DePaul University’s year-old Digital Cinema Program leaps into the big leagues this summer when a mix of professionals and students from the program will produce a feature film under the school’s Bluelight Productions banner.

Director Matt Irvine brings together the same core team of industry professional faculty members who have overseen the production of Bluelight’s inaugural hour-long “Last Call,” which is in post after shooting last July.

Hoffman Estates videogame designer High Voltage Software created two major releases this fall for very different audiences, and is working with Warner Bros. on a famous children’s classic for release next summer.

Atari just released High Voltage’s “Duel Masters,” the first PlayStation game based on the popular card game and animated series, targeted at boys ages eight to 14.

And last month Vivendi Universal put out “Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude,” the latest installment in the venerable adult game series.

“Outing Riley,” Pete Jones’ independent followup to his 2002 Project Greenlight movie “Stolen Summer,” has its world premiere Oct. 10 at the Chicago International Film Festival.

“We’ve gotten some offers for a U.S. theatrical release but the money was not what we wanted it to be,” Jones said.

“We’re hoping we can catch lightning in a bottle in Chicago and find a studio to get behind the film. My biggest goal is to get my investors their money back, and get myself another job.”

The Chicago animation scene is dominated by commercial broadcast, many top firms being divisions of larger post houses or production companies, like Superior Street’s Flux Group, Swell’s Bazooka Graphics, Golan Production’s Atomic Imaging.

Dreamation Studios is developing a 3D feature and a 24-hour internationally broadcast animation network.

STANDUP COMIC DARYL MOON wrapped production in early May on his feature directorial debut, the office war satire “The House of Water and Light.” “Nicholas Prigge and I started writing the script around the time that ‘In the Garden of Good and Evil’ came out, and we just knew a movie with a title that pretentious had to be overdone,” Moon said.

STANDUP COMIC DARYL MOON wrapped production in early May on his feature directorial debut, the office war satire “The House of Water and Light.” “Nicholas Prigge and I started writing the script around the time that ‘In the Garden of Good and Evil’ came out, and we just knew a movie with a title that pretentious had to be overdone,” Moon said. “It’s a farce on war dramas like ‘The Patriot,’ trying to wring every last bit of sentiment from every scene.” Moon, whose day job is in real estate, self-financed the $20,000 budget through his Disco Moon Productions.

By Ed M. Koziarski

Even as 2003 saw the lowest level of Hollywood expenditures in Chicago in years, one sector of local production seems to have remained firmly recession- proof and non-stop: independent film.

The third feature film from independent production company Urban Pictures premieres April 1 at Inner City Entertainment’s Lawndale Theater.

Devin Wesley stars as a former cop who single-handedly takes on a gang of extortionists who hold hostage an entire mall. Keith Mayberry, also known as Silk of the triple-platinum-selling hip-hop group Out Here Brothers, plays the gang leader.

“‘Hostage’ is an urban version of a ‘Die Hard’ or an ‘Under Siege,'” said producer William Pierce.

“Godfather of Green Bay” director Pete Schwaba (from left), actors Lauren Holly and Tony Goldwyn, and producer Brian Etting.

Pete Schwaba has found his calling.