Movie made in Dayton hitting big screen this weekend

On the set of  "Boy Band: The (Heart)throb Story." Stephen Levinson and his younger brother Joel Moss Levinson will begin making their movie in Dayton.  Much of the movie will be filmed at Refraze Studio in Kettering. Photo by Amelia Robinson

On the set of "Boy Band: The (Heart)throb Story." Stephen Levinson and his younger brother Joel Moss Levinson will begin making their movie in Dayton. Much of the movie will be filmed at Refraze Studio in Kettering. Photo by Amelia Robinson

The "Boy Band" is about to be let out of the bag, and one of the creative forces behind it is ecstatic. 
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"We have gotten across the finish line now. It is time for it to live or die," said Joel Moss Levinson, the director and writer of the movie "Boy Band."

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Two days before it is released on digital movie sites, "Boy Band" will be shown to its first paying audience at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 2 at the Little Art Theatre, 247 Xenia Ave. in Yellow Springs.

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The event includes a Q & A session with Levinson, a Dayton native who began making the film in 2016 with his brother, writer Stephen Levinson. 
The Levinson brothers, sons of Dayton Daily News writer Meredith Moss and retired attorney James Levinson, have been making art for decades.

>> Behind the scenes on the set of locally-filmed movie 'Boy Band'

The film will be released for sale on iTunes,  Amazon and other services on March 5.

Joel Moss Levinson, a Yellow Springs resident, said the movie has been a labor of love.

“I am really grateful for the people who made it happen because no nobody got paid what they deserve,” he said. “If we put it to our hourly rate, we probably got three cents an hour.”

The film follows the fictional group the Heartthrob Boyz as they head back to the studio to record a second album.

It stars Steve AgeeSeth HerzogJordan Carlos,  Dave Hill, Esther KuJulie GoldmanDave Gruber AllenJerry O'Connell and Questlove.

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Pre-production work for the movie was done at ReFraze Recording Studio in Kettering.

Scenes for the film were shot at the Dayton Art Institute, the Dayton Masonic Temple and numerous other places in Dayton, Yellow Springs and Kettering.

About 25 local people served as actors and crew members in the movie.

The 84-minute film was screened at the 2018 Cleveland International Film Festival and for supporters at the Neon in downtown Dayton.

“These Kickstarter people have been waiting a long time for their movie,” Levinson said.

The Levinson Brothers, Joel Stephen Levinson, will make the film "Boy Band: The  (Heart)throb Story” in Dayton.

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Nearly $20,000 was raised by a Kickstarter campaign.

Levinson said it is gratifying to see a movie through to its release.

“It takes a long time to make a movie when you don’t have any money to throw at it,” he said. “It took everybody banging  together and willpower to make it happen.”

WANT TO GO?

What: "Boy Band" screening and Q&A with Joel Moss Levinson

When: 1 p.m. Saturday, March 2

Where: Little Art Theatre, 247 Xenia Ave. in Yellow Springs

Cost: $10 and tickets available here

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