Ivan Rogers

Ivan Rogers was born on September 20, 1954, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is one of the three sons of Paul B. Rogers, an independent building contractor, and Ola M. Rogers, a professional secretary. He attended Pike High School in Indianapolis, graduating in 1972. Immediately after graduation he attended Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, on a music scholarship as a percussion major. While there he began studying karate in his spare time, eventually achieving the level of second-degree black belt. Academic life began to pale compared to performing professionally, so he left the university to go on the road and play music. He traveled extensively with various bands until he tired of the night life and living out of a suitcase. It was then he decided to leave the music business and further pursue his interest in karate. He began fighting (kickboxing) professionally and rose to the status of world-rated light-heavyweight. After one of his bouts Rogers was approached by an executive from a video disc company and asked to write, produce and star in an educational video disc teaching basic karate and self-defense. He accepted the offer and completed the project, which proved to be successful for both Rogers and the company. Rogers followed the disc with a similar program for the videotape market, and it, too, was successful. Rogers, now infatuated with the entire creative filmmaking process, decided to accept a new challenge: writing a dramatic script for a feature film, as opposed to writing an educational script for video. Though he had many ideas for stories, he realized putting them into the correct format on paper required more knowledge than he had at the time, so he began to read everything he could lay his hands on about writing scripts for feature films. He enjoyed the process of scriptwriting and decided to seek and live more of the "writer's life". He moved to Maui, Hawaii, where he managed a youth center, taught karate and wrote. In 1984 Rogers completed his first feature-length script, entitled "The Pivot". He entered it in an international scriptwriting contest sponsored by Writer's Digest magazine. The results were very favorable. Out of thousands of contestants, his script placed in the top 70, which was designated as the Winner's category. This further motivated him to pursue scriptwriting as a career. He began to miss his involvement in karate and the "fight game" in general, however, so he began promoting kickboxing bouts in the islands. During one of his promotions he was approached by a health club owner and asked to teach karate and train fighters at the health club. After he learned more about the health and fitness business, he decided to buy into the club and become a part owner. he helped build the Atlantis Health and Fitness Center into one of the largest health, fitness and professional karate training centers in the South Pacific. Word of Rogers' success spread to Los Angeles, where Maui native Mike Stone heard of Rogers and his work. On a visit back to Maui, Stone arranged to meet with Rogers and subsequently learned of his aspirations and writing abilities. Stone, who had experience in the filmmaking business on both sides of the camera, shared his knowledge and experience with Rogers and urged him to move to Los Angeles to further his film career. Rogers took Stone's advice, and when he arrived in Los Angeles the two collaborated on a script entitled "The Angkor Rescue", which was later retitled and filmed as Tigershark (1987). Funding was put together and Stone starred in the film with John Quade, with Emmett Alston as director. The movie was shot in the Philippines and distributed worldwide by Manson International. With one screenwriting credit to his name, Rogers had the good fortune to meet screenwriter James R. Silke and, under Silke's tutelage, Rogers further honed his screenwriting skills. He then began to shop his properties to various producers in Los Angeles. It was this experience that made Rogers aware of how little control writers in general, and he in particular, had over his projects and his future in the film industry. He knew the solution to his problem was to produce the films himself. While in a meeting with Stone, Rogers made the acquaintance of producer and production manager Robert E. Waters. A subsequent conversation with Waters in which Rogers restated his ideas and eventual goals reinforced his belief that producing his own films was in fact a necessity. Waters shared all he knew about the process of making a feature film with Rogers, who in turn combined his own writing skills and all that Waters taught him about filmmaking to make a movie of his own. Rogers wrote an action feature script entitled "No Way Out" (eventually filmed under the title One Way Out (1987) due to a title dispute with 20th Century-Fox). Rogers put together a promotional package to raise funds to produce the film. In an attempt to arouse interest in that package, Rogers approached several Hollywood stars about participating in the project, and--in another lesson learned--realized he was not interested in working with prima donna agents and/or talent. It was not until he met producer/director/actor Fred Williamson that Rogers considered starring in the film himself. As Williamson had long worn many hats simultaneously in his various film projects, Rogers felt he could duplicate the same feat. Though Williamson strongly encouraged Rogers to move forward with the project and star in it, he also cautioned Rogers that such an undertaking can be a tremendous "strain on the brain". Taking that advice to heart, Rogers hired director Paul Kyriazi to helm the picture, with Rogers producing and starring. After being schooled on the basics of acting for the movie camera by Williamson and Kyriazi, and with funding in place, Rogers returned to his hometown of Indianapolis to shoot his first feature film. Once there, he received great cooperation from the city and state governments, the Indianapolis police and fire departments and tremendous support from family and friends. Kyriazi shot the film in three weeks. The picture was screened at the Cannes International Film Festival and Market in May of 1987 and not only did Rogers receive a positive review from film industry trade paper "Variety", but the movie went on to achieve great commercial success internationally. Having been accepted by international audiences, Rogers followed with another action film that he wrote, produced and starred in, entitled Two Wrongs Make a Right (1987). Unfortunately, he learned from this picture that not everyone in "the business" is honest or necessarily sincere. He found himself in a legal dispute over revenues from pre-sales of the film, as well as distribution rights for overseas territories. This delayed the completion of the picture by an entire year. Rogers quickly learned the value of knowing the intricacies of distribution and doing business in the international marketplace. After resolving the legal issues, Rogers completed the film and not only distributed it himself, but began acquiring the rights to films from other producers throughout the world and provided the same service to them. Rogers, still making his own films, was approached by a Welsh production company while attending a film market, and asked to star in a Canadian/UK co-production entitled Slow Burn (1989). He accepted the offer and the picture was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. It starred Rogers, William Smith and Anthony James and was directed by John Eyres. The movie was released internationally and was quite successful. Eyres and Rogers met yet again in Milan, Italy, where Eyres, now acting in the capacity of executive producer, requested Rogers star with Terence Ford and Paris Jefferson in another action film, The Runner (1992). Rogers accepted. The film was shot in Wales and England under British director Chris Jones. Once again, the movie was released worldwide and did great business. Producer/actor Ronald L. Marchini approached Rogers and requested he co-star with Marchini and Joe Estevez in a military action film. Rogers traveled to the exotic jungles of Los Banos in the Philippines to shoot Karate Raider (1995). Unfortunately, while performing one of his own stunts with pyrotechnics, Rogers broke his left arm. Though he finished the film, he started looking more closely at his status as an "international action film star". Though Rogers continued to receive offers from producers around the world to participate in independently made action films, he began to tire of the genre. He was looking for a new challenge. It was then that he was contacted by German film distributors Gerhard P. Huck and Jurgen Zitzmann to get involved in a co-production with them. The film was entitled Caged Women II (1996), a sequel to an Italian production made some years before. Rogers' job was to co-produce, write and direct the movie. The challenge he was looking for had now presented itself--he would be directing for the first time. Rogers enlisted the aid of Swedish businessman Kjell Larsson and shot the film, which utilized a host of beautiful models from Penthouse and Playboy magazines, in Indianapolis and Palm Coast, Florida. Now, having momentarily made the departure from action films and the "action film star" label, Rogers embarked on a journey that would promote growth in his career. He started looking at offers to participate in movies other than those in the action and/or exploitation genres. Today Rogers is active acting in, producing and distributing feature films all over the world. He also conducts seminars and workshops on the creative and business aspects of film making.