And, There You Are Local filmmakers negotiating national DVD distribution for first comedy By Dean Poling Upon completing it, he felt the lines were better as lyrics rather than poetry. “I told Doug I wrote a song,” says Kirkland, who then worked with a composer to put the lyrics to music. But it was the writing that Kirkland found cathartic. So he took the idea behind the poem-turned-song and began working on it as a script. “Talk about therapy,” Kirkland says. Soon, following Sebastian’s suggestion to see the comedy in this situation, what had started as a personal experience of a relationship gone bad was turning into a script for a comedy. The movie’s plot involves a man who dates only straight men and then must deal with his straight boyfriends’ girlfriends. In making the movie, Kirkland added acting as another first-time experience — Kirkland plays the main character, but he relied on Sebastian’s expertise to make the movie possible. Doug Sebastian, Valdosta, is the movie’s director as well as a supporting cast member in the film. With his Doug Sebastian Productions, Sebastian has filmed numerous commercial projects in the past for customers that include IBM and Hallmark, as well as filming local and regional weddings, etc. As director, Sebastian kept an eye on the film’s look and its budget. With filming stretching for more than a year, Sebastian also had to use his expertise with special effects. Sebastian seamlessly used photographs and a blue screen to re-create some background scenes that had changed between initial and later filming. Sebastian and Kirkland are also looking to help produce the films of other local and regional filmmakers. The film mixes actual Valdosta locations with fictional, special-effect locations. The filmmakers recruited a few Valdosta State University students as supporting actors for the movie. Kirkland and Sebastian would like to use Valdosta as a location for future movies in a way that filmmaker John Waters began using his hometown of Baltimore as the backdrop for movies like “Polyester,” “Pink Flamingos,” and “Hairspray.” They are already working on the script and pre-production work for a second movie, tentatively titled “Grandma’s Blessings,” a comedy about a man’s road trip after his dead grandmother leaves him a beat-up RV. But first, Kirkland and Sebastian are trying to find a location for a private showing of “And, There You Are,” which is not rated but does include language, adult situations and partial nudity. Efforts to show the movie at several Valdosta locations have been met with rejection. Still, Kirkland and Sebastian may have bigger fish to fry. The film has already attracted a potential distributor with Kirkland and Sebastian negotiating a contract that could give “And, There You Are” DVD distribution in video stores nationwide. If the movie finds national distribution, “And, There You Are” will find itself both there and here, and will find Kirkland and Sebastian on their way to making more movies. |
