History
2001 [Pre-NK Films]
Nick Kohut, Andrew Clark, and Tom Burghart film Immortal Combat. It is their very first film shot with a VHS camcorder. Later the footage and edited version are lost forever.
2002
Nick Kohut and Andrew Clark film The Assassin and dub the producing company “Lee Productions” — it is shortly changed to NK Films, but is never changed within the credits of the film.
2003
Nick Kohut begins writing and shooting many films, but never officially finishes any. One of his screenplays is entitled Parasite and follows a group of young friends who are faced with a mysterious alien infection.
2004
Nick Kohut finishes developing JudoJoe Productions, the online showcase for NK Films projects. Towards the end of the year, JudoJoe.com is purchased and everything becomes official.
2005
Several short films are made by Nick Kohut and Andrew Clark. The only success is Fatal Volume 1 which was filmed in January. It is a short action sequence with an open ending. The summer is finished with a new project entitled Medium Rare (supposed to be the second feature from NK Films), but the project doesn’t make it past October due to its large cast and schedualing conflictions. Fatal Volume 2 is filmed in the end of December and finalized in within the first few days of January of 2006. The film continues the action sequence to an outside setting and is again left open for a third installment (Fatal Volume 3 has many plans but has not as of yet been started). Other films during this year included several attempts at The Assassin Part II and III and a project entitled SHELLS which never really picked up.
2006
The duo films Phantasm, which began as a series of screentests, but evolved into a short film. Around the same time they film Kung Fu Asshole, a play-off of Martial Arts exploitation movies. With the Fall comes a new project: Memory Lapse which is later rewritten and reshot in 2007.
2007
The year begins with many projects from Nick and Andrew. Memory Lapse was intended to be another full-length feature, but it was never finished because a lack of essence and passion. A restart of SHELLS is also planned, but never starts production. A temporary cease on projects occur because of a lack of inspiration. Finally, in the beginning of the summer season, a graduation project entitled Satake is filmed by Nick Kohut, Matt Conway, and Dan Espie. During the summer, Nick Kohut and Matt Conway begin work together and produce another short film entitled Mi Amor: La Tortuga written by Conway and directed by Kohut. The year ends with a contest entry called Pennies for Dimes. It is done by Nick Kohut, Andrew Clark, Matt Conway, and Shane Drumheller for the MC3 Five Day Film Festival. Two more films are planned and started, but do not carry into 2008: Silent Shadow and Failure.
2008
Junior year of high school for Nick Kohut yields little free time for filmmaking and NK Films is temporarily put on hold until the summer time in which Nick, along with Matt Conway, begin work on Parasite, a revival of an old screenplay. When the summer ends, work on Parasite does as well (it is currently unknown whether or not it will be finished). Nick enters his senior year in high school and begins an Independent Study in school for The Art of Film. Four projects are planned: a short segment about voting, a short film for the 2008 MC3 Five Day Film Festival, a short film entitled The First Day of School, and a full-length feature entitled Final. The first two projects are finished and Dating for Broke, the contest entry, is released as the next NK Films production. The two remaining projects are carried over into 2009 to be shot throughout the rest of the schoolyear.
2009
While working on The First Day of School, Nick shoots three shorts, Suicide, light, and Sight, in the purpose of exercising his cinematography and expanding his list of films. The three shorts are experimental, but are released nontheless. Final also begins production. In mid-February, Nick and Matt Conway, along with Paul Reutemann and Matt Shaw; take a trip to California for big mountain skiing and snowboarding. Nick documents the entire trip and returns home to edit five hours of footage into a full-length documentary entitled It’s Cold, We’re Cold. It is released to YouTube in 12 episodes and a DVD is designed to feature all episodes blended into one film with much bonus footage. Shortly after this the NK Films: Short Films of 2008 and 2009 DVD is started, because the camera used in all NK Films’ productions is damaged from filming It’s Cold, We’re Cold. Final is put on hold and never finished. A screenplay In The Shade is written to be possibly filmed in the summer. Along with In The Shade, Midst is written and formed into a short trilogy to be filmed in the beginning of Spring. As high school draws to a close, Nick begins producing a large amount of bonus videos, including new Saturday Night Specials. As well as new videos, he re-edits old ones and releases them on YouTube. Among these old videos is on unfinished film from 2007: Failure. Midst begins production and takes on a whole new structure. Instead of three episodic films, it becomes one single film. The project is finished by summer but is not released publicly due to flaws in delivering its story. After Midst is privately released, Nick moves on to shoot a project that had been in the back of his mind since earlier in the year. Contagion is finally shot and released in mid-July and at the end of the year becomes the first NK Films and JudoJoe Productions short to be submitted to national festivals. Later in the summer, Nick attends Temple University with Yoseph Abdelsalam. They shoot a music video, In Da Jestion, and a Saturday Night Special, College Zombie. In the fall, for the third year in a row, Nick and Andrew participate in the MC3 Five Day Film Festival. In two days they finish Ten O’Clock and at the screening it is given the MC3 Spirit Award for Best Improvement. A few weeks after this, Nick Kohut begins his work on a final project for the semester, Talk. He casts Yoseph and Samantha Park and finishes the film in early December. In December, Nick writes a screenplay for a short story he wrote earlier in the year entitled She Doesn’t Like Him. He also writes a screenplay to be shot in 2010 entitled Pins & Needles.
