

What could possibly go wrong?

-Featuring adventure, betrayal, loyalty, and love, Las Vegas locals are responsible for this film.

And here to explain why that's a big deal are Adam Kilbourn, the producer and director of Action!

Action!

as well as the owner of Black Raven Films; Shana Dahan, the lead actress of Action!

Action!

; and Danny Shepherd, co-director of Action!

Action!

and also the co-owner of the production group Ismahawk.

Thank you all for joining us.

Adam, I want to start with you.

Why is this a big deal, made in Las Vegas by Las Vegans?

(Adam Kilbourn) Making a movie is one of the hardest things you can possibly do.

It's-- there's no road map.

There's no right way to do it.

You've got to basically figure it out as you go along.

And for a Las Vegas local company, groups of companies, to create a feature-length film here in Las Vegas is a big deal because it's so darn hard to do.

-So for the viewer at home who is thinking, I see Las Vegas in movies all the time.

Why is this a big deal?

How would you respond to that, Danny?

(Danny Shepherd) Well, I think first and foremost-- well, a lot of the films that you see made in Las Vegas are made by people who are not from Las Vegas.

So there's perspective that people have of Las Vegas that is this, like, Well, there's only one street in Las Vegas, and that's Las Vegas Boulevard.

Nothing else really exists outside of that street.

But because we're locals--I grew up here, Shana grew up here, Adam has been here for years--we're coming from a perspective of locals.

We're seeing parts of the city that you don't usually see, you know?

We're getting underneath things, and we're showing-- and in Action!

Action!

specifically, one of the coolest things about it is we're showcasing locations that are staples of the city that you don't really see in any other film.

I mean, we showed the Mob Museum.

-And Shana, people may know you from Storage Wars, also from your YouTube show Thrifters Anonymous.

So from that perspective, why is it a big deal?

Why choose to make a film as opposed to do something that's for social media when so many people see it that way as it is?

-It's true.

You know, Action!

Action!

is-- well, at least from Adam's perspective and Danny, they tried to pay homage to all of the incredible action films we grew up watching.

And so to do something like that from start to finish with our team of Las Vegas locals who we went to school with?

I mean, I went to UNLV.

I wanted to perform since I was a little kid.

And to know I could grow up and be able to do that here, utilizing all the talent that we have here, it's a big deal.

You know, we can do the fun social media, and don't get me wrong, I love it.

I had a great time, but it's a huge accomplishment.

-Tis has been a dream for all of us since we were kids to-- you know, social media is a new outlet that sort of democratizes us being able to create what we want to do without any kind of barriers or gatekeepers.

And for that, it's incredible.

It's given us the opportunity, me and my business partner--Jeremy was the cinematographer of this film--given us the opportunity to grow and elevate our skills in a lot of ways.

At the end of the day, when we were kids, we dreamed about making ovies, you know?

That was the-- we watched-- I remember being eight years old and watching Titanic with my family and asking my dad, Dad, how much do you pay to be a movie star?

And he laughed at me and said, Danny, no, no, they pay you.

That's their job.

And I said, they pay you?

What?

-I know, right?

I want a fight scene.

The fact that we got to-- we trained for three to four months for these fight scenes that were shot, and some of them were in one take.

It was a big deal for us, to be taken seriously too.

Listen, I've done social media and, you know, reality television, and we have some incredible talent on this film, actual actors who have been doing this a long time, and they live here and they work here and that's what's really important.

-Okay.

So, Adam, you're familiar with the Nevada tax film credits.

-Yeah.

-Did you use them for this film?

-No, we did not.

-Why?

-This is entirely privately financed.

Two reasons: One is, to get the tax credits, you've got to jump through some hoops, and it wasn't quite a fit for our project.

And then second is I think it gives you some freedom when you don't have to jump through those hoops to do what you want.

And I think we didn't have a ton of money.

It's not like we did this for $10 million, okay?

We had a limited budget with that, and so we wanted to be creative and to create something really special here.

And I think that that's the reason why we chose to do it private, and-- -And the support from the local community-- -Yeah, we couldn't have done it without support of the local community.

-Who did fund this?

-We got support, not just financial support, but filmmaking support, like location support, like Derek Stevens and the Circa team, they let us film at Legacy Club and inside the property there, and it's beautiful.

Jonathan Jossel in the Plaza, we filmed inside Oscar's Steakhouse, you know, where some very famous movies have been filmed, like Robert De Niro in the Casino.

We got to film at The Mob Museum, which was incredibly special for us.

Mob Museum has been a partner with us on a couple of projects up to this point, and to be back filming in The Mob Museum was awesome.

And it's not because we had this massive budget and we're like throwing all this cash around.

It's because they knew us.

They knew us as local Las Vegas people, and they wanted to support what we were up to and doing, and they knew we were going to take care of their property and show it off in a really good light.

And we love the all the locations that we shot at.

It shows in this movie how beautiful those places are.

We really, I think we make them shine.

It's really cool.

-Downtown is a character, so it's not just Las Vegas Boulevard.

-Yeah.

-Fremont Street is all inside of it.

-The World Market Center.

-You talked about the importance of having those relationships here in Las Vegas.

This makes me wonder about the bill that we have done this whole show on and the relationships that people are going to bring from LA, and will this end up being just an LA town that does not benefit locals?

Do you have any thoughts on that, Danny?

-I mean, at the end of the day, like a tax incentive like this could stimulate a lot of Vegas's economy in the entertainment space, in the film making space.

It could give opportunities to a lot of the filmmakers who are starting up and give them something to kind of, to go for, which is amazing, especially if it actually works like that.

The most important thing that I would hope is that, like, I mean, some of the most talented filmmakers I have ever met are from this town, award winning filmmakers, people with brilliant minds and creativity.

And I just hope that with this kind of bill, that those people are also getting the opportunities to show why they're so special, not even just people at this table, but there's again, the community at large that we have grown in this space.

We went to UNLV and, you know, were one of many talented people that come up every single year through that school.

So hopefully we can see a lot more of that.

-And the terminology that you would use would be "above-the-line" personnel, which is a part of this bill that at least 50% or more of Nevada residents have to make up "below-the-line" employees, which means what, Shana?

-That's a good question that we probably need a good answer for, because I think the concern is, are those individuals who are incredible directors, are they going to be doing sound, are they doing-- what job are they doing?

-Yeah, there's nothing in there for above-the-line.

And above-line includes directors, writers, producers and lead actors.

And from my understanding, they're not listed in there.

It's "50% below-the-line."

So one thing that you could do to guarantee 50% below-the-line, easily, is by putting people who are Las Vegas locals as above-line, some of those incredibly talented people, giving them the opportunities to be able to do that.

And you're going to naturally get 50% below-the-line, because this is the community we were built in.

Everybody kind of knows each other.

It's the same reason why Action!

Action!

was able to kind of use these bombastic locations, that it was definitely punching above the weight of our budget to be able to shoot in those places and elevate the production value of this film is because of those relationships and connections that we have here.

-Adam, can you give me an example of local talent here that is above-the-line that was utilized in this film?

I believe, for example, like in the car chase, I think you were telling me about the stuntmen.

-Aaron Ortega is our stunt coordinator.

He was one of the stunt guys there, got to do a little driving with that.

Andrew Comrie-Picard is also one of the stunt coordinators, or was the stunt coordinator for it, and he's done shows like the Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw.

He's a Hollywood guy.

-He lives here in Vegas?

-Well, he travels and visits a lot.

We got to know him through our other guys at Sin City BMW that do a lot of car stuff with us.

So it was a relationship that was built.

He was one that doesn't actually live here, but he does work here.

One of the guys that, yeah, literally, there's-- -I had to bring up-- -Yeah, the one.

The one that does is, who does live here, though, is David Barker.

And he does all the pyro for Marvel and for like Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay.

He lives in Henderson, and he's a buddy of ours.

And that's the type of talent that does live here locally.

If you talk to David, he does most of his work in other places.

He'll go to the Dominican Republic or to Atlanta or to Vancouver.

He'll do those productions elsewhere.

They don't necessarily happen in town, in Las Vegas, and he'd love to do more work here, but that type of specialized work doesn't normally happen here in Las Vegas, which was why we were excited to blow up a house here in Las Vegas.

We're like, Dave come and hang out.

We'll blow up a house next to the Stratosphere.

He's like, Heck yeah.

-And which is why you are-- oh, how would you describe yourselves about Sony and Warner Brothers possibly being here?

-Well, I think we're all for them coming to town because it means collaboration on a much bigger scale, and that would be awesome.

The question from the tax incentives is, does it make sense for the state?

And that's not for us to decide.

I think we'd be happy that they're here because of the opportunities that we rely on.

And, you know, right now, we're trying our best to do it on our own, and we are so thrilled that we got to produce and create Action!

Action!

here locally with Las Vegas talent and that we're premiering it here on April 25 at the Circa.

It's a, it's basically a movie for Vegas by Vegas.

It's, we're thrilled about it.

-We're running out of time.

One last thing I want to get in, Clarence Gilyard was in this film.

I did not know that he was a professor of film at UNLV.

He has since passed.

Was that 2022?

He's the guy that people will know from Walker, Texas Ranger, Matlock, Die Hard, Top Gun.

What was it like having him as part of this?

-I mean, it was a privilege getting a chance to work with him.

He was our acting teacher at UNLV, and, I don't know, it felt like a really big full circle moment and a really special moment.

He brought a level of professionalism and artistry that like permeated throughout the set.

I mean, all of us felt it.

There was a scene where he was--it was a very intimidating moment--and as soon as we got on set, it was like you could cut the tension, you know, like with a butter knife.

And we were like, Okay, this is tense.

And as soon as we called cut and, That's a wrap, he said, All right, guys!

Great.

Like, you can tell he was locked into the moment, and it was so effective.

Because when you watch that scene on camera, you're like... like, you feel the tension.

It was, it was awesome.

He really elevated the film, and it was a privilege.

-And he was proud of you guys, to be a part of it, because he was able to teach you, and then to be a part of a project that he supported was, it was amazing to watch.

-Thank you all for joining us.

Action!

Action!

at the Circa on April 25.