By Alexandyr Kent • akent@gannett.com • June 30, 2009



For seven months, Gregory Kallenberg has been crafting a big story from inside a little executive suite in downtown Shreveport.


The producer-director and his team just finished the first cut of "Haynesville," a documentary about the natural gas drilling boom in northwest Louisiana.

What started as an interest in personal stories about who's winning and losing in the gas play has grown into an examination of where the Haynesville Shale fits into the global energy crunch.

"We faced a huge learning curve coming into it," Kallenberg said after spending another long day of fine-tuning their editing choices. By the looks of their well-ordered suite and the sound of precise self-critiques, it's a good bet "Haynesville" kept pace with the demands of its subject.

"We were very fortunate in the sense that we began filming at the very beginning," Kallenberg said. He and producer Mark Bullard have been tracking the story since spring 2008, just shortly after the Haynesville Shale came to public light.

The documentary not only profiles local landowners but also includes analysis from industry professionals and critics who are keenly aware of the implications of recovering more than 230 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from deep within the earth.

The documentary doesn't simply approach natural gas as a cleaner burning solution to the world's reliance on fossil fuels — coal and oil burn dirtier — but instead approach it as an abundant, yet ultimately limited, resource that can bridge the world to cleaner power sources like solar and wind. Widespread use of "green" technologies may be 30 years away or more.

"It's easy to see yourself as green," Bullard said. "With all the talk, you think it's easy to latch onto it as a concept without latching into the details. "» It's my consumption and my demand that keeps all of this in business."

Kallenberg and his crew are testing the festival and distribution markets for "Haynesville." If all goes well, local audiences should see it in theaters this fall.

More than a local documentary about global energy supply, "Haynesville" is an example that the local independent film scene can continue to grow.

Kallenberg and Bullard have teamed up with associate producer Patrick Long, editor Chris Lyon and lean-and-mean team of local professionals to produce the locally funded documentary.

"This is the way the Shreveport film scene should work," Kallenberg said. The documentary's subject "is something stimulating, and it's drawing from the energy that's here."

Kallenberg, who moved home to Shreveport in 2007, and Bullard, who lives both here and in Texas, first teamed up in Austin where they made a documentary about competitive eating called "Eating Levi" (2007).

"In Austin, you have to yell to be heard above the storm," Bullard said. "You're fighting for talent and resources, which you don't have to do here."

Kallenberg believes the Shreveport indie scene can do nothing but expand.

"We've have figured out a way to be in Shreveport, and make a film from nuts to bolts," Kallenberg said. "I couldn't ask for a better place to make a film."