by Kenn McCracken
Photos by Stacey Sessions

EXT. CLUBHOUSE -- DAY

There is a store-type sign on the clubhouse, with the words “THORSBY GUN CLUB” between two Coca-Cola logos. The clubhouse is little more than a rickety shack.

Four men walk toward the clubhouse. They all wear camouflage hunting suits and orange caps. They range in age from late twenties to early forties. KEITH is on the left. TED, NED and LEE walk beside him. Keith points.

Prattville, for those who have never been there, is in the middle of nowhere — astonishingly far away to be located between Birmingham and Montgomery. At least, it seems that way, at 5:30 a.m. on a (euphemistically) brisk Saturday morning in mid-November. I’ve already watched the sun rise over Thorsby and gotten a little turned around on the two-lane roads that are probably considered major highways down here. As I finally pull up behind the line of cars on the one lane dirt path that leads to a cluster of cabins near a lake, it hits me — all this and the cameras haven’t even started rolling yet.

The cameras in question are under the control of Chance Shirley and Chuck Hartsell, co-directors and producers of Hide and Creep. The pair has worked on a number of short films together under the moniker Crewless Productions; this morning marks the first day of production on their debut feature-length film, a slice-of-Southern-life comedy featuring zombies. Pressed for a summary, Shirley, who doubled as the screenplay writer, says that Hide and Creep is about “residents of a small Southern town contending with bloodthirsty zombies, a mysterious flying saucer and bad TV reception.”

Over the next 12 hours, there aren’t any flying saucers to contend with, but that leaves plenty of energy for dealing with a jammed prop gun, lighting the inside of the ‘clubhouse’ (in spite of the cloudless day, the woods surrounding the cabin are largely blocking the sunlight needed for proper film exposure), and applying the trial batch of fake blood to the first of many flesh-eating undead zombies. But then, no one ever said making movies was easy.

The (Re) Birth of a Scene

INT. CHURCH — DAY

SMITH runs back to the main room of the church, holding the garden clippers out to use as a weapon. He takes another look at the zombies and leaves the room again.

He reenters the room with larger garden clippers. He looks again at the zombies, then runs to the pulpit, where he sprinkles some holy water on the clippers. He raises the clippers over his head, SCREAMS, and begins attacking the zombies.

Making movies has gotten easier, though, since the 1999 inception of Birmingham’s Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival. Though the festival was created to, as its website says, “bring new films to a new audience,” Sidewalk has created another benefit — most unexpected and most welcome — for Birmingham: the nurturing of a now-flourishing film community. While the Magic City had a few filmmakers long before Sidewalk started, the festival provided inspiration to a new generation of creators. Combined with the advances in and greater affordability of the technology required to make movies, the fact that there was now a venue that encouraged local creativity spurred a lot of aspiring Tarantinos, Smiths, and Lucases into action.

“I never really thought much about making movies until I went to my first film fest, which happened to be the very first Sidewalk fest here in Birmingham,” Shirley says.

A web programmer by trade, Shirley also plays the drums for local rock outfit The Avery Ellis Exhibits.

“I saw some good stuff, in particular a short by a couple of high school kids called WEBHE@DS,” Shirley remembers. “I thought, ‘Hey, if a couple of high-school kids can knock out a good short, surely I can.’ A few months later, I borrowed a camera from future Crewless partner Chuck Hartsell, and made a short with Michael Shelton and a couple of other people called Goodnight, Springton. It was pretty rough, but the Sidewalk folks were kind enough to show it. After I realized I could find an audience for movies right here in town, I was hooked.”

The inspiration couldn’t have hit a better place. Catherine Pfitzer, who serves as festival manager and special competition director for Sidewalk sees Alabama (and Birmingham in particular) as an oft-overlooked and untapped resource for the world of movies.

“The Birmingham film community is experiencing a huge growth spurt right now,” Pfitzer says. “This tight-knit, enthusiastic community is a huge asset for films to shoot here. Additionally, the diversity of shooting locations is unmatched, and all four seasons provide for tolerable shooting conditions.”

Making the dream reel

EXT. WOODS NEAR ROADSIDE — DAY

CLOSE-UP on MICHAEL, 20s, sleeping. He slowly opens his eyes, only to cover them with his hand to block the sun. He looks down and panics. We see he’s lying in the branches of a tree, 10 feet off the ground. Michael screams and falls out of the tree.

After he recovers from the painful fall, he slowly stands up. We see that he’s wearing only a T-shirt. No pants. He looks around.

Following Goodnight, Springton, Shirley and Hartsell began writing and directing other short films, three of which were shown at subsequent Sidewalk Festivals: The Seven Year Switch, Reciprocity and, most recently, Birthday Call. The latter turned out to be the twosome’s springboard from short films into full-length features. Birthday Call started out as a gift for a relative, as well as an excuse to shoot on film (versus digital video, the less expensive alternative that has drawn so many into the moviemaking world lately). As a short, Birthday Call generated so much positive word-of-mouth that it was shown at the 2003 Sidewalk Festival as well as a few horror film festivals. The film also received a positive review from Film Threat (www.filmthreat.com), an online continuation of the now-defunct magazine that serves to “champion the increasingly popular explosion of independent and underground films.” All of the positive feedback combined with Hartsell’s love of horror movies and Shirley’s desire to shoot a full-length movie on film made the project a must-do.

Shirley and Hartsell both had experience working on films with only skeleton crews on the sets (including, for Shirley, Birminghamian Robb Rugan’s forthcoming Alice’s Misadventures in Wonderland).

“We don’t call it Crewless Productions for nothing,” Shirley says.

Yet they were able to immediately utilize one of the local film community’s greatest assets — the people.

“In Birmingham, I have a few friends, and making movies is something we all like to do,” Shirley says. “ Sometimes we get together and go out for a beer, and sometimes we get together and shoot movies. Aside from the fact we all have fun shooting, I’m lucky to know some really talented guys. Even though we might not have as many filmmakers as Hollywood, or Austin, Texas, for that matter, many of the ones we do have are exceptionally hard-working and talented.”

Birmingham has a surprising number of personal and professional resources for veteran filmmakers as well as for newbies in the field. Some local moviemakers are fortunate enough to own their own equipment or software; those who don’t have any number of options-for-hire at their disposal, including Vazda Video, The Imagination Factory and ‘N House Tape and Disc. Directors can assemble casts by enlisting actors from community theatre organizations or by recruiting at area colleges. Musicians in all genres, writers, contractors, craftsmen and countless other individuals are needed to make any production and talent is in no short supply in these parts.

Sometimes, it’s who you know…

EXT. POLICE STATION -- DAY

BARBARA walks around the exterior of the police station, looking skyward. She stops when she sees a white parachute drift down from the roof. A rope ladder unrolls over the side of the building, and AGENT F climbs down the ladder. He’s wearing the parachute harness, along with a suit, tie and dark sunglasses.

One of the things that inevitably comes to mind when you think of “independent film” is low- or non-existent budget. But if you’ve saved up enough pennies to afford a decent digital video camera and a good personal computer with a copy of Adobe Premiere, written a script and decided to take the plunge, you don’t necessarily need a second mortgage to fund your movie.

“People aren’t real jaded about filmmaking in Birmingham like they are in some bigger film Meccas,” Shirley says. “People get excited about movies and will often bend over backwards to help out. We’re shooting Hide and Creep for basically the cost of film stock.”

One of the benefits to being a part of the Birmingham film community is the give-and-take atmosphere among its members. While there are unavoidable costs of making a movie, Hide and Creep is an excellent example of the camaraderie of Birmingham’s creative talent. Most all of the group assembled to work on the film — from actors and camera operators to lighting crew and musicians — are on the set in return for no more guarantee than the experience and some pizza. These aren’t random people off the street, either; the cast includes names like Melissa Bush and Kyle Holman, both of whom have extensive acting experience on local stages. The crew credits feature an astonishing list of talent, like Rugan as the director of photography, Shirley’s band mate Eric McGinty writing and producing the soundtrack, and art director Mike Benson. While these might not be household names to most of Birmingham, all of these individuals are are highly regarded in their respective areas of expertise, and, perhaps most importantly to Shirley, they’re all willing to work for a song.

If you’re new to town or finding yourself recently cured of a lifelong case of agoraphobia, it’s not hard at all to get connected with the film community in Birmingham. Along with the annual festival, Sidewalk also hosts a monthly meeting for the movie-minded, called Sidewalk Salon. A wide cross-section of people shows up for the Salon — from fans to filmmakers to attorneys and managers — and it’s an ideal casual atmosphere for networking.

“I’m a huge fan of Erik Jambor (co-founder of the festival) and all the folks at Sidewalk,” Shirley says. “As far as I’m concerned, they are the reason we have a film scene in Birmingham. They’re the reason I started making movies. I met many of my film-making pals through Sidewalk events. I can’t say enough good things about them.”

There are also companies in town such as Hunter Films, a fledgling company that has recently transitioned from commercials to smaller-budget films.

“One key mistake that first-time filmmakers can make is failure to realize that filmmaking is a collaborative effort,” Pfitzer says. “The benefit of connecting with ‘small-budget’ filmmakers is that these companies have the resources and the connections to help enable a screenplay to be well made.”

After the Credits Roll

EXT. KEITH’S TRUCK – DAY

KEITH’s truck drives west along a small country road. KEITH and his girls are in the cab. BARBARA, GAIL and CHRIS are in back. The afternoon sun is low on the horizon .

It’s taken nearly six months of shooting on weekends, but the principal photography is done, and the editing phase has begun. Aside from minimal reshoots and pick-up shots, the camera’s job is done. Of course, there’s still plenty of work ahead: editing, scoring, music recording, audio tweaking, credits. Already, though, Shirley has started thinking ahead. What’s next?

“Paying off the MasterCard,” he jokes. “After that, my production partner Chuck Hartsell is writing a couple of horror scripts. We’ll probably start pre-production on one of those at some point. If Robb ever recovers from Alice and decides to shoot another one, I’d love to work for him again.

“My not-so-secret longer-term goal is to start up a B-movie studio here in town. I’d love to follow in the footsteps of Roger Corman and crank out a few entertaining, inexpensive genre films every year for the direct-to-video/cable market.”

Such a studio would surely be a fine addition to the local scene, but until then there’s plenty to keep budding directors in Birmingham busy — whether it’s meeting new partners at a Sidewalk event or finding locations in the middle of nowhere.

Hide and Creep is scheduled to be shown at Sidewalk 2004. You can watch a trailer and find out more about the film online at http://www.hideandcreep.com/.

Learn more about the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival at http://www.sidewalkfilm.org/.