Title: 13 Pieces of the Universe
Date: Saturday, April 19
Time: 5:30 pm
Place: Tapps Art Center
 

 
1. What is your connection to the South?
Born and raised!

2. Where did you get your inspiration for this work?
I had a friend pass away in a canoe accident in 2010. This work is loosely biographical insomuch as it distills his death, and other deaths of people important to me, into a memory rather than a moment—but that’s as far as it goes. It’s in these moments that the film is a coming of age story—my coming of age, in a sense.
Also Arkansas. Also his music. Also landscape. 13 Pieces is a part of me and about a specific part of my life…but we all move on. It’s through this piece that I tried to.

3. How did you start making films?
I started telling stories before I even really thought about it. I used to play with cameras when I was a kid. I started seriously combining the two in college.

4. Did anything interesting or funny happen on set during the shooting?
Shooting was really grueling—it was August in Arkansas. It was like 108 degrees, 85% humidity, and most of the filming happened in the middle of fields and next to the Arkansas River. There was also a burn ban in effect—which was a problem because the most important shot of the film is of a crop burn. Some farmers in Arkansas set their fields on fire at the end of the season, and I really really really needed that shot to finish my film. I had a rule on set, if you saw smoke we would drop everything and rush to it. I was driving with my actress, Emily, and actor, Nathan, in the gear car to meet the rest of the crew on set…but Emily saw smoke. It was just us three, and we sped off to find the smoke. We ended up turning off the road down a bunch of dirt roads that did not exist on my GPS. As we got closer, we found that the field was just finished burning. I got out like a madwoman hollering to the the guys who were controlling the burn if I could film their field. They were SO AMAZING. They said they were going to burn another field tomorrow, but they could just do it right now for me. It was perfect.

5. What do you look forward to the most during Indie Grits?
Coming back to the South! Seeing wonderful movies by people who love making movies. Talking to people about movies. Also not wearing a jacket.

6. Why should someone see your film?
Because it’s about the summer heat. Because it’s sad. Because I poured myself into it.