Filmmaker starts his career young

Life in film has been good to Chase Kliber.

The Providence High School graduate earned his degree in film with a minor in theatre at UNC Wilmington. He then garnered a place on the crew on the first season on “Homeland” – Showtime’s popular series filmed in Charlotte – and nabbed a job on the movie “Iron Man 3.”

Kliber’s most recent days involve an indie short film he’s directing and producing himself. His parents, Anita and Michael Kliber, who live in south Charlotte off of Providence Road near Interstate 485, are his biggest supporters.

“I suppose what appeals to me about a life in this industry is that it demands this constant sort of crazed energy,” said the 23-year-old from his current home base of Wilmington. “You always have to be on your toes to keep up; and even when you’re keeping pace, there’s so much in motion that it’s impossible to stagnate.

“It’s a lifestyle that has very defined ups and downs. But the ups are so gratifying and so fulfilling that they negate everything else. It’s an industry that encourages dreamers to do what they do best.”

Kliber’s foray into film and theatre started at an early age.

“I was a pretty big reader as a kid, but I also had a handful of movies that I could pop in and be instantly captivated by. That always stuck with me – the immediacy and power of a story as told in moving pictures. So I decided pretty early on that I wanted to make movies of my own,” he said.

As a youngster, he wrote short stories and filmed stop motion animations on his parent’s camcorder, but it wasn’t until he took a theatre class in middle school that he got serious about “the collaborative artistic process.”

At Providence High School, he continued to work in theatre, taking part in a film program his senior year that he says allowed him to experiment with short narratives and documentaries. His class traveled to New Orleans with the Charlotte-based Light Factory to capture the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He graduated in 2007.

College allowed him to continue to experiment with film and take a production job on the movie “Witness Insecurity,” which filmed in Landis, N.C. – all fueling his passion for his current goal: become a director.

“It was an intense production to come onto, but I was excited to be involved, and I worked as hard as my experience allowed. My boss on that show got my resume in for season one of ‘Homeland’ …. and I became the assistant art department coordinator. The crew of the show was so wonderful – we’d been taught to expect monsters in film school,” Kliber said of his seven-month experience right out of college.

Bo Howard, who hired Kliber for “Homeland,” praises his talent.

“I think that he is very smart and has an amazing future ahead of him. I would certainly hire him for any project, and I would trust him to accomplish just about anything he sets his mind to,” said Howard. “He is serving in the same role (assistant art department coordinator), I believe, on ‘Iron Man 3.’ The funny thing is he didn’t really know anything about an art department when I hired him; he just wanted to put his film degree to use and make any connections he could.”

Kliber said he submitted his resume to “Iron Man 3” right before Homeland started wrapping.

“I interviewed a total of four times for different departments, eventually coming on as an art production assistant in January 2012. Unfortunately, due to our non-disclosure agreement, I can say little else about the show.”

The movie is scheduled for release in May 2013.

The young filmmaker’s main priority when “Iron Man 3” finally wraps is to fund and complete his own project, a short film titled “DRAG HIM OUT!” The film is an action thriller about a sociopathic bounty hunter who is called in to pull a questionably innocent man from a crumbling building. He just recently reached his goal of raising more than $13,000 via his Internet site and is determined to see it to completion.

“I have other, bigger ideas on the burner. But before I can make serious progress, I have to make some quality shorts. That’s why directing ‘DRAG HIM OUT!’ is so important to me right now,” Kliber said. “I know that I’ll follow opportunities around the country to get the next job, but the further I go from the supportive communities of Charlotte and Wilmington, the more difficult pulling together ambitious, worthwhile projects will become.”