Nick Smith Productions

2011-09-29T09:40:00.001-07:00

1Miami is an organization dedicated to helping disadvantaged and unemployed workers, as well as people who just want better jobs. This is the first mini-documentary I shot and edited for them. http://ping.fm/A64lu

Profile: Tahlia Robinson

2011-09-02T08:52:00.001-07:00

http://ping.fm/SOvRi

2011-05-25T09:30:00.003-07:00

http://ping.fm/xpVrI

2011-05-25T09:30:00.001-07:00

http://ping.fm/foY4u

2011-05-25T09:29:00.003-07:00

http://ping.fm/XECSI

2011-05-25T09:29:00.001-07:00

http://ping.fm/JeWDs

Cynthia Hill & The Guestworker

2011-04-25T09:57:00.001-07:00

The Guestworker. Directed by Cynthia Hill. Markaymedia.

In her films, Cynthia Hill prefers to let her subjects do the talking. We follow them through the day, seeing the world through their eyes.

With her 2006 film The Guestworker, Hill gives us a glimpse into the hard, low-paid lives of laborers on Wester Farms in North Carolina. It took Hill 3 years to complete the production, and with it, the filmmaker is more or less saying a long goodbye to the world of traditional farming, using time-honored documentary techniques to make her point.

And it's a world that Hill knows well. The filmmaker, who was raised in the rural town of Pink Hill, N.C., says creative urges were nullified, not nurtured, in the agricultural dependent community. 'The idea of doing anything artistic wasn't just discouraged. It wasn't even a possibility,' says Hill.

Convinced that she needed a good stable job, she enrolled in pharmacy school because of the high salaries of pharmacy graduates. 'It's not necessarily the route filmmakers take,' she admits. But at the school there was a whole communications department within the pharmacy program with a studio and professional video equipment.

Hill began making health education videos and found that she enjoyed the filmmaking process. 'It was nice to have a creative side,' she says. 'I was 23, and I hadn't thought I could do that.'

For her first major documentary, Tobacco Money Feeds My Family, Hill turned her attention to the plight of tobacco farmers. While the smoking ban may be good for our lungs, for tobacco farmers it sucks. In the film, Hill shows how important the much maligned crop is to the farmers — and their families — in Lenoir County, N.C. By exploring their lives and their communities, Hill also examines her own upbringing — her family worked in the tobacco fields when she was young.

These days, farmers have a difficult time finding U.S. residents who are willing to work their fingers to the bone for a few hundred bucks a week. No one wants the work. As a result, these farms are allowed to hire guest workers. Which brings us to Don Candelario Gonzalez Moreno, a 65-year-old participant of the government's H2A worker program and the protagonist of the edifying 50-minute documentary, The Guestworker.

Hill uses glossy video to capture life on Wester Farms, but there's no attempt to beautify the agrarian landscape or overdramatize the intensity of the labor. The closest she gets to editorializing is juxtaposing images of a farmer eating a family meal in his house with those of the guestworkers' shoddier living conditions. But her directorial voice is always distinct — she cares about the workers and highlights their humanity.

'I don't necessarily make my films for any audience,' says Hill. Nevertheless, she appreciates the value of watching one of her projects with a group of people and responding to the way they laugh, groan, or shuffle their butts in the middle of a scene. 'There's an immediate feedback you don't get when it's on TV. And it's great to be on the road [promoting my films]. I feel like a rock star. All I need are some groupies.'

After the tour, Hill will return to two other projects she's developing. One is a film about domestic violence that she was brought on board to work on; the other is a deeply personal exploration of religion in her home town. Raised in a Pentecostal Holiness household with a preacher for an uncle, she knows a thing or two about the heavy impact religion can have on small communities.

'I find the whole filmmaking process invigorating,' she says. 'It can also be tiresome, disappointing, frustrating — especially the fundraising process.' But for Hill, all of that hard work is justified when she's granted access to environments, like that of the guest laborers on Wester Farms and the tobacco farmers in Lenoir County, which society doesn't usually get to see. 'That's a great privilege. Then to share it, to watch it with others ... That's an honor.'

- Nick Smith

Book Review: There Goes My Everything

2011-04-23T09:05:00.001-07:00

There Goes My Everything by Jason Sokol. Published by Alfred A. Knopf. 438 pages.
$27.95

In the first chapter of his thorough, accessible book, Jason Sokol presents us with a USA where the President is considered as a dictator by some, and rights are being taken away from average Southern citizens. He's referring not to the 21st Century but the 1940s, where several white concerns (communism, Semitism, federal meddling in their affairs) intermingled with racial tension with violent results.

After two world wars where minorities had fought for the freedom of the United States only to return home and be put back 'in their place,' the South was ripe for change. The struggle for civil rights has been well documented through history books, documentaries and African American eye witness accounts, but the other, white Southern side of the story is less well-known, overshadowed by the newsreel clips that keep cropping up when the era is documented - footage of ranting supremacists and pissed-off parents yelling at their brats' new, integrated classmates.

Brooklyn-based historian Sokol cares about the white guys caught in the middle of the strife, feeling that they also have something to teach us about the period and human nature in general. In a non-judgmental and expressive manner, he examines social change through fresh perspectives, stripping away generalizations to reveal a mass of conflicting feelings, guilt, frustration and conviction among the white majority between 1945 and '75.

Sokol covers the flashpoints of the era, paying particular attention to the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act. But his book pivots on the people affected by those momentous events rather than dry historical facts. He decides that the majority of them tried to ignore historical events around them, at least in their initial stages; for example, Martin Luther King, Jr's aim to turn the city of Albany, Georgia 'upside down' was treated with scorn by the Albany Herald. 'There will be obedience to the letter of the law,' said the newspaper's editor James Gray when the Civil Rights Act was passed, 'but no subservience.'

Like the stubborn rural Caucasians in Everything, Sokol tends to repeat himself. He reiterates minor facts in each chapter, sometimes using the same turns of phrase within the space of a few pages. Other, admittedly well-known issues are glossed over. The Jim Crow laws are oft-referenced but never explained for readers new to them. The author dwells on the 'poor me' white plight for too long – it’s hard to see his subjects as victims when some of them, like the 'vulgar' Altlanta restaurant owner Lester Maddox, a 'cracker Don Quixote,' tilted so sharply against desegregation.

Sokol also expends a lot of ink on the concept that whites were being emancipated as much as their African American neighbors. Unshackled from having to treat other human beings as their inferiors, life was supposedly easier for some of pro-segregationists whose consciences were clear. But it's quite a leap from the ingrained racists mentioned at the beginning of the book to these liberated whites, with whom readers will find it difficult to sympathize.

Despite these niggles, Everything is an eloquent accompaniment to worthy but brain-suckingly dull books like Taylor Branch's At Canaan's Edge. Peppered with brutally honest-to-God characters, Sokol teaches us that even the most ignorant people couldn’t fight this tide of change, although the transformation was a slow one in some rural areas. He notes that Walterboro, SC still enforced segregation in doctors' waiting rooms in 1974, while Terrell County Medical Clinic in Georgia kept that up well into the '80s.

Readers will be left with a greater respect than ever for the determination of the civil rights supporters (regardless of their race) as the author presents some easily digestible lessons in a period of history that’s hard for some to swallow.

- Nick Smith

Book Review: Return Of The Solar Cat

2011-04-21T08:50:00.001-07:00

The Return Of The Solar Cat by Jim Augustyn. Patty Paw Press. 96 pages.

Unlikely comparisons can inspire great books - The Prince and the Pauper, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - but the idea of comparing cats to solar panels seems more off-the-wall than most. But both use sunlight to draw power, and spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing.

When Jim Augustyn realized that cats were harnessing the sun's energy, he found the theme for The Solar Cat Book, which he updated for the ecoconsciuous new century.

When the book was first published in 1979, the search for alternative sources of energy had reached fever pitch. Augustyn used his animal analogy to put the whole debate in perspective, using humor to trace the intricacies of renewable energy.

Now the book's back, with more cartoons and perfect puns to delight cat lovers. Look beyond the illustrations and you'll find a no-nonsense breakdown of solar power's benefits. Refreshingly, Augustyn grants his readers intelligence and common sense; he doesn't feel bound to convince us that nuclear power is becoming redundant. Instead we gets facts, mixed with a little cat fancy.

Here's the only area in which the author stumbles. Most of the juxtapositions are obvious (for example, active and lazy cats compared with active and passive solar panels). But the insertion of gags into some of the more complex information can cause confusion (di-meowium oxide, anyone?).

Some of the sketches are 30 years old and benefit from art's cyclical tastes; others have been touched up to fit the updated text. With a dual target market - cat lovers and green supporters - this book is well written and amusing enough to deserve a wider readership.

- Nick Smith

Larger Than Life

2011-04-19T14:39:00.001-07:00

I love your bunions
The way they glow when they've been angered
I love your eyes
Shot with blood and matched with bags
I love your hourglass ass
The hairs that rope round bars of soap
Your cellulite
Soft-patterned marble.

Your varicose veins
More intricate than a Roman mural
Your cauliflower ear
You cock to listen to me clear
Your clipped toenails
Snug beside me in my bed
Dandruff drops
Alighting on the curlers on your head

Your ashtray smile
That nicotine hit when you kiss me full on
Yellowed thumbs
Remain when all the smoke has gone
You’re there for me
In full fat form I dream about your looks
Much more of you
Than the slim young things in modern books

I'd miss your smell
That stale sweat that wakens me each day
Larger than life
Thank God your love is just a touch away.

Audio Review: Dick Barton - Special Agent!

2011-04-18T10:47:00.001-07:00

Dick Barton - Special Agent! BBC Radio Collection

This daft, facile and utterly compelling serial was first recorded in 1946. In the bleak days of post-war rationing, radio listeners sought escapist entertainment and that's exactly what they got.

Despite the protestations of stuffy critics, the adventures of Dick Barton – essentially children's fare – rapidly became popular with the whole family.

This release treats us with Barton's first adventure, and delivers the danger and excitement promised by its famous frenzied theme tune. Although the Beeb failed to retain the 1946 version or the 1972 rerecording, some kindly soul made a clear off-air copy for our delectation.

The original stars reunited for the '70s version. Noel Johnson sounds great, with a commanding presence that anyone would heed. Snowey White (John Mann)'s a little croaky – that makes him all the more endearing as he backs up the hero.

The most surprising thing about Barton and his boss, products of innocent '40s adventure series, are their fascist tactics. In one scene spy chief Colonel Gardiner (William Fox) tortures a prisoner with a giant mutant spider; in a later escapade, Barton shoots an unarmed hostage! These antics are a far cry from later episodes, where the action was toned down for fear of distressing the kiddies. Any references to alcohol or girlfriends were excised.

Character development consists of turncoat scientists and Dick Barton's chauvinism. Romantic interest Jean Hunter (Margaret Robertson) is quite a heroine: she can handle herself in a scrape, and put up with Dick's sexist remarks to boot. BBC stalwarts Richard Hurndall, resident kindly old scientist, and Michael Kilgarriff, large vocally and physically, are as dependable as ever.

Despite battling spiders, rats and evil henchmen, Barton always has a simple way out of a fix. The villains are so busy being fiendish that they make foolish mistakes and get caught out. This lessens the threat that they pose, but audiences still enjoy similar delights today when they follow the adventures of a more sophisticated special agent called James Bond.

- Nick Smith

Book Review: Cage's Bend

2011-04-17T09:33:00.002-07:00

Cage's Bend by Carter Coleman. Warner Books. 384 pages. $24.95

Cage Rutledge has an almost perfect life. He's a golden boy with sandy hair and fierce blue eyes, sickeningly handsome, popular, musically gifted, athletic and well educated. He's blessed with supportive parents and a plucky younger brother called Harper. Both the Rutledge boys are achingly attractive to the opposite sex. There's only one fly in the family ointment – the loss of middle brother Nick in a car crash. Despite his early demise, Nick is described as an 'an introvert who's kind of shy' who becomes a familiar presence in the narrative, popping up in flashbacks, as an imagined ghost or during teatime conversation.

Cage's Bend is a town at the coil of a river in Tennessee, a vividly depicted land of blood ties, sweat and tears. The Southern setting is a strong influence on the behavior of the Rutledge clan, from Frank the stoic Memphis preacher to Margaret, the equally stoic housewife and churchwoman. But the sense of place weakens as we follow Cage to Nantucket, where the 29-year-old goes off the rails, much to Harper's dismay.

Cage's world falls apart as he's institutionalized in a rat-hole nuthouse and diagnosed as bipolar. Any dubious pleasure the reader might gain from watching Mr. Perfect's fall from grace is stifled by the overwrought prose that works itself into ludicrous loops, reflecting Cage's mental state. The breakdown kicks off a cycle of recovery and relapse, soulless sex and guilt-wracked soliloquies.

Throughout the book, the narrative skips between four major perspectives (Cage, Harper, Frank and Margaret) in a constant attempt to remind us that we're reading a sweeping saga. The timeline is as fractured as the viewpoint, with leaps back in time to the boys' childhood and forward as Cage and Harper hop from bed to bed, fucking 'like alley cats.' In one sequence we learn of two relationships that Harper's having, then flashback to another conquest; meanwhile in San Francisco his recovering brother fucks a pretty Episcopalian 'five ways to Sunday.' None of the sexual references are particularly titillating or enlightening, but they fill lots of pages.

Aside from its examination of the frustrations of mental illness, the torrid tale touches on a couple of worthwhile themes. There's a mention of the desperation felt by people who live outside normal society, the mentally ill and the homeless – the people who feel like useless failures because they haven't achieved a collectively acceptable level of success.

Cage has similar feelings as he's about to hit 30, then 40; it’s easy to sympathize with his concern that he hasn't done enough with his life at those milestone ages, mindful of his mortality. Unfortunately, Cage can be a self-pitying, pretentious bastard. At one point he moans, 'I feel like Munch’s guy etched in the eternal howl in The Scream, fixed in a landscape of horror.'

The author, Carter Coleman, is occasionally guilty of such pretension himself. Cage's yard in Nantucket is filled with wrecked boats, but this image isn't as interesting as Coleman supposes, judging by his multiple references to the scene. He likes to state the obvious, too, as when Cage reaches a turning point in his mental recovery. 'He’s come to a turning point,' we’re told, in case we haven't figured this out for ourselves. But there are other times when the writing improves, particularly where sailing trips are involved. There's a particularly evocative reference to wind slapping halyards against masts like chimes.

While Cage lives it up as a San Francisco troubadour, Harper worries about carrying his brother's manic depression inside him as a kind of genetic time bomb. To drown his fears, he turns to a heady brew of booze, sex and computer programming. In the world of Cage's Bend nobody's allowed to feel content for long, whether they're shaking from lithium tremens or a head-busting hangover.

The final chapters of the book seem rushed as the story leaps forward nine years to 2001, introducing girlfriends only to replace them with new characters within a matter of pages, suggesting that only a healthy, monogamous relationship and the hope borne of a tight-knit family unit can save Cage's sanity and Harper's soul.

The end result is a book as schizophrenic as its main character, its style a mixture of the florid and the frugal. It's not the kind of novel that makes the reader eager to turn the page and find out what happens next, because of the cyclical nature of the characters' lives. The most satisfying parts of Cage's Bend are the atmospheric flashbacks, fitting for a story that often gets stuck in a deep, conceited rut.

- Nick Smith

Book Review: Strangers and Sojourners

2011-04-16T07:07:00.001-07:00

Strangers and Sojourners: Stories from the Lowcountry by Mary Potter Engel. Published by Counterpoint. 222 pages. $23

Welcome to the Lowcountry, where the peace sign is the devil's sign, Baptists are sissies and redneck losers try every trick in the book to get hold of extra doses of prescription painkillers.

This is the Lowcountry of Mary Potter Engel, an accomplished author with a PhD in Christian theology and plenty to say about the pivotal role of spirituality in the South, and its place in the modern world. She develops her themes of faith, devotion and salvation through 21 tangled tales, using recurring characters to add a sense of continuity.

Engel packs a lot into her slim anthology, writing in an entertaining, no-nonsense way that would appeal to the worst of sinners. We meet dozens of individuals – too many, perhaps – and there are references to countless others. All this helps to give us a great sense of scope that helps bring the fictionalized county of Coosawaw to life.

Engel's multicolored quilt of a book depicts scenes from the lives of stubborn Southerners, religious radicals and weird Northern interlopers. We meet Jake Reuben, a Jewish doctor who adheres strictly to a precept from the Talmud: he’s obligated to trust the word of his fellow man. There's Lou, Jake's long-suffering nurse who can't stand a man in a bow tie; Lugenia, a patient with a mysterious ailment that changes colors; and a gay African-American percussionist who’s persecuted for the "unnatural acts" he committed in New York.

This indignant drummer isn't the only one to take his lumps in Strangers and Sojourners. According to Engel, the Lowcountry's a dangerous place to live, evidenced by the characters who lose their lives in a variety of ways. The last story in the book marks some of the nastier fatalities: Melissa Hale drowns, Dean Crosby and Peden Lovett are crushed by hay bales, Sheldon Rosen's shot, Ruby Ferris succumbs to stomach cancer. The list goes on.

These nasty, brutish and short-changed people, many of whom owe their suffering to the rigors of the civilized world, live in a land of run-down homes and breathtaking natural beauty. In Philosophy of Education, Engel describes age-old oaks shrouded in Spanish moss, mistletoe globes in branches of tall cottonwoods, with the ground carpeted by pine needles and warm fog. These paeans to South Carolina make the characters' woes all the more shocking.

So where does God fit into this imperfect picture? Many of the characters have strong religious beliefs that carry them through trying times. For others, faith serves to extend their suffering. Darlinda Smiley's so sure that her devotion to her husband outweighs his sexual sins that she sticks by him, lets him go when he plans to walk out, then takes him back when he's destitute and mortally ill. Darlinda finds spiritual satisfaction in the sacrifice that she makes, but it’s left up to the reader to decide whether she's doing the right thing (her friends think she's crazy).

Billy Driggers' renewed, fanatical belief in the power of preaching helps him to cope with the loss of his wife. Like several of his fellow Coosawawans, he doesn't get a happy ending. The miracle is that he survives a major crisis in his life.

Engel's eloquent when it comes to these crises, unfolding the backgrounds of the tortured souls she’s created, examining the different ways that they deal with the shit that Heaven shovels at them. The prose is never morose and the voices are varied enough to keep each story fresh. But there's a downside to this kind of storytelling.

Perhaps it's the shift from story-driven pieces, where the purpose of a tale lies in its twists and turns, to character-driven, slice of life episodes, that makes the book seem disjointed. But mainly it's the subject matter that hinders or helps the narrative flow. Some of the yarns are caught up in heavy-handed issues, featuring characters that are too stereotypical to be credible.

Tongues of Angels and Why are contrived, trying hard to convey racial injustice via the children of Coosawaw. M to F features an embittered, transgendered patient of Dr Reuben called Samantha. Philosophy of Education and What We Ought to Be both tackle AIDS, where some of the characters' reactions to the syndrome are primitive at best. Well hey, this is the South, right, where folks know better than to touch an HIV positive patient? The author has Lou coming to terms with the sufferers, gradually plucking up the wherewithall to help Dr. Reuben take care of them – a nice message, sure, but one that appears in a story that mixes Christian mores with modern superstitions.

Engel's evocative writing works best when she isn’t depicting rural Southerners as cross-burning, backward clodhoppers. If she revisits Coosawaw in a future book, she should give rednecks a break and leave the preaching to her characters.

- Nick Smith

Book Review: Secret Comics Japan

2011-04-15T10:08:00.001-07:00

Secret Comics Japan edited by Chikao Shiratori. VIZ Media. 200 pages.

See a grownup with a comic book in the UK and you will automatically assume that he's got reading difficulties. He's a little slow, not quite ready for big words yet. He’s special. Perhaps the next generation of Brits will see things differently. The Simpsons continues to increase in popularity; more women are lurking in comic shops (until recently a male domain) than ever before; several of the latest blockbuster movies – Thor, Green Lantern et al – are based on strips; and Viz consistently releases quality publications such as Secret Comics Japan.

Secret Comics is a labor of love from packaging to content. Editor Chikao Shiratori places the eclectic range of short sequential stories into context with his sincere comments. As to the stories themselves, some are irrelevant, some irreverent, but all are written with great care.

You can appreciate the painstaking attention to the translation and presentation of the book. Like the upheaval of the 'comics are for kids' mentality in the UK, Viz appear to be involved in a process of re-education: placing their Japanese reprints in context. Hence the articles that prelude each tale and the backwards text. This all adds to the special, secret identity of the book.

Junko Mizuno's Momongo provides a strong start to the book. Momongo is an intriguing character; the gags and art are very effective. Despite the fact that the chronology becomes confusing, and the involvement of an underage girl in nudity and sex may seem shocking to Western eyes, the story is too short. The reader is left wishing that more time couldn't have been spent with such a promising heroine.

Hironori Kikuchi's Gedatsu Man, literally translated, is Salvation Man. Apparently something is lost in this transposition, and this counts for the narrative and humor as well. The brief series of adventures seem aimed at an immature audience; the linework is nice (the artist apologizes at one point for a poor frame) but Gedatsu Man comes across as inconsequential. As such it is the weakest entry in the book.

After this, Swing Shell is a godsend. The anathema of Gedatsu Man, it is beautiful to look at and we can relate to the main character. The subtleties of the central relationship are the key to the narrative, but author Yuko Tsuno still manages to use the comic book form effectively – the use of anthropomorphism, for example, as a character appears in the story as a bear.

As far as Yoshitomo Yoshimoto’s JR is concerned, some pathos is lost in the translation. That's not to say that it isn't a successful strip: some of the simply drawn frames suit the arena of a school, and the reader is left wondering why the adult hero is stuck there (he’s one of the pupils.) JR succeeds in enticing us, setting questions with ease.

Heartless Bitch and Painful Love (Kiriko Nananan) are reminiscent of Licht and Hernandez. Two stories are packed neatly into the short form demanded by the book. Again, it leaves us begging for more.

Possibly the best story in the collection, Punctures by Shintaro Kago emphasises the pressures of contemporary lifestyles in the East and West. Its themes, tied in with the modern day insecurities of the rat race, are powerfully effective. The art seems almost occidental at times.

Makoto Aida’s Mutant Hanako doesn't work so well. The art's not a problem, although at times it's hard work trying to make out what’s going on. The story is garbled – perhaps it's out of context with a wider tale.

Sexy and believable, Editor Woman (Benkyo Tamaoki) provides a good example of a pornographic comic book story created with a lightness of touch. It's easy to see why Editor Woman is popular, with its credible heroine and situations.

Finally, Usamaru Furuya's Palepoli contains more great gags and a good use of theological discussion. Palepoli includes a number of amusing spoofs, and plays with strip form – frames, perspective and the creative process. There are immature moments, but there’s also a consistent quality in the work.

Secret Comics Japan's eclectic content serves as a great taster for its writers and artists. With a good range of choices and some truly bizarre and eccentric worlds to explore, the book succeeds on almost every level. More Secret Comics, please!

Book Review: Israel on the Appomatox

2011-04-14T08:57:00.001-07:00

Israel on the Appomatox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War by Melvin Patrick Ely. Alfred A. Knopf. 640 pages. $35.00

Beware of geeks bearing gifts. On the face of it, this book promises insight into the lives of Afro-Virginians living on the Appomatox 200 years ago. They faced feuds, prejudice and legal disputes from the time they were given a stretch of land called Israel Hill by Richard Randolph in the 1790s.

Randolph was a visionary aristocrat who had plenty of land to give, but it's what his liberated slaves (nicknamed Israelites) did with the land that's inspiring. They made good use of Randolph's legacy, following the laws of a land that was never fair to them, creating a strong community that weathered decades of hardship.

Ely has pored over thousands of documents to authentically reproduce everyday life on Israel Hill. It’s a shame, then, that the resulting book has a by-the-numbers style, heavy on facts (the notes alone take up 40 pages), light on analysis. The result is a book that’s duller than an overcast Sunday, with so much repetition that the author might as well have named it twice.

Community members like Isham Smith fell in love, bought and sold property, had legal battles, chased their dreams and caught a few of them. It’s no great revelation that ex-slaves owned land – or even that they owned slaves. The book explodes some myths and the lives of the time are depicted with literary aplomb. But if the author intends to teach his readers how to live better lives and co-exist with all creeds, putting them to sleep by page 50 ain't a good way of doing it. Even Ely describes some of his reference materials as "dry annals" when he refers to the heady subject of highway maintenance.

In keeping with the usual formula of this kind of book, we're introduced to various folk who played a part in the existence of Israel Hill. In Chapter 1 it’s Sam White, the owner of a small farm and a free black man. Chapter 2’s protagonist is Richard Randolph. We're told what they did and how they lived, but we never find out who they really were – what made them tick, or why they made their sometimes unorthodox decisions. The main exception is Randolph, whose reluctance to own slaves doesn't stop him from keeping them until his death.

The best thing about this book isn't its teeming cast of characters or inspirational themes. The context gives a great depth, the backdrop to the Afro-Virginians' lives. Through them, Ely covers the changing attitudes to slavery, the 1830s Depression, the arrival of the railroads, and every other conceivable aspect of their world from boating to banjo playing.

This attention to detail hinders the progress of the narrative, but it gives the reader glimpses of important historical developments in the 18th and 19th centuries. Ely mentions the Nat Turner Revolt, where a group of slaves marched through Virginia, killing over 50 whites. As a result, the Israelites' guns were confiscated and they were treated with increased suspicion, although in the main they continued to be treated with civility. It made economic sense for their white neighbors to trade with them as free men and women.

The author also points out the irony that the boatmen from Israel Hill, who relied on transporting goods along the river to make their living, were partially responsible for their industry’s decline; the railroad needed bridges, and they carried the materials upstream for the vital Appomatox High Bridge.

While history unfolds and affects the Israelites, Ely continually emphasizes that once they had a plot of land to own, the Afro-Virginians gained autonomy, co-existing with their white neighbors and living in a similar way. He tells us that, "they lived in a society where alcohol was the staple of local hospitality," and that they had the same sense of Southern honor and "sue thy neighbor" attitude, with disputes often leading to litigation.

He cites the case of Thomas Bowman, who didn’t receive the payment he was due from his white employer, John Childress, for farm labor. A white jury found for Bowman, and Childress paid up. There are other cases mentioned where justice wasn't so blind, yet being free meant having many opportunities unavailable to slaves.

The book’s real flaw is the way that it presents information. Instead of taking a theme and developing it, Ely packs each chapter with minutiae that threaten to drown the characters and obscure the most important information. The readers are treated like archaeologists, required to dig for essential details in a book that's part textbook, part dramatic narrative, and all compromise. The Israelites deserve better.

Book Review: Ten Miles of Bad Road

2011-04-13T10:22:00.001-07:00

Ten Miles of Bad Road: Hallucinations of a Two-Bit Adman by Eric Vincent. Firetree Publishing. 210 pages. $20.99

Samuel Pepys never intended his diaries for publication. So the 17th century Englishman had no qualms about recording London life in all its grubby glory. He didn’t feel the need to censor himself for fear of offending anyone, so he left a unique, truthful, distinctly personal description of entertainment, sex, food and medicine in the 1600s.

In Ten Miles of Bad Road, Eric Vincent promises to reveal the Truth About Everything. There’s no censorship here, just a reflection of Vincent's life in illustrated form, a life of ingenuity and frustration. Like Pepys, Vincent offers his own perspective on the world around him, and to hell with the corporate reps who don't understand his sense of humor.

The big difference is that Pepys couldn't design footwear for camels or draw raccoons with whoopee cushions. Vincent's commentary takes the form of cartoons, drawings and doodles, many of them put together in his spare moments while working as art director at a Southern ad agency. By putting his fears and fantasies onto paper, Vincent stayed sane and refused to conform with the execs around him. By sharing those fantasies with us, he encourages us to let our imaginations wander beyond the borders of the reasonable.

There are plenty of funny animals in this book, but Vincent prefers to dabble with the anti-cute. Imagine cartoonist Chuck Jones, horror artist Steve Bissette and Mad's Harvey Kurtzman getting together and creating a book of rip-snortin', no-holds-barred, don't-give-a-fuck illustrations, and you’ll have an inkling of the contents of this puppy.

Vincent uses his dogs, cows and mosquitoes to make fun of anything that bugs him, from obese locals to obese tourists and obese businessmen who put commerce before art. But the artist doesn't merely rail against the woes of Southern life or the dull conformity of sales-savvy artists like Thomas Kinkade. Sometimes he takes a 'cool idea' (of which there are many) and stretches it as far as he can before his boss starts looking over his shoulder and asks him why he hasn't finished his latest politically correct assignment.

The gags include a bust-up at a midget cattlemen's association meeting, a dog playing dentist, a pirate armed with a Swiss army peg leg and a busking Godzilla. Superheroes share their pages with gods and mythological creatures. Jerry Falwell is reinterpreted as a flabby rock god, enjoying his successful Angel Wedgy tour.

The free-flow freak show is grounded in reality with a healthy, old fashioned, good-humored dose of Canadian-bashing, and there are plenty of recognizable nods to Lowcountry people and places. In Vincent's version of Charleston, tourists get the opportunity to trade places with carriage horses for a day. Instead of being fawned over by the authorities, itinerant tourists are sent to the klink. At high tide the fish pop out of every pipe and plug, cracking one-liners. Vincent is a man who has lived and suffered here – you can almost feel the salty summer sweat dripping from some of his drawings.

Vincent's intelligence adds a luster to all the mayhem and advertising concepts gone horribly wrong. He comments on some of his work, putting it in context or telling us where it came from. He wears his artistic heartthrobs on his sleeve – there are echoes of John Tenniel and Francois Boucher, warped with an EC Comics sensibility. So in lieu of EC's Weird Science or Two Fisted Tales, we get 'Two-Fisted Science' for double the fun.

Ten Miles is Firetree Publishing's first title. This is a rash choice to launch a company because of its personal slant, but Vincent's had enough of toeing the line and producing material that's worthy just because it's marketable – that's one of the main themes of the book.

Pepys' diaries had a lot to say about the dumbing down of society and the corruption that threatened his native city. His scribblings were tucked away for 150 years, then rediscovered, published and hailed as a literary and historic gem. If Ten Miles of Bad Road is dug up in the same fashion, Vincent's work will give historians a great view of life in Charleston, warts and all, plus a peep into one man's glorious thought processes.
Until Vincent gains the place in history he deserves, he'll always face a whole bunch of people who don’t 'get it.' After all, this mishmash of silly cartoons and deft social commentary, though always stylishly drawn, apparently started off as little more than an office in-joke. But while this collection may not attract the Thomas Kinkade-loving public en masse, it will appeal to all lacto-pervs (cow boobs sure are funny, aren't they?), frustrated two-bit ad men, and anyone unsatisfied with the vanilla normalcy of the world around them.

Cold Feet

2011-04-09T10:04:00.001-07:00

Warm petals drifting down
Escaping from the sun
Smothering me with fragrance
I drink in their sight

They cover the sidewalk
Transform its slabs into a bridal path
Daring me to tread
On their delicate remains

The tidy tree that loses them
Is nature's modest altar
Framed in thin green veils
Waiting for once-a-year worshipers

For once, its blossom shower
Cries for attention
Appreciating praise
As it bares all.

I leave the altar's shade
Skirt the petals, leave them lying
For other, braver souls
To crush beneath their feet.

A Tune in Three Verses

2011-04-05T09:01:00.001-07:00

The flautist’s fingers find a tone
Lips pressed tight to kiss a tune aloft
High-borne music seeks a heartfelt home
Alighting on a keen ear with notes soft.

Tender ideas entering the mind
Raising spirits with the sounds up high
Hands around the flute will swiftly wind
In union with breath, the slightest sigh
Makes feelings clearer than a voice can say
Love or upset trailing in the air
Before all sounds soon dissipate away
As if they have been thrown with faintest care

And yet the tune’s retained within the mind
Summoned back by memory alone
When sought for, all that feeling’s there to find
Along with melody, meaning and tone.

Eat Happy Book Trailer

2011-03-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

A Move to Miami

2010-10-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I moved to Miami, FL to start an MFA in Film. It's strange after so many years of teaching to be a student again, but I'm getting used to it.

One of the main things I've noticed about my professors is their enthusiasm. They cover a range of ages, but they all like filmmaking - they're not jaded or cynical like me. Only one of them has had hits, but they all keep creating material as if their souls depended on it.

I'm no A-student, but I try to be meticulous when I'm doing my homework. That's what I'm off to do right now. If I don't, I'll have to find a hungry dog to use as an excuse when I go to see those passionate profs empty-handed.

Visual Art Review: Alex Leopold

2010-07-28T14:36:00.001-07:00

When a new gallery called Aster Hall opened last year, we expected something fancy, like a converted church or a historic site with high ceilings and tasseled tapestries. A place for Vikings to drink mead or a lodge where masons wrought their rituals.

Instead, the spot is named for store owner and jewelry designer Angela Hall. Aster's a retail space on King Street that sells clothing, jewelry, photographs, secondhand records, and art by Ishmael, Michael Morrison, and Katie Leonard. There's a lot to see in the modest space, and after a rush of tourists, it looks more like a rummage sale than an art gallery. I was pleased to see that the stock had been streamlined to make way for Points of Origin by Atlanta artist Alex Leopold, who has created several new mixed media pieces for the exhibition. They're pretty pop art pieces which often include found objects (keys, cutlery, packaging) that give them a funky folk-art edge.

Aster has been displaying Leopold's work since it opened in mid-2009. He has a following in Atlanta and is gaining one here â€” large enough to warrant his exhibition. Most of the work is small, but Leopold makes good use of each modest square panel. He adds bold colors, collage, and drawn or painted images, then gives each panel an epoxy glaze. A bird motif runs through a lot of his work, partly because of their spiritual symbolism and also because he was looking for something simple to depict when he was starting out. The birds, flora, and predominant blues and greens indicate Leopold's affinity with nature.

The artist was raised in Irmo, S.C. The Columbia suburb had plenty of countryside for young Leopold to explore. As an adult, he spent 10 years pursuing a music career. You can almost hear a phantom soundtrack when you look at these panels, because the music and the emotions it evokes are a strong aspect of his life and art. Reading the text on one of his pieces is like finding an orphaned song lyric: "All because of you," says one line, "all because of you." One-word titles give many of the pieces a pop-music punch; vinyl records are adhered to the latest additions to hammer home the message.

The elements are diverse. Some of the art has several pictures pasted onto one panel, but the artist gives them enough room to breathe and be effective. Eduardo Paolozzi-style pinups loll on bold red backgrounds (as in "Eight"). A key and a lock invite you to touch "Sing" and read the label on its O'Jays record. A cheeky rooster struts in "Look What I Got." The London Eye and Houses of Parliament add an exotic flavor to "Wish." At 36" x 36", it's one of the largest pieces in the gallery. "On These Still Wings" is the most striking in terms of size and color choices â€” its gray and black background give it a sepulcher grimness and the glaze reflects viewers' faces, effectively making them part of the art. "Hope Is" plays with the panel shape, placing a bird sculpture near the top of a tall 9" x 32" background to suggest flight.

Leopold describes his new series as an experiment with an emphasis on complimentary colors. His trademark cool gray-blue appears in some of the art. Leopold's eclectic collection is held together by the recurring birds and other repetitions; the lyrics, evil-looking Southern goats, old forks with twisted tines, and scraps of photos and handwritten notes give the art a more personal feel.

This kind of mixed media work can be found elsewhere, and the themes of wishing and romance are bubblegum thin, but Leopold's passion and industriousness shine through and make this show worth a spin. Most importantly, the art improves the interior of Aster Hall, and I'm glad that the gallery has devoted so much wall space to a promising artist.

2010-06-06T15:05:00.001-07:00

VIDEO Daniel MacIvor: This is What Happens Next http://ping.fm/bwv86

2010-06-01T06:40:00.001-07:00

Shipwrecked http://ping.fm/pbTJp

2010-06-01T06:09:00.001-07:00

Daniel MacIvor http://ping.fm/l7uVu

2010-05-31T15:16:00.003-07:00

Goodbye Emmanuel http://ping.fm/qRvat

2010-05-31T15:16:00.001-07:00

Flower Power http://ping.fm/8XUFG

2010-05-31T09:41:00.001-07:00

The Voice of God http://ping.fm/o99Qn

2010-05-31T06:24:00.001-07:00

Cowardly fun http://ping.fm/tqTeo

2010-05-30T04:35:00.001-07:00

Ramblin' man http://ping.fm/HvRmN

2010-05-29T19:55:00.001-07:00

Charleston's art injection http://ping.fm/vAJTW

2010-05-29T05:40:00.001-07:00

A Thom Pain primer http://ping.fm/MJxuh

2010-05-28T21:09:00.001-07:00

Ross of the Rings http://ping.fm/AjR6H

2010-05-28T06:13:00.001-07:00

Reckon on this http://ping.fm/6h3tv

2010-05-27T14:44:00.001-07:00

Walk on the Weird Side http://ping.fm/LdpV4

2010-05-09T12:14:00.001-07:00

Shop Talk Interview http://ping.fm/IimQx

Shop Talk

2010-05-09T12:03:00.005-07:00

AN EXTENDED INTERVIEW WITH PC & SMan OF THE HIT CHARLESTON TV SHOW "SHOP TALK"

By Nick Smith

Shop Talk, the Comcast C2 talk show, has become a local phenomenon since it began just over a year ago.

The format is simple: hosts PC (real name Paul Curry) and bespectacled, hand-rubbing ex-rapper SMan (Ivan Heyward) chat while their interviewee sits in a barber chair. Everybody faces the camera. It’s just like a few friends yakking in a barber shop, except this time the conversation is shared with the rest of Charleston.

Shop Talk covers relationship issues, the community and entertaining everyday matters. Regular folk are welcome to appear on the show, but switch it on halfway through and you’ll think the presenters are talking to an expert; everyone has a nugget of wisdom to share when they’re encouraged by PC and SMan.

I dropped by the Comcast studio to talk to the two Charleston-based African American hosts who make this show so addictive with their friendly banter. They explained that when they ran into Tammy, host/producer of C2’s The Tammy Show, they expressed an interest in doing a program of their own.

PC: We followed her round like two puppy dogs.

SMan: There was a little stupidity involved. We said, “hey man, I think we can be on TV too.”

PC: We told her, “we wanna be on your show!” “Doin’ what?” she asked. We said we were performers. She made me sing, put me on the spot.

SMan: We did a mock show to see how we would react on camera.

PC: It wasn’t like the show is now. It was a variety show with skits. We recorded it in a living room and took that to the station manager, who thought there was something there.

NS: Why did so many years pass before the Shop Talk format popped up as a fully evolved concept in PC’s head?

PC: We procrastinated for two years.

SMan: A big reason we finally did it was losses to the family.

PC: My sister died two years ago in March. She was 31, she never got a chance to live. I was driving home with tears streaming when I called SMan on the road and said, “I got it!” That’s a reason why we say the barber shop idea was God given.

NS: Did you have to submit another trial run?

PC: We did a seven minute demo. The head of the channel said, “don’t get excited.”

SMan: That was definitely a damper. Just ‘cos the demo was entertaining, that don’t mean it would translate to the screen.

NS: How did you feel when Comcast aired the pilot?

SMan: That was a great moment to see it on TV. It wasn’t like the show though.

PC: The first show was ridiculous, though SMan was good. The first and second shows were classics. We wanted four shows. Now we’re on our 53rd.

SMan: Who knew?

NS: Why is Shop Talk so popular?

PC: We talk about relationships.

SMan: Boy/girl topics. These are things we talk about anyway.

PC: You have relationships with your coworkers, your loved ones. If they work then you can be happy. Also, things that are nichey and clicking always do good. We cover relevant topics. We’re funny and entertaining. And it’s a show where your opinion counts.

NS: Who watches your show?

PC: It’s far more popular than we ever thought. We have the widest demographic on C2. We had Ronald McDonald on our float in the Christmas parade. Ronald’s marketing manager said he’d never seen anyone with such a wide following as us. Not just women, even men come up to me all the time, they don’t hesitate. They consider us one of them. They identify with us and the say thank you for the things we talk about.

NS: People ask you for relationship advice?

PC: (laughing) It’s a crazy, wild part of what we’re doing. There was a lady in Wal-Mart, in line behind me. She said, “I have a question for the Shop Talk guy.” That was the only reason she lined up! The attendant was also talking to me about her relationships.

NS: Making a TV show can be very stressful. You seem like a couple of laid back guys, but does the pressure ever get to you?

PC: We don’t bicker – we’re straightforward with each other.

SMan: PC’s like a big brother to me.

NS: Who do you have on your show?

PC: We’re looking for regular people. They gotta be able to articulate a sandwich. I mean a sentence. We would take celebrities…

SMan: We really don’t know them. We know people down the street.

PC: Wendy Davis from Army Wives has been on. And News 2 anchor Brad Franko.

SMan: Bad Brad Franko.

PC: But we make it a big deal when real people come on.

NS: Do you aspire to go beyond C2?

PC: A local radio show would give us more push, and we’d add radio affiliates, go to national magazines and networks. We’ve got 10 CDs of our funniest moments put together for ourselves and for promotional purposes.

SMan: Everything ain’t gone by the plan so who knows? Whatever happens, we’re gonna be around. We’re a part of the community. To be able to do something that will help everyone is a blessing.

Shop Talk is available via Video On Demand. It’s also on 18 times a week at 4.30 and 11.30 p.m. in the Charleston, SC area. To guest on the show, email shoptalk@comcastc2.com. You can also send a short video clip and the hosts will do their best to include it in a future segment. Excerpts from this interview appeared in a recent issue of the Charleston City Paper.

2010-05-05T18:30:00.001-07:00

Carolina Film Alliance News http://ping.fm/xYQSa

2010-05-04T06:38:00.001-07:00

Watchers Book Review http://ping.fm/5nbN5

2010-05-02T06:51:00.001-07:00

Performing Arts Bootcamp http://ping.fm/A9bL5

2010-05-01T17:35:00.001-07:00

Flora, an Opera @ Spoleto http://ping.fm/iO4u1

2010-04-30T14:26:00.001-07:00

http://ping.fm/sloSJ

2010-04-29T05:52:00.001-07:00

Creative Spark http://ping.fm/Ssvrz

2010-04-28T12:22:00.001-07:00

Performing Arts Bootcamp includes appearances from Neal Lerner (Seinfeld, Batman Returns) and Robert Kim (Ferris Bueller's Day Off). http://ping.fm/u3yT7

2010-04-28T05:53:00.001-07:00

African American Museum http://ping.fm/1kiIn

2010-04-19T18:57:00.001-07:00

Robert Jordan http://ping.fm/ov8HD

2010-04-19T07:44:00.001-07:00

Book review: Catching Out http://ping.fm/zGBLU

2010-04-15T08:30:00.001-07:00

Spoleto Tix & Tips http://ping.fm/DKdP2

2010-04-14T13:09:00.001-07:00

Eat Happy this Friday http://ping.fm/ZHA5U

2010-04-14T05:38:00.001-07:00

Sharpshooter Screening http://ping.fm/MNJn6

2010-04-13T05:55:00.001-07:00

Eat the Runt Review http://ping.fm/KMkeQ

2010-04-12T10:14:00.001-07:00

Christo http://ping.fm/CXKfe

2010-04-11T16:36:00.001-07:00

Suitcase Art Show http://ping.fm/9Z9lH

2010-04-09T08:31:00.001-07:00

Where's the Moon: Poetry book review http://ping.fm/aFFmB

2010-04-08T06:12:00.001-07:00

A good win for the new Folly Beach mayor. http://ping.fm/SYWCF

2010-04-07T18:35:00.001-07:00

Nab Jones is a Man with Skills http://ping.fm/oVpHu

2010-04-06T04:26:00.001-07:00

Eat Happy at Blue Bicycle Books http://ping.fm/Es6Za

2010-04-05T12:54:00.001-07:00

Young Contemporaries http://ping.fm/iaH39

2010-03-26T10:02:00.001-07:00

Spoleto News: Dock Street gala getting a new diva http://ping.fm/ea3T5

2010-03-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

Paper Monument art show at Redux http://ping.fm/HebwT

2010-03-25T19:42:00.001-07:00

Trinity Wars http://ping.fm/CLxzD

2010-03-24T07:00:00.001-07:00

Short film submissions http://ping.fm/ZAK64

2010-03-23T06:25:00.001-07:00

TCM is showing Akira Kurosawa films. It's great to see some of his rarer work. http://ping.fm/aqzxb

2010-03-22T10:31:00.001-07:00

The inspiration for "Repo Men." http://ping.fm/TbUeL

2010-03-22T06:27:00.001-07:00

Best Way to Get Shaken and Stirred http://ping.fm/Tuk0L

2010-03-21T13:05:00.001-07:00

Best Western Featuring David Carradine Shot in Summerville http://ping.fm/x6Im1

2010-03-20T19:31:00.001-07:00

Untold Stories at the City Gallery http://ping.fm/CQKNA

2010-03-19T08:23:00.001-07:00

The Kitty Killer Cult on eBay http://ping.fm/vVVRg(PAPERBACK)-NEW_W0QQitemZ360242151176QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20100312?IMSfp=TL100312169012r6985

2010-03-18T07:58:00.001-07:00

Blue Bike Books on Jeopardy http://ping.fm/taGFl

2010-03-17T06:20:00.001-07:00

Best Tagline for a Book http://ping.fm/WMcNn

2010-03-16T07:10:00.001-07:00

Best Way to Meet Your Underground Neighbors http://ping.fm/5jJwZ

2010-03-15T11:03:00.001-07:00

A night at the Movies http://ping.fm/9Emmb

2010-03-15T06:12:00.001-07:00

Cold Soldiers has won the Audience Award at the 2010 Charleston Film Festival. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen!

2010-03-14T10:12:00.001-07:00

Writing a review of the fascinating new City gallery art show, "Untold Stories." http://ping.fm/ReubO

2010-03-14T08:30:00.001-07:00

Best Theater Crash Course http://ping.fm/VCeRt

2010-03-13T11:27:00.001-07:00

Writing a review of "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress." It's a funny show! http://ping.fm/hthi2

2010-03-13T08:58:00.001-07:00

Best Play with Folks in their Skivvies http://ping.fm/k6CO8

2010-03-12T07:57:00.001-07:00

Best Mushroom Man http://ping.fm/6RKac

2010-03-11T07:57:00.001-07:00

Cold Soldiers: What to watch http://ping.fm/A4m4G

2010-03-10T13:56:00.001-07:00

Charleston Film Festival opens tomorrow with the debut of "Cold Soldiers." http://ping.fm/cNsfz

2010-03-10T08:04:00.001-07:00

Cold Soldiers gets its film festival premiere tomorrow. http://ping.fm/rOjqG

COLD SOLDIERS at Pecha Kucha Charleston

2010-01-29T21:07:00.034-07:00

In preparation for an appearance at the arts event Pecha Kucha Charleston, I put together some basic facts and ideas about my current movie Cold Soldiers – far more information than I’d be able to impart during my presentation. Here are the notes with some extra details thrown in.

- Nick Smith

Our mission was simple: to make a Bourne Identity-style movie in and around Charleston, SC with all the things you’d expect from a Hollywood actioner: romance, suspense, knock-down drag-out fights, car chases and an involving, surprising, twisty turny plot. We wanted to work with local actors and crew and we didn’t want interference from some omnipotent executive producer. There was only one problem: we had no budget.

There’s a lot of talking in the regional film industry and not much action. A lot of people yak about making a film but never get round to it, usually for lack of funds. We had two choices: spend our time looking for investors, or spend our time making a movie. We chose the latter.

We would have to beg, borrow and steal to shoot it. We’d have to do everything ourselves, from casting to editing to hitting film festivals. But I’d just finished directing a much bigger-budgeted film where I didn’t get final cut. This would give me more creative freedom, and it was the latest in a long line of chances to show what I could achieve on a shoestring.

Cold Soldiers is set in the Kershaw Institute, where soldiers who have failed their missions or freaked out on the field are sent for monitoring and recovery.

John Dance is a psychiatrist sent to interview the patients and find out if they’re fit for duty. He will report to the institute’s review board, which includes his wife Rebecca. (This is the movies – you have to have some kind of nepotism.)

Assassins are busting out of Kershaw and killing members of the review board.

After two assassinations, Rebecca becomes the prime target. John Dance has to find out who’s involved before she comes under fire. His job isn’t made any easier by the fact that no one is who they seem – which makes him question his judgment and his sanity.

Movies have often been compared to military campaigns, and I knew that do this properly I’d need a marine – or a former marine, at least.

I enlisted the help of Trevor Erickson, who stars in the film and also acts as its co-producer and stunt/fight choreographer.

Trevor had worked alongside me on my last movie and we knew we were level-headed and efficient enough to do this without cracking under pressure and killing each other. Although in fact, since Trevor's the former marine, I would have been the one who got killed.

As a writer/director I’ve been trained to use the resources around me and incorporate them into my projects. For years I’d paid attention to the actors in local films, TV and stage shows. If I got the casting right I wouldn’t have to spend half the shoot doing dozens of takes with inexperienced actors. And part of the fun of watching the finished product is recognizing people from PURE Theatre, the Village Playhouse, and other movies that have shot here.

We have RW Smith and Nat Jones from PURE, Michael Easler from the Playhouse, Sandra VanNatta, who’s appeared in The Notebook and Leatherheads, and John Brennan from Theatre 99. Trouble was, we couldn’t pay them to take time off their regular day jobs or even stay in town. One actress moved to LA halfway through the shoot without telling me. We were left with five of her scenes still to shoot, so we switched some of her lines to other actors and used a double to cover her absence.

Trevor didn’t have the luxury of a stunt double, but he did have a great crew to make him look pretty. Two core crewmembers were Mark Gorman and Steve Zimmerman, our AD and gaffer. They’re both highly experienced but just as importantly, they’re calm under pressure and have a passion and imagination for their art.

The lack of budget created other hurdles. Although we used private property or paid for permits when we could, there were times when we had to do some guerilla shooting. A phrase became known to me: “better to ask for forgiveness later than to ask for permission now.” With his truck bristling with weapons, Trevor was always worried that the police would stop him.

We were only stopped by the cops once – ironically, on a publicity photoshoot for the film. The actors looked pretty dodgy as they rose out of the Ashley River with their automatic rifles. But when the police heard we were making a movie, they wanted a picture with the actors and posed holding the guns. They were officers we couldn’t refuse.

To give Cold Soldiers a dark, almost dystopian look, we sought out the grungiest locations possible. It’s interesting that some of the places we filmed at – The Powerhouse in North Charleston, the Garco Plant near Park Circle, and the Cigar Factory downtown – have changed drastically. As a director and cinematographer it makes me sad to see those amazing pieces of recent history disappear. But at least we have a record of them in the film.

Other opportunities presented themselves to us and we had to take them. When a friend offered to let us use a quarter of a million dollar sports car in our movie, we couldn’t say no.

We also found a gent with a private airstrip and plane on John’s Island, so that became part of our main car chase too. It was a long time before we approached Force Protection because we thought they wouldn’t give us the time of day with our tiny budget – after all, their vehicles had appeared in Transformers.

But they quickly told us that Michael Bay hadn’t given them a dime, and they were happy to have us. In fact, everyone was willing to help us out except the Noisette Company and that’s one thing that kept me going – the feeling of support in the area. It’s not just the crew that puts a movie together; it’s caterers, artists, publicists, the wee guy at the local hardware store.

I estimate that over 300 filmmakers and non-filmmakers were involved in making Cold Soldiers, and that’s not counting the wee guy. If people see the movie and enjoy the story, the acting and the look of the film, I’ll be happy. If they think, “wow, they did all that with next to nothing? Just with sweat, experience and determination?” then I’ll have achieved my goal.

2010-01-26T15:31:00.001-07:00

Polishing a new screenplay.

Eye Curious: Aldwyth's Cabinet full of Curiosities

2010-01-07T09:06:00.001-07:00

ART REVIEW: ALDWYTH, HALSEY INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, CHARLESTON SC

If you've been downtown recently, you'll have noticed some big, unblinking eyes watching you from posters and stickers. If you're on the Halsey Institute's mailing list, you've probably received an e-mail that promises you'll see "an eyeful," with a Benday-dotted orb attached.

The searing image recurs in the work of the Hilton Head-based Aldwyth, an artist who is the first to exhibit in the Halsey's brand new gallery space.

Ironically this artist, whose watchful eyes seem to follow us nearly everywhere we go, has been toiling for years out of sight of the art world.

Aldwyth lives and works in a small, 800-square-foot octagonal house on a salt marsh, where she creates collage and fastidious assemblage (sculptures made from a combination of found objects).

The little house symbolizes her humility, her obscurity, and her fascination with the miniature illustrations and tiny printed words that make up catalogues, résumés, and encyclopedias.

Aldwyth's house is filled with 20 years' worth of intensely personal, rarely exhibited artwork. When Halsey Director and Senior Curator Mark Sloan first visited her there in the mid-'90s, he was intrigued. "I thought, 'Someone's going to see this and scoop her up,'" he says. "Lo and behold, no one was doing it, so I decided to do it myself."

Aldwyth's art subsequently appeared at the Halsey in 1999's The Right to Assemble, alongside five other assemblage artists. By the time her art appeared in another prominent group show, 2006's Penumbra, she had gone on to produce some incredible collages.

Sloan draws a direct comparison between the artist and the Halsey Institute. They've both been plugging away, doing great things for a long time with little national attention or acclaim. "No one's heard of us," he says. "We're two underdogs coming out together, joining forces."

It's true that the epic, colorful nature of Aldwyth's collages are sufficiently dramatic for the grand opening of a new gallery space. But the art also looks aged and otherworldly, in direct contrast with the Halsey's contemporary, clean white walls and ceilings bristling with bright lights.

The art's early 20th century feel is partly due to the materials Aldwyth uses. A lot of her collages are on Japanese Okawara paper that looks creased and well-perused, like the pages of a much-loved hundred-year-old book. There are also a lot of brown and gray colors that blend with her cut-out monochrome photos of eyes.

Many of her earlier assemblage pieces are cabinets of curiosities, with drawers full of messages and detritus that beg to be rummaged through. The artist sees these objects as something you could sit in an armchair with, pick up and look through — an antiquated multimedia alternative to a book. But they're too delicate to stand the strain of hundreds of well-meaning curiosity seekers.

The temptation to touch and examine is so great — especially for school parties — that a video has been commissioned.

John Reynolds' 30-minute film gives viewers a chance to see what's in those cabinets when all the doors are opened and the contents are removed. This tour de fourrage will be accompanied by original music by Bill Carson.

Since Aldwyth's 26-piece cigar box encyclopedia can't be opened by visitors either, Sloan is exhibiting each box with the lid already up, accompanied by a reproduction of the top and bottom of the box.

The encyclopedia is the biggest hit of the show for children, as each letter of the alphabet is illustrated with found objects — "A" includes severed doll arms and scrapbook simulacra of Adam, an airplane, and an A-bomb mushroom cloud.

Beyond the fun and ingenuity that this show promises, there's a sense of the unexpected that suits the Halsey's new rooms perfectly. The Cato Building has corridors, large and small rooms, nooks and crannies; turn a corner and you'll find more amazing assemblage.

The experience may be overwhelming at times, but viewers will definitely be surprised by what they see. That's a good indication for the future of this bold new gallery space.

A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE CHARLESTON CITY PAPER IN 2009. THE ALDWYTH EXHIBITION CLOSES ON JANUARY 9th, 2010.

Art Review: Brian Rutenberg, Prince of Tides

2010-01-06T18:59:00.001-07:00

A REVIEW OF RUTENBERG'S TIDESONG SHOW, WHICH ENDS AT THE GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART ON JAN. 10th 2010.

Patience really is a virtue.

Gifted abstract painter Brian Rutenberg still remembers the first time one of his paintings was shown at the Gibbes back in 1985. He was a 20-year-old College of Charleston student contributing to a group show, dreaming of his first solo exhibition in the museum. It's taken 24 years, but here he is, filling the Main Gallery with 14 paintings and four works on paper.

In those intervening years, Rutenberg's wait has been enlivened with industry. After receiving a BFA here in 1987, he earned an MFA at New York's School of Visual Arts. He's been nibbling at the Big Apple ever since, with dozens of exhibitions in New York City including shows at the School of Visual Arts, Bill Bace Gallery, and a solo debut at the Cavin-Morris Gallery, which put him on the art world map.

Since then, Rutenberg's work has been placed in 16 museums and public collections. His long list of awards is enough to make any struggling artist sick; it includes a Fulbright scholarship, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, a Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation grant, and a Basil H. Alkazzi Award. Not bad for a kid from Myrtle Beach.

"My imagination was formed in the Lowcountry," he told us earlier this year. "Being born in a coastal South Carolina town, I had the pleasure of growing up around water ... Water affects light and color in subtle but alluring ways."

Rutenberg paints landscapes, woodlands, shining rivers, and dark shadows. But his work is not about the Lowcountry, only inspired by it. "I think it is more about the idea of ecstasy," he said, "not a euphoric emotion coming from looking, but that moment of heightened awareness that pushes us beyond the brushstrokes into a state of shared consciousness between artist and viewer."

All the work in the Gibbes' powerful new Tidesong show is abstract, so it can be interpreted in many ways. From a distance, some of the pieces look like brightly colored atlases, each state denoted with a different hue. Close up, layers of paint up to two and a half inches thick give the larger paintings a geological feeling of substance and weight, like overlapping tectonic plates. One tremor and it looks like those plates will shift, revealing another tier under that, and another beneath.

These are Rutenberg's representations of the layers in nature at a tiny detailed level, like the strata in the bark of a tree or the veins in a leaf. He doesn't gloss over the flawed beauty you'll find outdoors; he revels in it, depicting it with thick brushstrokes, drips, lumps, and scrapes.
Tidesong provides a good demonstration of why Rutenberg has built up such a following. It's full of color and vibrancy, attention to detail and a willingness to experiment. The most dramatic large-scale paintings like "Blue Point" (48" x 158") defy gravity with their heavy layers.

"Pavillion" is one of the most complex pieces on display, with many intersecting lines (often resembling tree trunks), watery reflections, and lighter colors to suggest sunshine tentatively penetrating the landscape. Rutenberg alternates thick and thinner layers to create dense shadow and pale light, and balances either side of the canvas with shady foliage.

In "The Fading" series, he shows a similar grasp of form and value, sending a honeyed ethereal light into a dark, moody abstract world. This series is the most emotive in the show because of the strong contrast between pessimistic shadow and positive luminescence.

Rutenberg doesn't always achieve his goal of making a conscious connection with the viewer. By choosing to leave the technical aspects of his work visible, he encourages us to admire them rather than losing ourselves in a picture. But he certainly evokes strong moods, from tranquility to hopefulness. Fans of his work will have to wait a while longer for him to figure out how to create the sense of higher awareness he's aiming for. All they need is a little patience.

A VERSION OF THIS REVIEW APPEARED IN THE CHARLESTON CITY PAPER IN 2009.

2010-01-05T19:38:00.001-07:00

R.I.P. Tips http://ping.fm/UMDBY

WHAT WE DID IN 2009 ? PART THREE

2010-01-05T15:36:00.001-07:00

OCTOBER

Every week I have deadlines – newspaper stories, film festival entries, completion dates for video projects. Deadlines help me to get things done, but they’re a grind too. As soon as one has passed, another one looms.

The end of a year is like a big deadline for me. There are always certain projects that I try to complete by New Year’s Eve. This year I didn’t succeed.

One big project that’s been kicking my ass for years in a novel called “Virtual Illusion.” The hero is Paul Humber, an alcoholic psychic and the villain is a Freud-type scientist who invades people’s dreams. I’ve been working on the book for a long time, but to really get it done I need to immerse in Paul’s world. That ain’t easy with everything else going on. It will get done… but I didn’t meet my personal deadline (a finished draft by Christmas) this time round.

“Fletcher Crossman: The Age of Endarkenment” was a book that did get finished. It takes a look at contemporary narrative artist (and fellow Brit) Crossman’s paintings over the past several years. It looks great and Crossman’s top notch work deserves to be recorded in this form. Our book launched at Mary Martin Gallery, tying in with a rare exhibition of Crossman’s paintings. Apparently the first printing is pretty much sold out, but the few remaining copies are available from the gallery at 39 Broad Street, Charleston 29401 (www.marymartinart.com).

Crossman says if he gets really desperate, he’ll get me to pose for a portrait. The closest I got to modeling this year was playing a 28-year-old Young professional for a Lake Wateree Residential Community print work. Our remote location was cold (for South Carolina) but we were supposed to be in summer clothes. In the photographs, you can probably make out my goosebumps.

In other acting news, I played a shifty detective in David Abrams’ short comedy “Private Lies.” This gave me the chance to work with more excellent actors like Richard Fister, Kristen Kos, Grady Granger and Bruce Williamson who played multiple roles, including a woman who pleasures me in an automobile (you don’t see anything, it’s all very tasteful). It was great to see the ecstatic look on David’s face when he got a perfect take of our tryst. My mum would have been so proud.

Mum was actually two states away with the rest of my British relatives in Florida. Since Sam had just started anew school it was too soon to take him out to vacation with the Smiths. A pity, because I haven’t seen them for four or five years, and I don’t hear from them much.

NOVEMBER

November was the month when I interview a puppet, saw the best stage show of the year (“Shipwrecked” at the Village Playhouse) and played a card game with invisible chips. But first I went to Historic Camden, where I stood in the middle of a field facing scores of men all pointing their muskets at me. I was filming Camden’s Revolutionary War Field Days, where great battles and skirmishes are reenacted. Working with Craig Hadley, Trevor Erickson and other crack filmmakers, I was getting footage for a TV pilot.

In the dark, the living historians liked to fire off their cannons – which almost got me killed when I walked towards the artillery to get an interview one night. A close call for me, and a noisy surprise for the high school football fans who were watching a game in the neighboring stadium.

This dangerous pilot is the brainchild of Hadley, writer and executive producer of the project. We’ll be pitching it to cable channels in early 2010.

Healthcare benefits service provider Benefit Focus contacted me a couple of years ago when they were setting up their video department. They were desperate for presenters and voice over artists. I turned them on to a few local actors and the agency that represents me, Coastal Talent. One year later, Coastal emailed me about open auditions at Benefit Focus. I didn’t go for reasons of pride and vanity. I didn’t want to wear my reading glasses, and I didn’t think I’d be able to see the autocue without them. I didn’t want to make a complete tit of myself.

This year I had new contact lenses, so when auditions rolled around I plucked up my courage and drove to Daniel Island where the company is based. But the lenses made my vision so blurry that I couldn’t read any signs or find their headquarters. After a half hour of driving round the island and accidentally getting on and off the interstate a couple of time I finally found the place I was looking for. At the audition, the autocue was so close that I didn’t need the lenses after all.

Although I was nervous and half-blind I managed to get an acting gig – albeit a strange one. I portrayed a guy playing poker with his pals (Jim Hilton, David Abrams and Jim Gooden). But there was a twist that we weren’t aware of until we started getting white makeup slapped all over our faces: we were mimes and we’d be pantomiming the poker. It’s hard to shuffle cards when they’re not actually there.

The acting jobs got weirder when I provided the voice for a video game character. I was Dominus Equestrius, a warrior in a fantastical land beset by Trinity Wars. Sample dialogue: “The High King of the Elves has reached out for help, and none of my kinsmen have the bravery to come to his aid.” It was fun to record and I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product from TnT Gaming in the near future.

When the Broadway musical “Avenue Q” came to town, I arranged an interview reclusive star Trekkie Monster, a furry puppet with a dirty mouth. “The internet is best invention ever,” he told me. “Me would like to settle down with Sandy Gina from girlsxxx.com. She would make perfect wife.”
The rest of the month was spent reviewing an updated version of cult TV show The Prisoner for Dennis Publishing (denofgeek.com) and writing a couple of scenes for Arlene Lagos’ musical, “Treading Water.” This collaboration with John Aquino, Adam Fullerton, Jason Zwiker and others tells the story of Claire, a young woman who travels to LA and New York in search of her true self. I’m still fiddling with my scenes, but Arlene has already recorded a guide track for a powerful rock song that she put together.

DECEMBER

The last big project of the year was “Blood Rose,” a webcomic created by Charlie Thiel. I wrote a “pilot” issue of the comic, which follows the adventures of an ass-kicking, hard coffee drinking young lady named Rose (Danielle Ward): www.bloodrosewebcomic.com

Thiel takes photographs and digitally manipulates them to create graphic art. I’m currently writing a series of escapades for our mysterious heroine.

2009 was a year of highs and lows. My grandfather passed away. Gramps never lost his childlike sense of fun, loved computers and gadgets, had a great singing voice and always supported me and my work. He kept a record of our family activities for decades with many photos and videos. Writing these words I can hardly believe he’s gone. I found out about his death on Facebook and got a phone call from my mum two days later. I’m sure Gramps is up in heaven now watching over her on a fancy widescreen TV with surround sound speakers, his feet up, a cup of tea in his hand.

In Charleston, our cat Tips died. We’d had her for 13 years and Sam had grown up with her. She was a very affectionate cat, so Ros is training Tips’ three replacements to be just as friendly.

My sister had a healthy, bouncy baby (Rowan) and Ros is settling into her new job. Sam still seems to be enjoying his educational development and his role as a photographer for the school paper. Maybe he’ll follow in Gramps’ footsteps and become our family archivist.

2010

Other books are near completion and should be wrapped up in ’10. They’re all collaborations between writer(s) and artists. What with the time it takes to write a book and for publishers to get their act together, I average one book every two years. My rate should improve this year with “Windmill Factory,” an anthology inspired by Patrick Pelletier’s abstract paintings, and “Eat Happy,” a dinky little handmade book published by John Pundt.

Movie-wise, “All For Liberty” continues to win awards in festivals worldwide and I’ve heard lots of nice compliments about the cinematography. “Cold Soldiers” will be submitted to regional film festivals this year. “Eight Graves” will be promoted digitally, with an emphasis on downloads and streaming video clips. “The Hunley: Case Closed,” a documentary about the first wartime submarine to sink a ship, features myself and other local actors as the crew. It will air on the National Geographic channel this fall.

I started this 2009 review by talking about giving credit where credit is due. There are so many people that helped me with all my projects this year that haven’t been mentioned. They know who they are, and hopefully they know how much I appreciate their creativity. Without them, none of these projects would have happened. Thank you!

WHAT WE DID IN 2009 ? PART TWO

2010-01-02T16:10:00.001-07:00

JULY: LOST & FOUND

‘As my own acting career slowly takes shape, I will always remember the words of my friend [David Carradine]-- "persist, Jim, persist." – Jim Hilton
In July I covered the local screening of a western movie called “Longshot.” I’ve been aware of the films of Christopher Forbes for years, but this was the first time I got to talk to him and some of his stars. These included Jim Hilton, a salt of the earth guy with humility as big as his acting chops. “Longshot” turned out to be the last film that actor David Carradine worked on. Although David only worked on the movie for a short time, he had a profound effect on the cast and crew. The film was released at the end of the year as “All Hell Broke Loose,” and reviewers commended Hilton on his outstanding performance.

July was also the month that Ros and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We have our ups and downs, times when we’re close and times when we’re distant. But we always stick together and I try to be there for her whenever she needs me. We’d certainly come a long way from our honeymoon in Scotland, when our entire family (parents, grandparents) insisted on coming along. They even brought the cat. It was awkward.

Deuce Theatre organized a local 24 Hour Plays event, so I volunteered to write a ten minute quickie for them. Everyone involved had 24 hours to write a short play from scratch, rehearse and perform it. I thought it would only take me a couple of hours to write my story, Lost and Found. It actually took until 3 a.m., then I drove to Georgetown to shoot more of “Eight Graves.” I felt a little piqued the next day, but I always get tired and cranky towards the end of a shoot so nothing new there.

When principal photography wrapped on the horror movie, I took Sam to the Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Beach where one of our actresses was performing an energetic kids’ show. I was amazed that Jennifer Bentley had been able to dance, sing and flip around a stage then come and film with us late into the night. Sam and I had a great time at the park for the half day we were there, and it was the closest we came to a vacation that year.

At home I started polishing up a feature screenplay called “Bookworms,” which I hope to film with Gus Smythe in 2010. In some respects this gangster comedy should be easier to shoot than “Eight Graves,” as it’s set in Charleston instead of a location that’s hours away.

AUGUST: WELCOME BACK COTTO

A new contemporary gallery appeared in Downtown Charleston in 2009. Among its many talented clients is Julio Cotto, who moved back to Charleston from Greenville, SC after a stint up there. The local arts community was glad to have such a gifted geezer back in its ranks, and Scoop held an exhibition opening with a Welcome Back, Kotter” theme. (A play on the ‘70s sitcom and “Welcome back Cotto,” get it?).

At the Art Institute of Charleston, I was interviewed by the college’s magazine editor Russ Bratcher. I talked about writing and filmmaking with an emphasis on “Cold Soldiers,” which felt strange – “Bookworms” was on my mind by then. Ros had recently started to teach at the prestigious institute, which she loves to do. By the end of the year she would be a full time faculty member and completely in her element teaching film and video, thanks to department head Howard Katz.

SEPTEMBER: BACK TO SCHOOL

Sam’s homeschooling went great for six months, but we got a call out of the bloue from West Ashley Creative Arts elementary school. We’d given them his name four years earlier, but it was only now that they had a place for him. Alongside regular academic subjects the children study drama, art and music on weekdays. Sam joined the school and is very happy there. His favorite subject is still recess, though.

I spoke to filmmaker John Patton Ford about his short film, “Patrol.” The AFI graduate had pumped all his money into this tale of a security guard who tries to impress his estranged young son with unfortunate consequences. The star, Danny Jones, was also in “Cold Soldiers” and “Eight Graves.” He’s destined for great things, especially since “Patrol” has been accepted for Sundance this year.

Some projects take longer than others. I’ve been putting together a comic book anthology with a Southeastern theme for over a year. Although the book is still far from complete, I got the artists together in September and made sure everyone was on the same page (no pun intended). Jason Zwiker is my co-editor, and the artists include Cotto, Tina Christophilis, Fletcher Crossman, Eric Vincent and Steve Stegelin. With that kind of talent on board it’s worth being patient waiting to see what they’ve drawn and painted.

One of my favorite projects of the year was one of the least expected – an anniversary video for a friend’s parents. I combined photos, music and interviews to make a surprise present for Marla Loftus’ mom and dad. The parents were great and I think the finished product had the perfect blend of humor and affection.

At South of Broadway Theatre Playfest, I’d submitted “Evolution” but it was turned down because the premiere had happened four months earlier (at another venue). The fest organizers were concerned that it was too soon to do it again. However, I became involved in the fest anyway when an actor dropped out of a staged reading. I was asked to step in and I agreed when I heard when my “rehearsal” would be (a Sunday afternoon for one hour).

A staged reading has actors on stage with a limited amount of blocking and scripts in their hands. But our reading of “Burning the Saint” by Matt Hampton was a complex, fast-paced production that required many rehearsals and textual analyses. I played a narrator who gets killed halfway through the play, which made my job easier than some of my fellow actors because I only had half as much stuff to work through. It gave me the chance to get on stage (so my acting didn’t get rusty) and work with excellent thesps like Rodney Lee Rogers, Andrea Conway and Chad Layman.

Filming-wise, I helped out on the cinematography of a commercial for Chucktown Coffee. This was a collaboration between the bosses at my casting agency, Coastal Talent, and local director David Abrams. Since the Coastal folks were involved it provided another chance to work with a bunch of local actors who all to strut their stuff for the camera.

With summer dwindling it was time to knuckle down and get some serious work done. But I didn’t know that that work would lead me to getting a simulated blow job from a man in drag…

WHAT WE DID IN 2009 ? PART ONE

2010-01-01T09:05:00.001-07:00

Here’s a surprise for you: a writer with a chip on his shoulder. Allow me to explain. I think people should get credit where it’s due.

20 years ago I was a good little boy attending Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, a grammar school in Bristol, England. I’d spent two years toiling on the school magazine, an annual publication that had just made the transition from paper-thin to glossy and thick. I’d been working on it so hard, in fact, that my history teacher complained that I was taking too much time out of his class to go work on it.

As I backed off, another school boy (a wunderkind called Mark Moore) took over as de facto editor. In assembly one morning, the headmaster announced that an award would be given out for editing the mag. My friends clapped me on the back. I started to get out of my seat. Then Mark Moore’s name was called out. I sat back down again, embarrassed.

I never complained. What could I do? I felt powerless. And so what if I didn’t have an award? I was still mentioned in the magazines as “second assistant gopher” or something like that. But I learned a valuable lesson that day, one of the most important of my school days – there are times in life when you’re gonna get screwed.

Enough with the long-held grudges. There are some fresh ones in this run down of my 2009 adventures.

JANUARY: EVERYTHING IS INTERCONNECTED

“I think we may need more folks.” – Dalek

There’s more to life than awards – like earning money, for example. Sometimes I act in TV shows to earn some pocket change. One of those shows was Phantoms of History, a series about haunted historic cities written by James Caskey and directed by Joshua Jasso. The actors in the Charleston edition included Jim Sims, Pat Garvin, Joey Greene and Carl Hedgepeth.
I played Stede Bonnet, the gentleman pirate who escaped from jail disguised as a woman. As soon as I donned my disguise, all my fellow pirates pulled out their cameras and took pictures of me. Although most of our filming took place in the Old Exhange Provost Dungeon, I got to waltz around in my bright yellow dress on Calhoun Street, the main road that runs down the peninsula. This being Charleston, passers-by were too polite to even bat an eyelid.
Phantoms of History was a joy to work on, with some great atmospheric cinematography by Jasso. The series went on to win 10 Telly Awards.
Around the same time, I gained my US citizenship with my wife Ros and son Sam. After five years of living in America as (legal) aliens and then preparing for the immigration test, paying all the fees and filling out bundles of forms, it was a relief to make the official switch from Limey to Yank. We proudly took our oath and received a letter of congratulations from President Bush.
I was also pushing to complete my feature film Cold Soldiers. Filming took precedence over pretty much everything else; it even overlapped with a VIP party for another film I’d directed, Performing Arts Bootcamp. I rushed from the shoot to the premiere of this documentary, which featured a group of teens who stayed at the Juillard School in summer 2008, honing their acting, dance, music and (most importantly) social skills.
With JC Conway, I held unified auditions for various projects that I hoped would see light of day in 2009, including Conway’s multimedia vampire project Holy City, Eric Vincent’s fantasy movie Small Altars, a play about Jackson Pollock called Season to Season directed by Mark Gorman, and Rebecca Pryce’s short Liberating Jesse. Of these, Holy City has a few scenes in the can and Conway is rejigging the script; Season to Season’s run was successful enough to gain a repeat production during the Piccolo Spoleto festival; Vincent is getting investors on board for his quirky film and Pryce’s film has been edited.
At one of the audition sessions we were joined by Gus Smythe, a director who’s best known in these parts for helming the first show of late night act Cabaret Kiki. He’d been trying to get a movie off the ground but his writer was dragging his heels. So I teamed up with Smythe to develop a haunted house movie that would eventually be called Eight Graves.
At the Charleston City Paper, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dalek. This graffiti artist installed a collaborative project at the Redux Contemporary Art Center. “I’m still influenced… inspired...by all sorts of things,” he told me. “Art… architecture… nature… artificial life… I look at much different things than I did even say 5 years ago. But it’s still there....the original approach has always existed...it obviously gets stronger as my vocabulary and scope grow... Life grows... and on and on... it’s an organic process... everything is interconnected.”
Carl Hedgepeth worked with me again on The TV Show, an art exhibition in North Charleston. I organized a “living soap opera” performance for the show, inspired by daytime TV dramas. Actors like Hedgepeth, Pam Hays and Mandi Beers confronted each other as soap characters in the middle of the gallery. None of the viewers knew this was an act until we wrapped up the episode at the end of the night. If someone wanting to call the cops is a mark of success, then this impromptu performance was a great one.

FEBRUARY: THE P-WORD

“Be determined to get what you want.” – photographer Scott Barry

In February I got stuck into writing Smythe’s horror movie and we wracked our brains for a title. Gus’ plot involved a group of ex-sorority girls visiting a house in the middle of noplace, where they would be traumatized by two ghosts – one trapped outside the house, one inside.
Throughout 2008 I’d been directing an indie feature called Cold Soldiers with co-producer/groovy action star Trevor Erickson. In February our glamorous locations included a snake-heavy swamp (where a secret weapons test was being held) and the Vietnam Base at Patriot’s Point. Over at Magnolia Plantation, I filmed the grand reopening of a row of slave cabins there for a project called “From Slavery to Freedom.” These had been restored to reflect various eras by Craig Hadley’s Living History Group, Carolina Preservation Associates, HomePro Services and Brown & Son. Amazingly, there were still people living in some of these little cabins in the late ‘60s.
According to the Magnolia website, no historic site “has ever restored a series of structures that interpret African-American history from slavery to freedom and beyond.” I interviewed Isaiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy), a passionate champion of poverty-stricken Sierra Leone. Inspired by the discovery of his direct genetic link with the Mende' people there, he has built a school for villagers via his Gondobay Manga Foundation.
For Charleston’s annual Southeastern Wildlife Exposition, I spoke to some ardent wolf experts. “I use the P-word: patience to get my shots,” wolf photographer and featured SEWE lecturer Scott Barry told me. “It’s like a Zen thing. You have to be determined to get what you want.” It certainly pays off for Barry – he’s taken many amazing pictures of wolves by “projecting himself” into the heads of his subjects. “That way,” he said, “you feel like you’re making it happen.”
I don’t make a lot of art, but I was happy to contribute “Input,” my second collage of the year to a group exhibition of micro-art called The Nano Show (the first was in The TV Show). Both exhibitions were curated by Philip Hyman, who I continued to work with on various projects through the summer.

MARCH: SCHOOL’S OUT

In March Ros and I pulled our 9-year-old son out of school. After a few years at Blessed Sacrament, Sam wasn’t happy. We felt that we wasn’t being challenged enough; in the classroom, he would finish his work too soon and start misbehaving. His homework was dull. So we decided to push him harder, homeschooling him for several months.
I learned as much as Sam doing this, going through the learning process with him. It certainly informed my work – for example, so of the subjects we covered cropped up in the plays I wrote. Sam was content and had plenty of opportunities to interact with other children on field trips and “after school” activities. It was tough to juggle my work, filming and Sam’s needs, but Ros kept him smart by handling the bulk of the administration and teaching. I definitely got to see more of my son, which is always a good thing.

APRIL: PROPS TO THE GIBBES

“KKK hoods are reworked as pretty Better Home & Garden accessories” – from a review of the Gibbes show Prop Master

Late in ’08 the Gibbes Museum of Art had approached me about filming the preparation for a new exhibition, Prop Master. The show would combine contemporary art (courtesy of Juan Logan and Susan Harbage Page) with pieces from the Gibbes collection, knowingly juxtaposed by the artists. By the time the show rolled around they didn’t have the budget to pay me, but I filmed it anyway. With its multiple layers and innovative installations, it made a great subject for a documentary. UNC Art Department faculty members Logan and Page were great, very friendly, open-minded and full of ideas. Best of all, Page encouraged Sam to draw, something he doesn’t do all that much.
John Stoehr, arts editor of the City Paper wasn’t happy. “When you made a video… for the museum, you created a conflict of interest and therefore a liability for City Paper,” he told me in an e-mail. I couldn’t make the documentary and review the show for the newspaper, he said, “and frankly professional journalists know this.”
He was right, of course. My review of the show didn’t run in the CP. While I agreed with his reasoning, I wondered why he didn’t regard documentary filmmaking as a valid form of objective journalism. The truth is, in a small town like Charleston I’m bound to end up writing about people I work with from time to time.
The Charleston International Film Festival was a bittersweet affair. On the good side, I got to spend time with many of my film and theatre friends during the annual event, and I saw some cool movies. Plus my first feature-length directorial effort All For Liberty was screened in the prime slot. Unfortunately, it didn’t have my name on it as director. Imagine being surrounded by posters of a film you’ve spent two and half years putting together, only to see the producer listed as “director”?
I felt like I was right back at school again, watching someone else take credit for my work. Of course, a producer’s role is invaluable and I couldn’t have made the film without her, Trevor and the dozens of other people involved. According to the producer, she hadn’t been informed when I officially left the project (as arranged by her husband) and thought I was leaving her in the lurch. My co-starring role was also cut from the film, but I was listed as Director of Photography. Disturbingly, a producer’s rep who joined the project 18 months after we started now credits himself as a creator of the film. That’s Hollywood for you.
All For Liberty won the People’s Choice Award at the film festival. I wasn’t invited to the awards ceremony.
With principal casting complete for Holy City, three vignettes were filmed to give a flavor of the project: a scene between two homicidal twin girls, a sequence that develops the relationship between two main characters, and a fight in a dark alleyway. There was only one problem: two of the scenes were shot on two different cameras in two disparate formats. It would take months to sort through the footage and combine the shots. Lessons learned.

MAY: BANNED IN THE USA

After 18 months (on and off) of shooting, I finally wrapped principal production on Cold Soldiers. Why did it take so long? Multiple flashbacks, dozens of locations, complex stunts and fight scenes, and almost 200 actors were involved. There were 69 official days of filming, some short (just an hour or two of pickups), some extremely long.
May’s a big time in the Charleston arts world because we have the Spoleto Festival here along with its city-run fringe event, Piccolo Spoleto. Over the past several years I’ve covered both festivals for the CP, but this year John Stoehr banned me from writing anything about Spoleto. This was because in 2008 I’d dared to meet Chen Shi Zheng, director of Chinese operas Monkey: Journey to the West and Peony Pavilion. Although I submitted the interview to the CP, they didn’t have time or room for it so I blogged it instead. Who knew that a silly little blog could have repercussions a year later? I guess John did.

JUNE: EVOLUTION ROAD

“You’re from Budapest? I thought you looked Hungary.” – John Brennan in Eight Graves

‘Raaarr! Just call me tiger-crotch!’ – Charlie Thiel

My collaborations with Philip Hyman continued with another art submission (The Family Show) and a play called Evolution, tying in with an art show of the same name. Through May and June I put together a series of comedic scenes on the theme of evolution, casting it with local actors/performers like Arlene Lagos, Braxton Williams, Pat Garvin, Rob Maniscalco and Jason Zwiker who gamely dressed up as cavepeople, dinosaurs and evolutionary missteps.
The rehearsal process was more involved than I expected. As time grew short and Hyman’s original costume makers let him down, he took it out on me. I’d been trying to write, direct and rehearse with the actors, and I’d left the set and costume work to Hyman as per his wishes. I learned not to have a confrontation with a guy who’s only had two hours’ sleep (Hyman works a huge amount, especially at Spoleto time).
At the last minute Hyman found some reliable wardrobe people and we pulled everything together. God wasn’t happy with us though – on the night of the show a thunderstorm hit our hot, muggy venue and rain started to leak inside, with water running down the walls. Shouting over the thundercracks, the actors and crew did an amazing job and kept the audience laughing throughout.
I stubbornly started writing another play called Fairy Tale Ending – a more serious intertwining of folk tales and contemporary drama. I hope to stage the play in Charleston in 2010.
Filming began on Gus Smythe’s feature film, Eight Graves, in a remote (and very creepy) plantation in Georgetown, SC. We’d spent a great deal of time prepping and casting the movie, so it was good to go ahead and shoot it. Smythe directed, I produced and shot it, and we were assisted by crewmembers like Hedgepeth, Gorman and lighting expert Steve Zimmerman. Once again, the actors and crew pushed themselves to the limit, chased by ghosts in 100 degree heat.
It had been a busy six months, but they felt like a mere lead-in to the rest of the year, which would usher in a new book, a “pilot” for a graphic novel and a potential TV series.

Santa Rips his Beard Off

2009-12-22T09:07:00.001-07:00

I’ve hung up the red suit, folded up my beard and eaten all the candy canes. My work as Santa Claus for the City of Charleston is done for another year.
This gig was shorter than most – Fridays through Sundays instead of every day for the three weeks leading up to Christmas. But that still gave me time to meet hundreds of kids and hear their holiday wishes. The most popular requests this year were Nintendo DS and DSis, baby dolls, lego kits, American dolls, Barbies and Disney princesses. There were also a few requests for NERF guns, PSPs, guinea pigs and puppies. The grown-ups wanted their mortgages paid off.
Playing Santa isn’t just about Christmas lists and candy giveaways. It’s an endurance test, too. This year, a back-up Mrs. Claus quit before she’d even started. My substitute Mr. Claus ripped his beard off halfway through his shift – he couldn’t stand to keep it on it any more.
Even though the costume’s unbearable to wear, I think the interaction with the visitors has a positive effect on my. I can’t forget the innocent kids staring at me, the cautious toddlers, or the innocent babies. Especially the wet ones.

2009-12-21T12:49:00.001-07:00

A review of the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel. http://ping.fm/dQigr

2009-12-20T20:05:00.001-07:00

Milk Treading Italian style http://ping.fm/KPygz

2009-12-07T20:33:00.001-07:00

Introducing Blood Rose by Nick Smith & Charlie Thiel: http://ping.fm/RWtki

2009-11-28T21:13:00.001-07:00

Tips for all you writers out there:
http://ping.fm/d99fn

2009-11-13T07:51:00.001-07:00

Reading a fancy new blog by a fellow writer. http://ping.fm/PIco5

2009-11-08T16:40:00.001-07:00

http://ping.fm/ZyFP6

2009-11-06T06:32:00.001-07:00

Off to historic Camden today to film a History Channel pilot.

2009-10-21T07:30:00.001-07:00

My new book "The Age of Endarkenment" with art by Fletcher Crossman is launched Thursday night, 5.30-8, Mary Martin Gallery 39 Broad St., Charleston. Art show, book signings, pay us a visit if you can!

2009-10-13T08:49:00.001-07:00

Check out some photos from the Lowcountry Indie Films event this week!

http://ping.fm/YPD3d

2009-09-27T17:30:00.001-07:00

Editing teaser scenes for the vampire film "Holy City."

2009-09-20T14:27:00.001-07:00

Back from a rehearsal for "Burning the Saint" at South of Broadway Theatre. Catch it on Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. http://ping.fm/A9MKc