Someone recently described the artistic scene in Hampton Roads as “depressed”. Well, what does that mean, exactly? Most would interpret the word as meaning listless, gloomy, melancholy or without hope. Personally, I couldn't disagree more. As a matter of fact, as someone who is deeply and broadly involved in many facets of the local arts scene, I quite take exception to this assertion.

Norfolk alone is home to the resurgent Virginia Stage Company, the steamrolling Virginia Opera, Virginia Symphony Orchestra and Virginia Ballet and Musical Theatres, we also have the wonderful Chrysler Museum of Art, the d'Art Center. These things aren't in Richmond or up near D.C., they're here. We've also got festivals, jamborees, bands, bands, bands and more bands.

And best of all, we've got the hoi polloi. The masses. The amateurs. The bohemians. Those bare-knuckle underground cowboys who pull raw unpainted art up from beneath the pavement because they've got nothing to lose. They're the ones to whom this new monthly feature is dedicated.

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Artistically speaking, compared to New York or London, Hampton Roads is a third world country to be sure, and that's what makes it exciting. Third world countries are the kinds of places where big shake-ups routinely happen. This place is the wild west and don't you forget it.

If you want to see the grittiest low-budget forms of self-expression, if you want to see art by any means necessary, you could do a lot worse than pavement level in the Seven Cities. If you think art in this area is depressed, you need to get out more. Here are some places you could start.

GENERIC THEATER
Since 1981, this little off-off-off-Broadway playhouse on 21st Street in Norfolk has been offering artists and performers a chance to sink their teeth into material not typically seen on other local stages.
Next up is the Generic's run of Moonlight and Magnolias, Ron Hutchinson's comedy about the problems at the studio (think no screenplay, Scarlet's cleavage, and drunk munchkins from Oz) while creating Gone with the Wind. Sounds like fun, right?

Call 441-2160 and reserve your seat for this somber drama. Tickets are $15 general admission, $12 for seniors and military and a sweet $10 for adults under twenty-five. Cruise by www.generictheater.org for more info.

OFF THE TOP
Ever seen “Whose Line is it Anyway”? Then you should know pretty much what to expect from this home-grown improv comedy troupe. Their shows are fast-paced, heavy on audience involvement, 100% improvised and occasionally even funny.

Off The Top has been together about a year, during which they really didn't make much headway in terms of refining their performances or gaining notoriety. In fact, OnHamptonRoads tore them a new one last March, and I can't claim I disagree with half the things that were said. However they have recently been refining their skills and appear to be poised for a major expansion into the community at large. At least as their newly appointed manager, those are my intentions. Oh yeah! Did I forget to mention that? I warned you I was gonna have conflicts of interest, didn't I?

Go see them every second Sunday of the month at the 40th Street Stage or I'll come and kill you.
Contact Off The Top at their Myspace page or offthetop@rock.com for performance or booking info.

SOURCE THEATRE
This company, comprising young talents Melissa Blue, Jon Ward and Russ Staggs, is good. Really good. Much better in fact than the disappointing results of all their productions to date would lead you to believe. Source Theatre specializes in what I suppose is best referred to as “modern” theatre: traditionally realistic in its presentation of scripts that other theatre companies wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Under Source's belt are productions of Art, Yazmina Reza's intellectual brow-beater of aesthetic comedy, and Lee Blessing's timely and topical drama Two Rooms. Most recently at the 40th Street Stage in Norfolk was Source Theatre's production of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, which has been something of a golden fleece among a number of upstart companies for about a year now.

So props to Source for being the ones to get it produced, but boos and hisses as well for falling in lockstep with their home venue's apparent ethos that marketing is a task best left undone. The only information I could find about this play is the promotional graphic and accompanying blurb on the 40th Street Stage home page, which, for what it's worth, did state the show's runs, that beer and wine are $3, and tickets are $10. Sorry seniors and military, your wisdom and service are no coin of this realm; no discount for you! But at ten bucks a head, who can really complain? A student discount is likewise not offered, but I've heard whispers on the wind that it is available to those who know to ask.

CORE THEATRE COMPANY:
Here is a group of people to keep your eye on. This amateur theatre company, founded by ODU grads Edwin Castillo, Emel Ertugrul and Brant Powell, intimately incorporates Suzuki and Viewpoints techniques into their productions. Near as this honors graduate of Hard Knocks U can figure, those are special actor training techniques, one intensely physical, the other intensely psychological. I sat down with Edwin and Emel recently, and they explained it to me. [This article has been edited for length.]

[I sit down at a patio table outside Kelly's Tavern in Ghent with Ertugrul and Castillo. Cayley Waldo and Chrisse Babashanian, who had worked with them on CORE's production of The Yellow Wallpaper this past summer, are also in attendance. A round of Miller Chills arrives shortly after I do.]
ME: So for the benefit of all the diligent readers of OnHamptonRoads.com, explain CORE to me. Explain the ethos of this theatre group.
ERTUGRUL: Okay. The reason we are CORE, and the reason we're CORE here in Hampton Roads is... a few years ago I realized that I know a lot of people who are extremely talented, but the only way they would ever do anything was either at a university or at one of the community places like Generic or Little Theatres of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Summer Shakes. And they always had a good time, but I always felt like I knew what they were capable of doing, but you couldn't see it. And if they didn't do it with a particular director that was trying to do something really interesting, then when was it going to get done? And that was said of me as well. So I thought, why don't we do it ourselves?
ME: One of the things I noticed about CORE from Duranged last summer and The Yellow Wallpaper this past summer is that you have a very singular production and performance style. Tell me about that.
ERTUGRUL: We've all had Suzuki and Viewpoints training. Leon would come into town to do one show a semester at ODU for a long time...
ME: And Leon is...?
ERTUGRUL: Leon Ingulsrud. He's a SITI Company member. SITI Company is based out of New York. Founded... [to Castillo] Do you know how long ago?
CASTILLO: Fifteen years ago.
ERTUGRUL: Fifteen years ago SITI Company was founded by Anne Bogart, who brought in the Viewpoints aspect, as well as Tadashi Suzuki out of Japan, who developed the Suzuki method.
They're both actor training methods that we use. So it's incorrect to say that a CORE show is a Suzuki show or it's a Viewpoints show, because it's about just training the actors. It makes the show look specific, which is why Duranged and The Yellow Wallpaper are kind of similar; because we're using the same techniques to train the actors to get into this mode.
ME: But they both worked really well with completely different styles of material.
ERTUGRUL: Completely different styles of material. Which is fascinating to us because we're not trying to say we're only gonna do dramas or we're only gonna do something that's macabre. Now it makes those shows more interesting to watch, but who's to say we can't do a Neil Simon show? If we did The Odd Couple, why couldn't we do it with one of them on a tricycle and the other one on fire?
[We all have a good chuckle at this remark.]
ME: Why not? I'd do it.
ERTUGRUL: It makes people take a play that they think they already know, and realize they don't know it that well because every show can be something different.
ME: What exactly do the Suzuki and Viewpoints techniques consist of?
CASTILLO: Suzuki training is a method of actor training that was developed from traditional Kabuki and Noh theatre. It's a series of very basic movements, and at the center of it is this idea of the stomp. It's connecting yourself to the ground again, which is the most basic move that a human being can make. It's why babies stomp their feet; they just know how to do it. If you study dance history, that's the first dance move: stomping rhythmically into the ground.
ERTUGRUL: African tribal dances.
CASTILLO: African tribal dances, everything. Almost every form of dance has this idea of pounding yourself into the ground. And whatever that means to each individual is different, but it's a conversation between you and the universe. It's being present and letting the universe deal with you. It really wakes you up. And again this is a form of actor training. It's not something to base your entire take on theatre or acting on. There are other forms out there, like Alexander technique and Meisner. These are tools. What we don't want to get confused is there's a “Suzuki style” of doing things. When we do the training, it does inform us of how to paint a picture...
ME: But it definitely influences your physicality.
CASTILLO: And it does influence your physicality.
ERTUGRUL: And your voice.
CASTILLO: Yes. The movements of your body are there to train your voice. Whatever is happening to you physically needs to be put out there for an audience of ten to twenty million people. You should be able to carry that energy out there. And depending on how you hold your body, that will direct where your voice goes and how it plays out.
ERTUGRUL: Musicians and singers. They practice every day. Dancers practice every day. Acting uses all of those skills, and yet an actor will pretend that you shouldn't do this kind of rigorous training, when in fact you should do all of those things. An actor's body is his instrument. You're using the physicality of a dancer mixed with what a singer does. And what we're offering performers an alternative to is the way an actor thinks “I'm gonna show up, learn my lines and then rehearse those lines.” Well what about rehearsing your body?
CASTILLO: I think that one key element when you do this kind of training is that you remember that as an actor, it's about being a performer instead of being a character. Because a smart actor knows that if he moves his body in one way and says a line at a specific volume, the audience will get the fact that “Oh my gosh he just realized that so-and-so killed his father”. Rather than the actor becoming the character and doing that. And I think that's what a lot of this training gets to. It's about becoming a smart artist because an artist has to know how to handle himself and his art.
ERTUGRUL: It's about externalizing rather than internalizing, because internalizing makes it all about you.
CASTILLO: And that's very selfish. And performing in front of an audience is the least selfish thing in the world to do. Because you're putting yourself out there in front of people, in front of strangers.
ERTUGRUL: And it's not about you. This is not therapy. It's not about doing something for yourself. It's doing something to entertain the other person.
ME: That's a radical idea.
CASTILLO: [laughing] Yeah. Isn't it crazy?! Performing for the audience?! That's weird!
ME: What you said interested me just now. That a character, as opposed to a performer, is your best interpretation of a real person. And real people can be hard to read, which hurts you as a performer.
ME: Is it one of your intentions with this company to sort of return theatre to its essence, or its core if you will, as an art form – as a different art form from simply straight realism?
ERTUGRUL: Returning it back to what it was? No. It can't be that anymore because the audience is not that anymore. You can't go do a classical Greek play and expect every one to be up in arms about it. It's actually quite boring to watch. People don't get it. We are not classical Greek society.
CASTILLO: It's figuring out what it is now and where it's going.
ERTUGRUL: Yes. And that's where we get to the question of realism. Everything we watch nowadays, with TV and movies... How many times have you been with somebody and you're watching a movie or you're watching TV and you say “That's not real. That's so fake”? Well, theatre is fake. You knew this when you bought your ticket and walked in and sat down and a bunch of people are standing onstage in a fake house saying made-up words, and they're pretending like somebody just died, which is fake because he's not dead. We all know that it's fake, and you're competing with something that the audience knows is also fake, but is much more “in the box” of realism. So how do you change the definition of what you're doing onstage so that's okay?
ME: And how do these techniques that you use figure into that?
CASTILLO: Suzuki is a very vertical training method. There are things more important than the other. The idea for example of moving your center from point A to point B is paramount. The stomp – paramount. Then you look at the details underneath that...
ME: Which is not to say that you guys stomp around the stage when you put on plays.
CASTILLO: No. It's the training. It's just training. I mean it might happen, if it's interesting. Yeah, sure. Why not? But I wouldn't want to watch that.
ME: You wouldn't be able to hear the lines, for one thing.
[Ertugrul giggles.]
CASTILLO: The Viewpoints training, which was developed by Mary Overlie and further defined by Anne Bogart with the SITI Company, is a breakdown of the use of time and space for performers. It's knowing where you are in space and what you're doing at all times, and making a statement about that. It's not just generalizing your actions, but really putting them out there.
ERTUGRUL: I tend to compare it to child's games in a way. When you play Red Rover, there are very specific rules: they sing the song “Red rover, red rover, send Edwin right over”. He goes running, and if he breaks the hands, he takes some one back with him to his side. If he doesn't break the hands, he joins the with me. Very specific rules, right? But then there's hide and seek. When you play hide and seek, anybody could be anywhere. But there are still rules. You have to find and tag. I think the Viewpoints are very similar to that because it's much more free. There are still rules, and that's what the Viewpoints are, but it's much more free than something as regimented as Suzuki.
ME: Boil it down for me. Would you say that the Suzuki training puts you in touch with your body and Viewpoints informs you how to use it?
ERTUGRUL: I would say that Suzuki is like the foundation of a building, and the little gargoyle on the side is Viewpoints. So Suzuki is what grounds it there, and then Viewpoints is what makes it so great that it's grounded there.
CASTILLO: That's a better analogy. It's the idea of grounding and then moving. Suzuki is very grounding and then Viewpoints is knowing how to arrange all these grounded buildings in a city block. And again the reason why we use this is for actor training. It's so we're all on the same page of how to form something, how to make something. 'Cause the worst thing you can do as an actor is to go into rehearsal and be told where to go and what to do. “Direct me.” No. It's a collaboration each time you go into rehearsal. It's a performance each time you go into rehearsal.
ME: I've always been of the opinion that you as the actor need to give the director something to direct.
CASTILLO: Exactly. The director in effect is just the voice of the audience. He sees what is up there and says no, that sucks, change something. Let's try something different. And then it's back on the actor, the performer to try something different. And the training educates the performer on “Well, that doesn't work if I move over here. What happens to the stage picture if I move over there? Or if I move on this line, or if I turn over here?” It's being aware of your environment and how you are affected by your environment, and how you affect the environment as well. It's about being a smarter performer. It's very important in building a piece.
ME: How have the actors you've worked with responded to the training?
CASTILLO: Very very well. The bulk of my training is from Leon. I've worked with him on every production he's done at ODU. I've seen a ton of different personalities come and go. Some people take to it, some people don't. That's the life. And by all means, if something doesn't work for a person then they shouldn't do it. But for people that get it and want to keep going with it, it's a huge tool.
ME: What's the workshop? What have you guys got cooking?
ERTUGRUL: We're conducting a workshop at ODU that is going to span two semesters. The idea is to address what we found very interesting with The Yellow Wallpaper, which is taking a short story and adapting it to theatre. So transferring a story from a different medium, but still conveying the same feeling and presentation. The workshop is along those same lines, and we've decided that we're going to look at Edgar Allen Poe. We've worked with Poe before and it's fascinating. The language of Poe is gorgeous. And for this workshop we want to take ODU students and do a lot of table work with five different Poe short stories with the idea of creating a project where we take these five different stories and this ensemble cast and meld them into one show. Not necessarily one story, mind you, but...
ME: Thematic links?
ERTUGRUL: Yes. We've chosen pieces that do have something of a thematic link. But it's really more about getting this ensemble together and saying "Okay. We've got these words – how do we make it a play?"
ME: Do you know yet when and where it's going to happen?
ERTUGRUL: It'll be ODU. We're working in collaboration with their theatre department. We're going to use their students, rehearse in their space, and as the pieces are completed along the way we will exhibit them. And at the end of the semester, we will have the entire thing done. Sometime around May. The ultimate goal, knock on all kinds of wood, is Edinburgh. The goal is to have something that we've built through a university setting that is good enough and that we're proud enough of to want to take somewhere else.
ME: Is there anything besides this workshop on your horizon?
ERTUGRUL: We're going to be performing at the 40th Street Stage with the Spoken Word poets this October in a reprise of something they did last year called From Under the Bed. It was dark poetry, they did a reading of The Telltale Heart.
ME: Well I gotta tell you as a resident of this area, I think the work I've seen from you guys so far is definitely worthy of representing Hampton Roads in a larger market.
ERTUGRUL: And why not? Over the years, so many people who graduate from various universities in this area are like “I just want to leave.” And I was like that at one point. Because you kind of drive yourself crazy thinking “I want to be an actor, I want to do this.” But I think what we're slowly addressing is... If you want it so bad but it isn't around you, then make it.

CORE have recently been confirmed as a resident company of Old Dominion University, where they will continue to offer their unique style to the theatre-going public, as well as give the students of ODU's theatre program some much needed extra-curricular experience.
They will also be conducting their readings of the macabre October 26 thru November 3, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sunday at 2 pm, at the 40th Street Stage. And for those of you who missed The Yellow Wallpaper over the summer, YOUR LIFE IS WITHOUT MEANING. But not to worry – they're bringing it back. Dates and venue TBA. For more information about locally produced amateur theatre that will challenge your assumptions of the art form visit CORE's Myspace page.

STUDENTS OF FILM
Now here's a brilliant idea. It seems this area is teeming with aspiring filmmakers and actors, very few of whom can afford the equipment to make films on their own, and practically none of whom can afford to attend any school worth studying film at. So what did local grifter and self-styled businessman Jon Plante decide to do? Give 'em a scene to shoot, give 'em the equipment to shoot with and let them teach themselves.

The Students of Film just recently wrapped their inaugural project “Reel Builders”, and a summer's worth of shooting. This fall they will be screening the results: a scene each from five successful movies, reproduced as faithfully as possible by local starry-eyed autodidacts.
Jon and I had a few shots of tequila the other morning, and the following conversation ensued:
ME: So what exactly is Students of Film?
PLANTE: Students of Film is first and foremost an educational facility for the community. The idea originally was to get all these great artists – actors and directors and producers and writers – and bring all these colorful people together as a community, as a group, with everyone being completely democratic and putting in their say and having an investment.
ME: So is Students of Film then its own thing, composed of people who rotate in and out?
PLANTE: Absolutely.
ME: You're just the guy who was there to make it happen.
PLANTE: Absolutely. I was just the green. I was just the money to get it moving.
ME: The project that Students of Film did over the summer was called "Reel Builders", and consisted of five scenes, each from one of five successful movies.
PLANTE: Correct. We recreated scenes from Office Space, Evil Dead, Fight Club, Kill Bill and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
ME: What was the goal?
PLANTE: Besides the educational portion of it - and I definitely learned a lot - by mimicking these masters, not only did we learn the technical aspects, everyone had their own reason for joining. Whether it be contacts or just to meet other filmmakers, social event, whatever they wanted. For me it was the technical aspect, but what I ended up learning more was how to find that next level. It's not that hard to get those permits and find the right people to talk to, and make everything legitimate. We're not going to go out to a parking garage and film for an hour guerrilla style, when I can go and get a permit, have the cops show up and show them the permit and it be okay. So it was cool for me to learn that.
ME: Who's idea was it?
PLANTE: It was mine. I wanted to see where the talent is in the Seven Cities. It was a good idea to see, one: who had talent; two: it was an easy way to make contacts. And three: it hopefully forced me and everybody else involved to step up their game.
ME: Did they?
PLANTE: Some of them did, some of them didn't. I think the directors didn't delegate as much as they should have. So the other members who wanted to do things like produce, they weren't delegated chores that would make them step up their game.
ME: That could have had to do with the fact your directors, most of them hadn't had any experience delegating because most were students or amateurs, or self-taught.
PLANTE: Very true. The idea was originally to choose individual directors that we thought would be able to delegate those responsibilities and have a handle on it. But as we went, and everything was democratic, I changed my mind. I was like “This is a dry run, it's our first time doing this. I'm going to open it up completely to every possibility.” Including a director that's never done this before. And then I'll pull it back from there, and see where the true pitfalls lie. And we found out where those pitfalls were for sure. We had three directors for Office Space.
ME: That was a little confusing.
PLANTE: Right. After we had chosen the films democratically, I said who wants to direct? And we had like thirteen people raise their hands.
ME: Who was involved with the voting?
PLANTE: Everybody. Initially, we had early vote ballots on the website. If you could not make the voting day, you just go on the website, submit your ballot, submit your name and send me the email. We had about twenty-six early vote ballots, and forty-three people at the vote day. That was a lot of votes to tally.
ME: Off the top of your head, how many people would you reckon were involved in this project over the summer?
PLANTE: Officially, a hundred and fifteen signed up to be members. The core group, people who would call me to see what was going on and how they could help, was probably thirty strong. These were the people who were there, wanted to be on every set, were asking for things to do, showed up to all production meetings for the films they worked on. And the contacts I made were important - contacts with HRT, City of Chesapeake, City of Norfolk, things like that. I think that was important for me.
[Edit]
PLANTE: But, yeah, as a producer, which is probably my strong point, that was what I learned. Not just the technical side of knowing how to work the camera. Sure, I know how to work a camera. I can talk to actors, and yell at them if I have to.
ME: And sometimes you do.
PLANTE: [laughing] Right. Sometimes. But I think for me, being a teacher, finding interesting ways of telling other people what little I do know and trying to get them involved, that's crucial. We didn't get to do it much in the first four projects. Office Space, a little bit. Kill Bill, Evil Dead and Fight Club – there was no kind of teaching going on. It was just directors trying to get what they wanted. And then with Monty Python, there was a little more of that educational facility that I was shooting for.
ME: Monty Python was the one that you directed.
PLANTE: Correct.
ME: So you were free to structure it however you wanted.
PLANTE: Mm-hm. And that's just me. I like to be way ahead of the game. But I think that the directors that did direct and fail, or didn't live up to their own expectations learned a lot by failing. And when we first started this project, I sent out an email that said “We're going to learn a lot by failing and succeeding.” And I learned a lot more from my failures.
ME: You always do.
PLANTE: I learned a ton more from failing. I failed in some of the early projects, in that I did not get new directors to the point where they needed to be to make a good film, or I did not get producers for directors.
ME: But chances are they learned as much from failing as you did.
PLANTE: I hope so. I really hope so. The only thing I look back on like “Man, that kind of sucked” is that I feel bad for some of the actors. They were there solely to act, and put stuff that they're acting in on their reels. I think some of them might be disappointed with the footage that they receive. And that's a disappointment to me. Even though I did put in a disclaimer when I first sent out the emails to the actors. I said these are new directors. This is going to be a learning experience and you'll have to be patient, even if it gets ridiculous. But I felt sorry for some of the actors who didn't get out of it what they might have been looking for. And I hope that won't bear on the next project.
ME: I want to ask you about the business aspect next. You got the equipment, the permits, the locations, you fed the actors.
[Edit]
ME: How much did all of this cost?
PLANTE: Oy. It's on the website... I believe the total came to twenty-one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-eight.
ME: And that was all your money.
PLANTE: Every last dime. We set the budget at twenty-two thousand, so we're technically a hundred and twenty-two dollars under budget. But that'll all go towards the many many DVDs I have to make for everybody.
ME: Are you, uh... Are you doing alright? How much of a hit was that for you to take?
[Plante laughs heartily]
PLANTE: It was a hit. It wasn't like, “Oh lord in heaven, I bet the farm!” But I'm a lucky guy. I'm not the entrepreneur guy that went and took real estate classes. I bought a house when it made sense to buy a house. And I bought another house because it was a smart idea. And what can I say? Google and Wikipedia rock. It's that simple. I was in the right place at the right time. I sold two minutes before everything crashed. I got the most money I could have gotten for those houses, and it's just luck. And I decided I'm not going to just put this money aside and make a nest egg, I'm going to invest in myself. Let's drop twenty on equipment, let's drop some of it on a project, which ended up being Students of Film. Let's make it happen.
ME: So where's this premier going to be?
PLANTE: I sent out an email asking if the members wanted to have it at the Naro, Cinema Cafe, or did they want to wait out the summer blockbusters and have it at a Regal? Cinema Cafe and Naro are totally open to the idea, said we can have them whenever we want.
ME: Is it going to be a public event?
PLANTE: I don't know. That's a good question. Some one else asked me am I going to charge? I said hell no. And they said what do you mean? I said we're just going to have the premier. People can order food if they want, and we'll have drinks. It'll be fun good times.
ME: I think you ought to make it a public event just to show people what you've been doing. I mean, we're here talking about it, they're going to read about it.
PLANTE: This is true, this is true. And that was an option I discussed with some people. But I want to do a premier for the crew and cast. I guess we could open it up after that. I guess we'd need to do two days. And if Cinema Cafe says they'll advertise it, sure. Why not? And I talked to the VPA about it too. There are other public events that it can be entered into, film festivals and such. Marty Terry, the president of the Hampton Roads chapter, said she wants to add it in to any kind of independent thing that goes forward.
ME: Great! So what's the next project?
PLANTE: The next project is called Five-for-Five. Five films for five hundred dollars.
ME: And these are going to be original films, right?
PLANTE: Original films, absolutely. Five-for-Five will be a chance for people who were in "Reel Builders", and new faces too, to use the resources of Students of Film for something that's one step more ambitious. It's tougher for local artists to make short films because they have to have the gear, they have to have the know-how and it's tough to find some one that's going the hold a boom for you and not get paid. So since every one on "Reel Builders" was working for free, hopefully these directors that we'll choose to do their five films can come up and say “I need three good grips.” Or “I need two good cinematographers. What can you recommend?” And we can say here are the seven cinematographers we had for "Reel Builders". Here are some of the shots they did. Boom, throw in the DVD. And hopefully this will turn over into even more resources.
ME: Do you have any idea when this project is going to be?
PLANTE: Maybe October. It's scheduled to be announced during the premier for the project we did over this past summer.
ME: I assume you're accepting submissions for screenplays and director's proposals?
PLANTE: Absolutely. We were trying to decide whether to accept early or not. And I thought it made sense to accept early.
ME: When will you start accepting these submissions?
PLANTE: When I email the Students of Film about the premier, I will be attaching an announcement saying if you have something, get it to me. We'll do a little bit of marketing for it, flyers and stuff, mostly underground, and I'm going to tell all the Students of Film to start spreading the word then. And then we'll take in the rest of the submissions. We'll have a day when all the writers or directors can come in, and you have three minutes to pitch.
ME: And by the time you get down to hearing these pitches, it's is going to be everybody? The whole community?
PLANTE: Yep. Anybody can come in. And you can submit more than one. You've got three minutes to submit as many as you want. Three minutes. Boom. Pitch it. If your script is chosen, you'll get full access to every piece of gear that I have and you'll get money. It's either going to be five films for five hundred dollars each, or five films for a total of five hundred dollars. I'm not sure which. One hundred and five hundred isn't a huge difference. I mean, it depends on the type of script we get, but I'd really like to see people do it for a hundred dollars. I'd like to see who has the creativity and the gumption to get a film made for a hundred bucks. First of all, because it's my money, but also I'm not sure if five hundred is enough more than one hundred to make that much of a difference.
ME: It's five times as much.
PLANTE: It is five times as much, but I just don't know what type of quality they're going to want. Like for Monty Python, if we'd had a thousand dollars for props, I don't think we would have gotten better props. I think the props we had were worth a thousand dollars, but we made them for a hundred. I think that sometimes money gives people too many options. And I'd like to see who can do it with fewer options. That's my goal for this project. Just like it was for "Reel Builders": they had a certain budget, and I wanted to see which directors could direct, could keep their organization together, which producers could go out and get things done. I was testing each specific role.
[Edit]
PLANTE: I'm currently at work getting licensing from the studios for the next "Reel Builders". The next one will be three films instead of five. And I'd like to make a documentary of the project. All the ups, all the downs, all the failures and successes, the craziness, all of it. I've got the graphic all figured out already. We're going to have little cut-outs of all the directors' faces with their thumbs up and things like that, and it'll say “Learning from the Masters.” It'll be a film about how this independent community got together and tried to do this thing, tried to copy what the masters have done.
[Edit]
PLANTE: First off, I'm going to see who knows how to pitch. Because I bet you if we get fifty scripts, there will be probably twenty great ideas, and there will be ten awesome ideas. But out of those twenty great ideas and those ten awesome ideas, who can pull it off? Now, you might have one guy out of these ten with amazing ideas that can actually do it, and then there might be nine from the regular good ideas who I feel can pull it off. And the judges will have to weigh the balance. And five will be chosen.

The Students of Film are currently deciding when and where to present their labors of love. Stay tuned – I'll be posting info as it develops.

ATTABOY!s and ARE-YOU-NUTS?!es

This is an idea I shamelessly ripped off from PORTFOLIO WEEKLY's “Bouquets, Binkies and Brickbats” feature, so I feel it only appropriate that my first ever ATTABOY! go to the above mentioned periodical, for devoting a substantial feature, a cover story no less, to the amateur and semi-pro theatre scene in Hampton Roads (“All Kinds of Drama” 9/11/07). As this column is dedicated to pointing out, the Seven Cities are home to myriad arts groups who just need somebody to help them draw attention to themselves, and Portfolio has always been first to lift an upstart onto its shoulder. Keep up the good work!

A tangential ARE-YOU-NUTS?! to Frankie Little Hardin, Managing Director of the 40thnegligence on the part of local media (including, one presumes, the publication to which she was speaking) is mostly to blame for the lack of public interest in her venue's productions. Ms. Hardin, a longtime resident of Norfolk, should know by now that you can't blame the paper in a military town for not beating down your door to write about the shows you yourself make only lip service efforts to promote. 

An ATTAGIRL! to WHRV radio personality Cathy Lewis for opening up the floor on the September 25th broadcast of her program HearSay to a discussion of the local arts scene. Sadly, I didn't get to hear the whole thing, but props to Nancy Bloom of the Little Theatre of Virginia Beach for jumping on the two-way to blow up her spot.

An exasperated ARE YOU NUTS?! to the full house opening night crowd at the premier of Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. The enthusiastic throng of two hundred some-odd people (save three: myself, my friend and the five year-old girl whose parents apparently thought that an occasional dose of depraved and intense graphic violence is what every toddler needs to become a healthy and well-adjusted member of society) spent the evening conversing at a level more appropriate to the bleachers at an air show or jogging back and forth between the exit and their seats. These are GROWN people I'm talking about here, running up and down the aisles like ten year-olds at a birthday party for the entire 109 minutes! What I wonder now is whether most people these days are so stupid that such things really DON'T occur to them, or are such jerks that they simply don't care? 

A shared ATTABOY! to the guy at the gas station on the corner, for never carding me for cigarettes during the month or so that I'd misplaced my driver's license, and the crew at Cogan's for patiently holding it behind their bar the entire time. You guys made my day!

Okay. Well, I've just finished my ninth beer and a pack of cigarettes I bought about four hours ago - I think it's about time for bed. I do, after all, have to get up and go to work tomorrow like a regular joe. But tune in next month for more info about what's going on beneath your feet in Hampton Roads' surprisingly rich artistic scene. Made possible by the hoi polloi.