Moviemaker: Local director found passion

Jun. 28—Just one month ago, Shane Devon was finishing up production on his short film "Ghost-O-Matic" at the Theatre

Workshop of Owensboro's Empress Theatre.

But before the 44-year-old writer and director formed his own film company Tinker Tone Pictures, Devon — originally born Shane Devon Smith — found passion in other areas that he still continues to pursue.

Raised in Breckinridge County, Devon became fascinated with music listening to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" before he dove into the field himself after receiving a keyboard in the third grade, while his aunt — a musician herself — gave Devon three music books to start learning the craft.

"She (got) me a Michael Jackson book of all the chords to 'Thriller,' " he said. "I just started to mess around with that."

He enjoyed the feeling that music brought him and the reception that he was receiving from others.

"I know it (may) sound superficial or shallow or whatever; but whenever I first started learning music, people started paying attention," he said. "And I was, 'OK, this feels pretty good. I like this a lot'."

Devon started his journey on guitar at 15 in the early '90s at the insistence of his grandfather. Even though Devon's family didn't have "many means," they drove up to buy a guitar from his grandfather's brother and he began to learn songs from some Guitar World magazines.

"I learned every song that was inside of them," Devon said. "...It opened up the whole world for me."

Devon recalls a local musician Ray Neff took notice of Devon's interest in music and took him under his wing.

"He started trying to show me everything that he knew about music," he said. "He wrote his own stuff but he was sort of a very (John) Mellencamp-type of artist."

Devon continued to grow his musical talents when he became involved in chorus while he was a student at Breckinridge County High School under the direction of Kathy Tabor, who gave Devon opportunities to showcase himself.

"She was so kind to me and so open to letting me perform during the different big events that they had," he said. "They had one spring revue every year — it was huge — and she would let me perform (in it). And Breckinridge County is so small; there's nothing to do that everybody came out for these events."

In his senior year, Devon debuted his first big solo vocal piece — a cover version of Kenny Loggins' "The Last Unicorn" — in front of 1,000 people, which proved to be a turning point in Devon's life.

"It was incredible," Devon said. "After that night — just with the response that I got — I was like, 'OK, I got to do this. Music is where I got to be.' "

Tabor helped Devon acquire some scholarships to attend Kentucky Wesleyan College as a music education major with the goal of becoming a music teacher.

It was there that Devon met his advisor Dr. Diane Earle, now professor emeritus of music, who also auditioned Devon for his scholarship awards and became an influence during his college career.

During his time at KWC, Devon became part of the Kentucky Wesleyan Singers vocal ensemble and had the opportunity to perform in England thanks in part to Earle helping Devon secure a grant to afford the trip.

"Over time, she became a really good friend of mine," he said.

While Devon went into college to major in the education component of music to appease his family, his real dream was to be a performer.

"I was still sort of writing songs and I had a little four-track Tascam recorder that I was recording stuff on that I was sending unsolicited to different publishers in Nashville to try to get something picked up," Devon laughed.

Around the age of 20, Devon changed his major to music performance despite going against Earle's advice not to and also decided to legally drop his last name.

"I was a cocky kid, man," he said.

During this time, Devon found love and eventually married his wife Mandy and dropped out of school in order to support their new life and got a job at Star Trax Video & Tanning — a place that Devon found comfort in.

"I used to go there to rent movies because I was always intimidated by Owensboro so I didn't want to drive around town," Devon said.

He befriended employee and manager Steve Grimes, who is also a musician, and developed a close bond over music which helped them get through their days on the clock.

Devon then began working at Money Tree Book and Music Exchange and became friends with the owner's brother Joel Osborne of Sunlite Studios who gave Devon an opportunity to learn how to shoot and edit as a video director for weddings.

Pursuing a career in film or video wasn't on Devon's radar due to the amount of funds that were needed to make it happen at the time, despite having a likeness for it early on in his life.

"I knew that I would have liked to make movies," Devon said. "When we were kids, we would shoot stuff on my aunt's camcorder and I would edit them using two VCRs side-by-side ...."

Around 2006, Devon discovered YouTube — which at the time was brand new — and began to record videos in his Owensboro home with a Sony Handycam and edited with Final Cut.

He began to post his own sketch-comedy videos on the site and eventually started adding friends into the mix, forming into October Road Studios and their own web-series "The Basement."

"We would shoot about five to seven sketches and I would edit them and compile them," he said. "After a couple shows, it took off. ...We would get (between 3,000 to 5,000) views per video; and back then, that was a lot."

The group produced about 10 episodes for the next couple of years and filmed over 60 sketches and was featured on YouTube's homepage a few times alongside with other popular video creators on the site while Devon and Osborne would also write, record and publish songs together until Sunlite folded in the late 2000s.

Devon continued a focus on music when he joined Detroit-based record label Jett Plastic Recordings in 2012 helping out with screen printing record covers and securing licensing out of his own home after meeting the founder, Jarrett Koral, through a music forum.

While the label focused more on punk music, Devon wanted to release more pop-oriented fare that he was fond of and decided to create his own company Tinker Tone Records in 2016, taking on clients like Mark Ten, The Groove Barbers, Taylor Abrahamse and Volk.

But being a filmmaker was still something that Devon wanted to continue and founded Tinker Tone Pictures in 2019 after inspiration and encouragement from friends and local filmmakers P.J. Starks and Daniel Benedict.

He recruited Bethany Westerfield and started his first project, the sci-fi adventure flick "The Third Rock Five" — which was about a UFO that is parked over a small town and becomes a tourist attraction that's lost attention over the years.

After developing the film and holding auditions in February 2020, the crew was ready to begin production in Cloverport until the coronavirus caused Devon to lose the resources. But he was still determined to make something happen and began writing another film called "Piper Pence and the Pandemic," telling the story about a girl home alone trying to stay safe during a worldwide zombie pandemic.

The film was officially released in October 2021 and won both "Best of Show" and "Best Narrative Short" at the UPIKE Film & Media Arts Festival hosted by the University of Pikeville's film and media arts program.

"It was surreal," Devon said of getting the validation of their efforts. "Even now, you really don't believe it when it happens."

Though the pandemic persisted in 2021, Devon found his way back to "The Third Rock Five" — retitled to "The UFO Girl" — which is due for release later this year and also tackled a new project called "Ghost-O-Matic" which details high school students Jessie and Madison pairing up for a science project revolving around a ghost-detecting mechanism made by Madison's late great uncle who was a ghost hunter in the early 1960s.

For Devon, pursuing his number of passions has simply become a part of him.

"I don't do it for any particular reason; it's just there," he said. "It's just something that I want to do."