|
Filmmakers striving to create singular S.C. movie industry
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
When executives from independent movie company GryphonPix Entertainment announced in May production plans for their forthcoming full-length feature “The Interview,” they emphasized the need for a local film industry and in doing so cited the Angelou Report.
The much-discussed report, essentially an economic development roadmap created last year for the Charleston Regional Development Alliance by the Texas consulting firm AngelouEconomics, advised the Lowcountry to develop five business clusters, among them a “creative industries” cluster.
“We invite complementary businesses to join us in our efforts,” said Craig Hadley, a principal in the West Ashley-based GryphonPix. Hadley is also the director and writer of “The Interview,” a murder mystery that will begin shooting in January. It will be shot entirely in the Charleston area.
Such complementary businesses include everything from equipment suppliers to electrical and lighting companies to set designers and more, according to industry experts.
GryphonPix principals and other local moviemakers point out that a Lowcountry film industry should be based primarily on local filmmaking rather than on luring Hollywood studios to the region to shoot pictures.
They also note that South Carolina can and should build a distinct film industry using local talent, local scenery and local history to tell Palmetto State stories.
A homegrown industry
“South Carolina can have its own separate non-Hollywood film industry that is run on good business principles,” said Chris Weatherhead, who with husband Clarence Felder owns Moving Images Group, a Folly Beach film-production company the husband-and-wife team founded three years ago.
“That’s why getting Hollywood to come here is not the solution to developing a film industry,” added Weatherhead, a former New York and Hollywood actor.
A homegrown movie industry means movie revenues stay in the community and help nourish the local economy, Weatherhead said. She added that the state should continue trying to attract Hollywood studios but only in addition to building its own film industry.
South Carolina already has the actors, the screenwriters and the film technicians, said Felder, a St. Matthews native whose film and television acting credits include “Ruthless People,” “The Last Boy Scout,” “The Hidden,” “Nightmare on Elm Street: Part Five” and others.
However, what is needed is a “red barn,” a facility large enough for a soundstage and a movie set that South Carolina film-production companies could rent, Felder said.
Another need is private investors.
“We lack confident investors who need to be approached in a language they understand, with film projects packaged as profitable business proposals,” said local filmmaker Nick Smith.
Additionally, a database and network are needed “so that all the skilled film workers in the state can communicate with each other and sell themselves as an organized infrastructure to visiting production companies,” Smith noted.
GryphonPix is pursuing that by creating a S.C. film workers database, GryphonPix principal Richard Almes said.
However, South Carolina filmmakers still will have to rely on national distributors to get their movies shown across the country, Almes said.
Showing locally made movies locally is a different matter. Film production companies could rent a movie house for a night or a weekend, Almes added.
Low-budget movies can generate high-end revenues. GryphonPix, which is shooting “The Interview” on a $675,000 budget, points out that Texas filmmaker Robert Rodriguez made his 1992 movie “El Mariachi” on a $7,000 budget and that the film made more than $2 million. “Napoleon Dynamite,” made in 2004 for $400,000, raked in more than $44.5 million and the 1999 smash hit “The Blair Witch Project,” shot for $37,000, made more than $140.5 million.
And because new high-definition video technology is far less expensive than traditional 35mm film, moviemaking is more accessible to aspiring film producers.
Made in South Carolina
Weatherhead’s and Felder’s Moving Images Group is shooting an historical documentary, “The Search for Captain Felder,” which takes place in South Carolina between 1776 and 1782 and focuses on the exploits of Felder’s Revolutionary War-era ancestor Hans Henry Felder in the Orangeburg area. The company is also shooting “For Liberty,” a feature film about South Carolina during the Revolutionary War.
Both Weatherhead and Felder are lovers of South Carolina history, a topic they say Hollywood cares little about but one that local filmmakers can exploit and communicate with special insight, sensitivity and accuracy.
Such films, if shown in different parts of the country, could enrich not only the filmmakers but the local tourism industry by attracting visitors to the region, Weatherhead noted.
“You can make money with entertainment. You can celebrate history and enlighten the human condition,” Felder added.
To help spotlight Lowcountry filmmakers, Felder, Weatherhead and film director Michael Givens three years ago launched the Folly Felder Film Festival, an annual Piccolo Spoleto event showcasing local short films with a maximum 15-minute length.
“It’s incredibly important to screen the work of local filmmakers,” said Smith. “Why should they make a film if it’s not going to be seen? The festival is also intended to motivate filmmakers to create new shorts. There’s a deadline and criteria they have to meet, and I hope that helps some of them get something done instead of just talking or dreaming about it.”
Almes agrees that to launch a local film industry, action speaks louder than words.
“Until we produce real films that exist and can be shown, it’s only talk,” he said.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version