THE MOVIE
Based on his New York Times best-selling memoir and featuring exclusive archival footage, this authorized music documentary of Duff McKagan – founding member and bass player for Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver and other bands – chronicles his meteoric rise to fame and fortune, his near-fatal struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, and his remarkable life transformation.
CAST
Duff McKagan
A founding member of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver; Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Duff McKagan shares the story of his rise to the pinnacle of fame and fortune, his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, his personal crash and burn, and his phoenix-like transformation.
In 1984, at the age of twenty, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle partly to pursue music, but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In L.A. only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as “Slash.” In a few years, Guns N’ Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.
In his best-selling autobiography "It’s So Easy and Other Lies", Duff recounts the band’s unlikely trajectory to a string of multiplatinum albums, sold-out stadium concerts, and global acclaim. But that kind of glory can take its toll, and it did, ultimately on Duff as well as on the band itself. As the group began to splinter, Duff felt that he himself was done, too. But his near death as a direct result of alcoholism proved to be his watershed, the turning point that sent him on a unique path to sobriety and the unexpected choices he has made for himself since.
In a voice that is as honest as it is indelibly his own Duff, one of rock’s smartest and most articulate personalities takes audiences on a harrowing journey through the dark heart of rock-and- roll and out the other side.
Website: www.duffonline.com
Twitter: @DuffMcKagan
DIRECTOR
Christopher Duddy
Producer/ Director / Cinematographer
Over a span of the last 4 decades, Christopher Duddy has lent his diverse filmmaking skills to several of the biggest and most successful movies in history and has become a sought after Producer, Director and Cinematographer.
After studying photography in college, Christopher started his career at ILM, Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas’ visual effects studio. He amassed an impressive body of experience early in his career filming visual effects and action sequences on blockbuster movies such as The Abyss, Total Recall and Terminator 2 (which he was on the Academy Award winning teams for visual effects on all three movies.)
Christopher continued working with James Cameron on his next three features; True Lies, T-2 3D, and the 2nd most successful movie of all time, Titanic, in which Mr. Cameron enlisted Christopher to shoot the climax of the ship sinking (again, Christopher was on that Academy Award winning team for visual effects).
Starting the new millennium, Christopher was one of the three credited cinematographers, including Roger Deakins and Andrej Bartkowiak, that shot the acclaimed Kevin Costner feature film Thirteen Days for New Line, where he and director Roger Donaldson re-created the Cuban missile site in the Philippines, while also bringing Washington D.C. back to 1962.
In 2001, Christopher made his directing debut with the award winning short film entitled Leaving Peoria, which won the coveted Best Comedy Short Award at the 2001 Houston WorldFest Film Festival and his lead actor won the Best Actor Award at the 2002 Sun Valley Film Festival. This hilarious and heartfelt film was also written and produced by Duddy.
Christopher has been the Director of Photography on several independent features that have premiered on HBO, Showtime and the Fox Family Channel. In 2004' he shot two horror movies, a remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary which he won best cinematography at Stan Winston’s ScreamFest in 2005 and All Soul's Day which premiered to rave reviews at the 2005 Slamdance Film Festival.
In 2005, Christopher formed Open Sky Entertainment to develop and produce feature films. Since, Open Sky has produced 7 films, one being his feature film directorial debut on the successful R rated comedy Cougar Club which is distributed by Universal/Vivendi.
Currently, Christopher is producing and directing two music documentary feature films. One is about legendary Hall of Fame rock star Duff McKagan of Guns and Roses and Velvet Revolver entitled It’s So Easy and Other Lies and the other is about the legendary music family the Porcaro’s of the band TOTO entitled Porcaro: A Band of Brothers. He’s also been tapped to be the 2nd unit Director of Photography on the hit new CBS show Scorpion which has just been renewed for a 3rd season.