SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS at ECU and Mississippi

So I fell a little behind on blogging as there’s been a lot of travel.  I had a day off but had to zip back to NY for a day of work and now I’m in Mississippi on the Gulf Coast. What I noticed was the sky – it seems to fill most of the frame here and the cloud formations are dramatic. But here's the view from my hotel: beach meets freeway in a kind of bizarre collision.

But I want to rewind and give hearty thanks to the East Carolina University Cinema Guild and their fearless leader Allison Pulley pictured below who hosted a packed screening on Weds night.:

 Half film students, half community… I was very impressed by the smart questions and up beat attitude. Here's the group of future filmmakers forming the rest of the "guild".

Michael Crane was also painstakingly organized in planning my visit and set me up at the 5^th St. Inn – a classic which felt miles and miles away from my usual life.

Here in Biloxi, Dixon McDowell of Univ. of Southern Mississippi drove me along the coast which has been mostly rebuilt. I found out that the state recently enacted a 25% (of budget) rebate film incentive. Rebate (not credit) means it's actually a CHECK ... amazing! He took me to dinner at Darwells - a local place where the chef convinced me to try his "yum yum" sauce and crayfish étouffée.  Thumbs up....

We had a good screening - the last on the circuit so tomorrow heading back to normal life. Thanks everyone!

Lunch Line - Greenville, NC & Augusta, GA

Argh! Just missed the Piratefest in Greenville, which was supposedly held last week. Nonetheless we had a great screening at the Greenville Museum of Art. The screening was hosted by the Cinematic Arts Guild, which is run by an enthusiastic group of film students from East Carolina University and expertly led by Alison, a sophmore. I had a great chat with Professor Mike Dermody about their growing film program. (Note: Filmmaking is no longer bound by geography.)

We were also honored to have several women, who play significant roles in the Greenville school lunch program, attend the screening. They added quite a bit to our Q&A. More than celebrities they are the folks who make a real difference in school lunch.

In the morning I flew out to Augusta, GA, and I ended up scoring a 62, which I believe is a new record at the Masters. Okay, that didn't happen, but we did have a screening of LUNCH LINE at the Morris Museum of Art. I happen to love museums -- so to have two screenings at two museums was a treat. I was able to spend a good amount of time at the Morris Museum, which focuses primarily on the art and artists of the American South. Having recently moved to the South, I found it incredibly engaging. I have a number of Southern artists that I'm now going to need to research (or at least google). The staff at Morris were great, and despite the rain (which poured throughout the day) they did a wonderful job of hosting the event. 

The Price of Blood by Thomas Satterwhite Noble (1868)

 

Meet Michael Graziano and Ernie Park

Welcome Michael Graziano and Ernie Park to the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers! Their tour with their film, Lunch Line, will kick off in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 16th. The show starts at 6:00 PM so grab your healthy snack of choice an don't be late!

Lunch Line will also be screening in Greenville, NC, and Augusta, GA.

About the filmmakers: Ernie Park and Michael Graziano formed Uji Films in 2007. Their award-winning films have aired nationally and internationally in more than 100 countries, are distributed in the educational market, and have screened at a variety of well-known film venues and festivals in the US and abroad. In addition to making films, Park and Graziano have also taught and written on an array of subjects within film and media studies, each having achieved doctoral candidacy in the field – Park at New York University and Graziano at Northwestern University.


View the trailer below:

Last Leg of Toe Tactic Tour

Weekend in Atlanta

The weather turns cold, but it’s winter (so why complain?)!

The drive to Atlanta is more tiring than I’d expected, but I have a delightful and delicious meal with Teresa Hollingsworth, our effervescent leader, and am revived until I fall fast asleep in Atlanta.

My hosts Terry and Eileen take me to a great breakfast at Homegrown and on to the High Museum – where my favorite art (apart from 2 Adolph Gottliebs and one unusual Rothko) is by Bill Traylor. I have to buy the book. 

On the way home we see this billboard for Delocated, created by and starring Jon Glaser, who plays Toooot in The Toe Tactic.

On to the show. At the  Clarkston Community Center, there are a number of cool activities going on – Zumba singers, a fundraiser – I meet the gregarious Lesley Dixon and we set up for the screening – not a huge crowd but an entertaining discussion afterwards.

2/13

The brief radio interview w Jeff Stiles on WGOW is moved up an hour. I speed up to Chattanooga and meet my host David Cook just in time to go on air. Exciting. I’m followed by Occupy Chattanooga – listen in the car.

After checking in, David takes me up to Lookout Mountain – nice view of the city and the river – not much of a photo, I’m afraid, but I’m an animator, not a photographer…

We visit the home studio of Judith Mogul (artist/animator) and are impressed by the pool in her basement!, and the creatures she’s created form the alternate universe in her back yard.

High quality burger before the screening – everything looks good – wonderful gallery space. I pose with the Chattanooga Film Society (the stylish board members). Great group.

 Photo taken by and sent to me by Barry Snyder. Thanks Barry!

2/14

Hectic gas-up and drive to the airport at 5:30 am – dark! Fly to Charlotte/to Greenville… met by Michael Crane holding up a tic tac toe board at the airport. I’m too tired to catch the reference immediately. Need a nap! I speak with Rex Logan Rose for an article for the East Carolinian about the screening – link here:

http://theeastcarolinian.com/?p=3360t

Work all day at the comfortable Fifth Street B&B then go for a little hobble around the town before the screening. (This turns out to be a mistake – the leg is not happy.)

The event (with participation of some cool faculty) is put on by a student-run Film Guild – so exciting. There is a mix of students and non-students and the film is exceptionally well received. An exuberant Q+A follows and I don’t watch the clock, but the next thing I know, people are folding chairs and loading them onto a truck. Thanks Greenville. Augusta-ho!

2/15

Finally and stupidly miss a plane! Day spent at the Charlotte Airport (things could be worse).  I get to Augusta late, but not too late.

I do NOT miss the show – arrive and have a very fun chat with my host Michelle and the projectionist (projection’s great) Matt. Take a stroll by the river – gorgeous (even if you can’t tell from the picture)…

The Q+A goes well. We discuss grief, love and the creative process. Nice woman reprimands the venue for scheduling events on a Wednesday in the Bible Belt (choir night)… I appreciate the concern. It’s a nice group for the final night. Make it to my B&B and hit the hay.

HUGE thanks to South Arts for allowing me to share The Toe Tactic with a diverse and new audience. The experience was illuminating and inspiring. On to the next film – I hope to return in another 20 years.

Cheerio!!

-Emily Hubley

Message from Kimberly Reed:

THANKS for a great tour through the South to the wonderful people of Atlanta/Hapeville GA, Greenville NC,...http://fb.me/UqMpBErU

(posted from Twitter)

"Awake, My Soul" Travel Log, pt 1

Alright then. With two screenings under my belt, I am off to Birmingham, AL. The first screening of "Awake, My Soul" was at East Carolina University which is in Greenville, North Carolina-- not South Carolina, nor East Carolina (which, I've learned, does not exist). I've been in most parts of North Carolina, but never this far east. Greenville is a charming town, as it turns out, and I wasn't able to spend as much time there as I would have liked, but I did get some fine BBQ here:

I thought I hit the jackpot when I found an antique shop that looked just right to me- the perfect level of disarray in the crowded shop. A man greeted me tentatively at the door and asked if I was looking for anything in particular. "Nope. Just looking around" I said. "Well, I can't let you in" he replied "they've condemned my building".
Not sure what it says about me that the most perfect looking place to me happened to have been a condemned property...


The screening itself was good and reasonably well attended thanks especially to the music appreciation professors who bribed their students with extra credit to come. Our efforts to hold a screening were initially thwarted by the "smart room" which was to be our cinema for the evening. It utterly outsmarted all of us. We could find no way to make the projector work, so we invaded the recital hall, which was a better space anyway. There was a lengthy, and surprisingly technical Q&A following the film. The associate dean of ECU, Michael Crane, was a great help, and as hospitable as can be...


The next screening was in Hapeville, GA, which is, in many ways, a typical small southern town, except that it happens to be the home of the world's busiest airport, not to mention that it is also the home of Chick-fil-a, inasmuch as the first location, the "Dwarf House" has been on the main drag since the 1940's.We ate there. Since Hapeville is only about 15 minutes from our house in West End, my wife and kids were able to come. The historical society of Hapeville runs the old train depot as a museum of Hapeville and pretty much anything that's old-timey. It's great. They hosted a reception before the screening, which I guess it was supposed to be a "meet-the-director time", but it was really a "keep-our-kids-from-breaking-all-the-cool-old-timey-stuff-in-the-depot time". Here's the Model T Ford covered with Christmas lights:
The screening went well and we were made to feel at home by Charlotte Rentz of Hapeville's historical society as well as the Mayor.There was an enthusiastic Q&A afterward and we invited the 10 or so Sacred Harp singers present to join us in a few songs to close the event.


Next up, Birmingham and Augusta....


Matt Hinton, signing off.

ABEL RAISES CAIN in Greenville, NC

Flying from Atlanta to Greenville shaved a few years off my life. The turbulence was so severe, we dropped what felt like forty stories in a matter of seconds. Some people screamed. My dad was seated three rows behind me. I looked back at him and it seemed like he was actually enjoying the terrifying ride!




I'm kind of relieved that the remainder of the tour consists of mostly driving. Flying is for the birds!


I knew the day was going to present various challenges when a TSA agent painstakingly removed every single item from my carry-on luggage (including undergarments), one by one, with creepy blue rubber gloved hands. It was the box of 'Abel Raises Cain' DVDs that aroused suspicion. Apparently we're setting off alarms everywhere.




At last, we made it to Greenville, NC. On our way through the outskirts of town, we passed a string of abandoned cabooses covered in graffiti and a Hooters on the corner of Hooker Road (seriously). From our hotel room, we could see the Wal-Mart across the street. It looked strangely beautiful to me for some reason, I had to capture an image of it.




I decided to give Michael Crane a quick call to let him know that we had arrived safely (without a parachute) in Greenville. Last minute arrangements for my father and I to speak before a class of graduating ECU media students proved to be successful. We teased a clip from the film and spent a little over an hour discussing my dad's pranks and independent filmmaking.




The screening of ABEL RAISES CAIN at Speight Auditorium on ECU campus started with a few digital mishaps that ended up transforming into one of the most artistic presentations of our film I have ever seen...our movie played in stereovision! Truly unprecedented, the image was double projected onto one large screen!




It was a small lively crowd consisting mostly of students and some members of the community. Overall, the audience reaction to the film was great. I almost want to say that the stereovision enhanced the viewing experience!


After the screening and Q&A, my dad was interviewed by a reporter from the ECU campus paper and we had fun saying goodbye to everyone (a special thanks to Mike Dermody and his students, especially Morgan, Lauren and Megan for all of their help).


Once we were all packed up, I treated my dad to a root beer float at 'Sup Dogs, the local watering hole. Next stop, Augusta, GA. Let's hope we don't offend any more Georgians!

Location:Greenville, NC

Burning In the Sun in the Carolinas and Georgia

I’m an oddity in the South. I’m a young Jewish woman from Los Angeles by way of Brooklyn, Vermont, and recently Portland, OR. People I meet who aren’t associated with the Southern Tour want to know what on earth I’m doing in their town. It’s been a blast meeting people from all these different pockets of the country and hearing their perspectives on where they come from.

On Tuesday I had a screening on the campus of East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, a college town, mostly. The audience there was the biggest yet, and a handful of film production students were eager to learn about the filmmaking process and other technical details. Other students were there for school credit and less verbally enthusiastic about what they saw, but I was pleased to have them there and hoped they got something from the show. Thanks to Michael Crane, Michael Dermody and Morgan for taking me out afterwards for a fun cocktail hour at a local haunt. It was especially cool to meet Morgan, a student new to film production, but obviously born to be a film producer. Can’t wait to see what she does!

Wednesday I had a long drive to Augusta, GA and was thankful again for the generally above-average high speed at which freeway driving seems to happen down here. The film was showing at the Morris Museum of Art, which I think is the first museum setting BITS has had. A gracious crowd assembled to see the film - thanks to Kevin and Michelle for including us in their lineup; in the museum’s monthly calendar we were listed next to To Kill A Mockingbird, which caught my attention and humbled me yet again. The next day I had time to go back to the museum to look at their collection of Southern art, mostly paintings, including a special exhibit on Helen Turner from New Orleans. Before leaving town, I also squeezed in a tour of my homebase, the epic Rosemary Inn, "one of the finest examples of the Beaux-Arts style built in 1902." Thanks to Diana and Kelly for being such generous hosts (they donate rooms to filmmakers on the tour). What a gorgeous, historic home, and what a treat!


Later that day I took the backroads to get to my next destination, and was rewarded with breathtaking South Carolina forests dotted with crisp red foliage and bright cotton fields. It felt like the heart of autumn.


In Orangeburg, SC, the film showed on the campus of South Carolina University, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University). It also showed on the ceiling of an awesome planetarium there – another first! Artist and Museum Studies professor Ellen Zisholtz was my host, and I was grateful that she insisted on showing me the current exhibit at the museum there, a multimedia look at the experiences of racism suffered by Jews and African-Americans. The exhibit felt fresh and daring, personal and real. Thanks to all the faculty and administrators I met at the college, and especially to Ellen, who even hosted me at her home that evening.



Now I’m headed back to the Gulf…

Ryan White - ECU and Hapeville, GA

Two wonderful Pelada screenings so far…

As a graduate of Duke I’d heard a lot about ECU but I’d never actually made the two-hour trek out to Greenville, NC. I’m glad I have now – it was a beautiful little college town and the drive out there I only passed a handful of cars. So nice to be out of LA and back in NC. I miss the trees and the accents.

The screening was fantastic – a self-anointed "super-senior" film student named Morgan introduced me and she couldn’t have been lovelier. The crowd was about 150 which was awesome - Michael Crane had done an amazing job getting the word out to the ECU community and also greater Greenville. The film department took me out afterwards for a couple drinks – wonderful people. If anyone is looking into undergrad courses in film and communications, I recommend ECU – these guys are passionate about their students. One professor told me he never makes it to graduation because he cries too hard on the drive there – we need more teachers like this.

I made the drive back to Durham and then a flight down to Atlanta’s airport. Hapeville is a little town right next to Atlanta’s airport. It used to hold a Ford factory, and now it’s also headquarters for Wachovia and Delta. The population is 65,000 during the day – and 6,000 at night. The town was gorgeous – I grew up in Atlanta so it made a little nostalgic for that old school Southern aesthetic.

We went to a reception beforehand at the town’s train depot. The Mayor (!) introduced me, and I got to meet a very interesting crowd of people. One guy, Ellis, has been collecting 16mm films and TV shows for the past 40 years that he takes around to local nursing homes for free screenings. Another was the local pastor and her grandson was one of the child actors in Cheaper by the Dozen. I am a closeted fan of Cheaper by the Dozen (Cheaper 2 was also good, but not as good. Maybe that’s because I saw it on airplane though.) I made her tell me Bonnie Hunt is as nice as she looks, which she is (duh). I also told her I was recently on a plane w/ Hillary Duff, and I’m pretty sure she’s the only person that’s ever cared about that story.

The screening was one of the most unique venues we’ve had yet in the 50 or so public screenings we’ve had of Pelada. It was in a Methodist church. Like the actual church – people sat in the pews and the movie played on screens that normally play the hymnal lyrics. My Q&A was on an altar. I LOVED this screening. At least half of the audience was over the age of 65 – besides my affinity for senior citizens, it’s my favorite test for Pelada when we have an older crowd watching a film about soccer. I was a little nervous about what the reaction would be, but I was thrilled when it was over. The Q&A lasted longer than ever, and I received more hugs after a screening than I think I ever have.

If you’re in Georgia, go to Hapeville… Charlotte Rentz (the perfect combination of southern sophistication and friendliness) is working hard to put this place on the map, and it’s well worth the visit.