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Kely McClung is an Award Winning Director/Writer/Actor who was launched into the movie industry after winning the brutal World Championship in Full Contact Stick-Fighting.
Known for his expertise in nearly every aspect of filmmaking, McClung is also an accomplished artist and photographer with both drawings and photographs appearing in various exhibits around the country. His powerful portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi hangs at the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Change in Atlanta, Georgia. His artistic skills are evident in his every aspect of his cinematography and post production skills, as well as his stylistic editing.
An actor himself, he is known as a generous but demanding "actor's director," with a keen eye and understanding of the craft and for bringing out the truth of performances from all his actors.
Though most of his martial arts studies were in traditional Kung Fu under many top teachers, McClung holds Black Belt rank in a half dozen other martial arts and taught at his own schools and clubs not only in the United States, but in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. McClung is twice inducted into the Martial Arts Hall on Honours in Munich, Germany, first as a film director and then for his ongoing contributions to martial arts.
Discovered by martial arts legend Mike Stone, McClung was originally brought to LA to replace Jean-Claude Van Damme. Though Van Damme was able to renegotiate his contracts, McClung was signed by Stone, and then spent time in Africa and the Philippines working on films and learning how to apply his martial arts techniques to the screen.
McClung was then signed to a multi-picture deal to star and write for Menahem Golan. Though Golan's time in Hollywood was coming to an end, McClung became Head of Production for Pan Am Pictures and helped to complete four films for Sam Lupowitz before starting his own production company, Media Arts International Film Corporation.
As a film director, McClung first feature Blood Ties (2007) was filmed in Thailand, Cambodia, Washington DC, Miami, and Atlanta for an astounding 20,000. Blood Ties went on to win the 2007 Action on Film Festival's "Action Film Of The Year," Indie Fest USA's "Best of Festival" and "Best Visual Fx," Big Bang's "Best Director" (Audience Award), Rincon International's "Best International Film", and End of the Pier's "Best Int'l Feature."
Increasing his reputation as a filmmaker who could make the smallest amounts of money into world class projects, McClung's first short film, A.M. Session was nominated for the Short Film Awards at the American Black Film Festival and sold to HBO. The entire budget was 400.00.
McClung's next two feature films, Kerberos and Altered, again pushed all limits with every aspect of their filmmaking. McClung mixed both films in the world famous Twickenham Film Studios, London, incorporated Visual FX from Magnet, FX in Munich, and worked with the Germany's top colorists at Cinechromatix in Berlin. Both of these Award Winning films won multiple awards around the world for artistic and technical achievement.
Loop (2016), McClung's short horror/thriller has garnered nearly a dozen Awards for "Best Film" and "Best Director," including the prestigious "Indie Adler" (Best Film) at the Austrian Film Festival.
Though almost all his time is dedicated to film, and recently named "One of The Top 100 Indie Filmmakers in the World," in the book of the same name written by festival stalwart Del Weston, McClung still trains in and teaches martial arts, and conducts workshops for advanced skills around the world.
When not working on his own projects, McClung does everything from script doctoring to color grading, from editing to sound design on independent features.
McClung is in development on several documentaries focusing on such diverse topics as poverty, violence, and climate change, and the action thriller Black Heart (2018) with Stormcell Entertainment to be shot in Europe, Thailand, and China.
