Lewis D. Chaney

Born in the tiny town of St. Charles, Kentucky (population 400) Lewis fell in love with movies and how they were made at a very early age. Around 1982, his parents, David and Janie Chaney, purchased a video camera and Lewis began his first attempts at making movies and editing them with two VHS machines slaved together. After earning two Associate Degrees, Lewis moved into the world of television news as a videographer in 1985, first at WFIE (briefly) then onto WEHT, both in Evansville, Indiana. It was at WEHT he met his mentor, Leonard Judd, who would become a good friend and encouraged Lewis to continue his work producing shorts and music videos. Along with friends, Dave Snyder (now a Hollywood Makeup Artist), and Theresa Chadwick, Lewis spent weekends turning out short films like "Puppy Love: An Old Fashioned Ghost Story"; "Man of Her Dreams"; "Grain of Truth"; "The Affair"; and music videos including "Cold Winds Blow". These were broadcast across the state of Kentucky as part of Kentucky Educational Television's film and video festival. Winning multiple awards from the Associated Press and Indiana News Photographer Association, he has also shot and edited two Emmy Award winning and one Emmy nominated stories for WEHT. Moving to Nashville, Tennessee in 1998, Lewis worked for Jim Owens and Associates which produced three shows for The Nashville Network, those being "Crook and Chase"; "This Week in Country Music"; and "Today's Country". This afforded him the opportunity to work with hundreds of celebrities, as videographer on countless stories, including an eight day stint with Garth Brooks on the last leg of his World Tour in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It also allowed him the chance to be on the sets of TV shows (such as Diagnosis Murder and JAG) and many music videos. He also had the chance to spend a few days assisting the makeup department on "Babylon 5". All of these were like a film school as Lewis studied how things were being done and had the chance to learn from some very talented people, all of it feeding his desire to make more films. "victimEYES" was his first feature length film, and was chosen as an official selection and winning Best Story, at the World Independent Film Expo in 2010. He has since worked on the fan film "Batman Metaphors" with fellow film director and business partner Neil Kellen along with other films, including Remaindered, the directorial debut short film of Lee Goldberg of "Monk" fame. Lewis continues to write features and will produce/ direct more in the future as well as be a part of as many films as he can in his mid-western hometown area. He lives in Henderson, Kentucky with his wife Karessa and two sons, Spencer and Evan.