Sandstorm Production Flix

The New York native graduated from Aviation High School and went on to undergrad at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, getting a Bachelor of Science in Biology. He received a Master of Arts in Biological Sciences at Lehman College in the Bronx before gaining a Doctorate in Podiatry Medicine and Surgery at New York College of Podiatric Medicine.  He maintains a current practice as Associate Professor in Podiatric Surgery at NY Downtown and Gouverneur Hospital.

 

What began as a side practice for him has created not just a film company – Sandstorm Productions - but a family business of sorts. Daughter Amber heads to college to major in communications, having already acted as accomplished editor on a number of Sandstorm’s projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Says Tudor of his daughter Amber: "She edits better than me."

 

 

While son Kevin Jr. started early on as set AD; spurring an interest that led him to a communications major at Penn State University. He is now the Co-Producer on all of Sandstorm's projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having started in 2001, the last decade has seen Sandstorm grow with now 10 shorts and 2 feature titles. Besides running an extremely busy practice, Dr. Tudor becomes Director K. V. Tudor, almost like Clark Kent discarding his day job to become Super Producer - of back to back projects good enough to become festival picks.

 

Using many of the people he knew, Tudor enlisted actors he felt comfortable with until he began meeting sidelined actors, doubling in day jobs as waiters and servers at a frequented restaurant, Angelo & Maxie’s in New York. These were talents eager to transition from theatre to film and looking for more on-camera experience. After a while Tudor found a group of reliable actors that he called upon again and again. Stated Tudor in a recent interview:

“In many productions I kept the same cast. Like Susan Olupitan who plays Kathy Ryan in “Truth and Fairytales” you will see her in a lot of our films as well as Sean Richards… I find people we work very comfortably with. Don’t fix anything not broken, you see?”

 

After the Long Island Film Expo picked it up, “Vicky’s Dad” became the breakthrough to the festival world. Several more films followed such as “Gemini”, Vicky’s Dad”, The Silent Observer” and “Forever Now” picked for festivals from Cannes’s Short Film Corner to the Denver Black Film Festival and many others. Eventually Sandstorm began to build an audience.

 

Four shorts over a three year period went to Cannes and the Tudors accompanied them for an average of ten days during the two week festival; meeting a host of potential industry allies as the company expands into other production levels.

 

Investing out of pocket on the productions, Tudor began thinking of creating projects that could be distributed on a broader level. TV Series projects for majors, feature films for global audiences, and webisodes out of the short films - that after a few festivals runs have fewer places to show.

With additional help from his fraternity - Phi Beta Sigma - with the chapter lending frequent support as well as friends lending everything from apartments, to restaurants and business to film in free of charge; much of the production cost is handled in-kind.

 

With their film “The Dreamcatcher” in post-production, the Tudors gear up for not just festival runs this time, but relationships with broader distribution, cable and network projects - in addition to educational films from some of its informative subject matter, woven inside riveting storytelling.