GimpPower Productions

Growing up in New Jersey, Shane Pullar spent almost every Saturday at the movie theater with his brother. He says that this is where he became aware of what he really wanted to do with his life. The magic of films was irresistible to him and it still is today, years after those lazy weekends spent in the darkness of a theater, engrossed by the images on the screen.

So Shane spent his teenage years watching every movie he could get his hands on and learning everything he could about filmmaking. It wasn’t until he began attending Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, however, that he decided to jump in headfirst and become a film major.

For anyone, being an art major can be difficult at times. Combine that difficulty with spastic cerebral palsy and it could just be enough to make anyone want to give up. Shane persevered, however, taking all the disciplines that any art major has to complete before graduating: painting, drawing, photography and more. He graduated in 1997 and remained in the college town until early 2001

During that time, in the summer of 2000, the aspiring filmmaker attended the Summer Production Workshop at the Los Angeles campus of the University of Southern California. The course Shane took during the Workshop was The Directing Workshop, where he learned different directing techniques and heard directors such as Steven Spielberg guest lecture on directing.

In early 2001, Shane moved to Henderson, Nevada, and began working on his first film under the GimpPower Productions banner. The film was a short documentary on the inaugural Powerhockey World Cup. Unlike the documentary Play On, Shane’s next film was scripted from the creative mind of the filmmaker himself. While not long, Christmas Rolls is well written and directed.

Shane is an advocate of using disabled actors in films about characters with disabilities to help lend a sense of authenticity. As he has said, Daniel Day-Lewis gave a remarkable performance as the cerebral palsy afflicted artist in the film My Left Foot. But, “how much more real would it have been if a disabled actor had portrayed Christy Brown.” As he has found from his experiences on Christmas Rolls though, where few, if any of the “disabled” characters actually have a disability, it isn’t that easy to find disabled actors.

Shane’s first and foremost goal with his films is the same as any filmmaker: to entertain. If the audience doesn’t enjoy watching the film, the message behind the film is lost. After the goal of entertaining, the driving force behind GimpPower Production’s films is to educate the disability community by telling stories that will inspire and uplift.

GimpPower Productions' next project will be a short film, under ten minutes, about medical research. It begins pre-production this summer.

To watch Shane’s films, visit GimpPower Production’s YouTube page. If you are interested in finding out more about GimpPower Productions, email Shane Pullar.

Movie Clapper

Print Article

Email Article

View All Articles

How to subscribe to feeds