Back then, Gary Fleder was a film student in his early 20s at Boston University. Paul Edward Yalen was a young Boston-based songwriter and filmmaker with a small international following that he was trying to expand.

When Kevin Burns, the director of the BU Film Unit, learned that Paul was in the middle of production of Allies and had just fired his production company for incompetence, he agreed to assign his own best student filmmaker to help Paul complete the project.

"I'll always be grateful to Kevin for having the vision to see the potential of my work, and for putting Gary in charge of the student crew," says Paul. "Gary and I didn't always see eye to eye, and we could both be quite obstinate in defense of our respective positions on how best to shoot the video, but Gary's talent was obvious to me, and I predicted he would be a great success as a filmmaker. Kevin's abilities were already known, and he was the unifying force who kept both of us in line during the lensing and post-production phases. Allies looks like a lot of fun when you watch it, but it was really a grueling project to complete. Thanks to the efforts of Gary and Kevin, the video has withstood the test of time and is still as popular today as when it was first released." We would add that Paul's own efforts might have had just a little bit to do with the huge success of the video.

Allies went on to become the most instantly recognized and frequently requested independent music video ever made.

Today, Gary Fleder is a successful director of major motion pictures, including Runaway Jury and
Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead.

Kevin Burns is a top director and producer of numerous films and television shows, including the award-winning Biography series. And Paul Edward Yalen, the renowned maverick loner of the music industry, is poised to emerge from three decades of well-cultivated reclusiveness with the signing of his bittersweet and hilarious new book about his misadventures with Johnny Carson and other entertainment celebrities and wanna-be's, Under Johnny's Cloud, to a major literary agency. The book is predicted to be a best seller, and sure to be followed by a blockbuster film of the book. Paul's independent cult comedy
Prep Boys, which he wrote, directed, scored and starred in, is a perennial favorite on college campuses internationally.

It all started with a four-minute music video called Allies.

Click here to watch Allies now!
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For more on Gary Fleder and Kevin Burns, check out these sites:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001219/
http://www.allmoviephoto.com/c/GaryFleder.html

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0122745/
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=233401