From Lowcountry Weekly, 17 April 2003
THE ARTS INTERVIEW
...with Award-winning Screenwriter David Solomon
BY ERIC VAUGHN HOLOWACZ
Following a few month’s absence in the pages of Lowcountry Weekly, and after moving his family half way around the world, former Beaufort arts advocate Eric Holowacz resumes our popular interview feature. For this issue, he talked with local writer and film-maker David Solomon, who is part of our region’s growing literary and media arts reputation.
Raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Solomon moved to Fripp Island in 1989, and remembers his first morning in the Lowcountry: “Waking up, I discovered fiddler crabs scurrying across the deck, and the marsh stink at low tide --- it was so beautiful, it got completely under my skin and ruined me. Ever since, my stories have seemed to come out of this “place.” Solomon spoke with Holowacz, from 18 time zones away, about a major prize, a major new source of inspiration, and the media arts around us.
Being selected for a South Carolina Arts Commission Fellowship, which is based on the strength of the creative work submitted, is a little like winning the lottery. You sent a feature-length script called Turtle Island, and were recently announced as a 2003 Fellowship winner. Congratulations!
I'd hoped that the odds were a little better than the lottery. As you said, the competition is based on the strength of the creative work submitted, so I knew I had a chance. Still, the process is somewhat subjective. Who are the judges, and what are they looking for? Their personal tastes are bound to be a factor. I'd worked hard on the script, which is an action adventure for children, and felt good about it. The story is ecologically sensitive and very tied to the Lowcountry. But it's not everyone's taste. I guess it pushed their buttons as a worthwhile screenplay.
This is a coveted honor, intended to recognize excellence in the arts and the artists of our state. How did you feel when you got word that you would be among the 2003 Fellowship artists?
It felt great, because I took it as a vote for the Turtle Island script. I know that I can write effectively, but I also know I have a lot to learn about the craft of screenwriting. For me, the award represents an industry opinion that the story has merit. I think it's a sweet story, but I've also had my moments of doubt. I'm just glad the judges responded positively to it.
The honor comes with a $5,000 cash award, with no project strings attached, and general duties to represent your art form in and around the state. Can you tell us what your plans are and how they might have been changed by this award?
I want to see Turtle Island on the big screen. I think children deserve this kind of entertainment. The award will help me market the story more effectively, more professionally. It will help me move the script towards the ultimate goal, which is getting the movie made. Using the money to visit friends in New Zealand is a tempting idea, but I think it's best if we use it as seed money for the production.
South Carolina is lucky to have one of the most active, diverse, and ambitious state arts agencies in the nation. I know, because I started my own career in the so-called cultural industry as an intern there over a dozen years ago. What's your assessment of programs intended to support creative people and projects here at the dawn of the 21st century?
It's hard to be creative when you're working 60 hours a week for someone else, I know that much from experience. I've always resisted discussions about what is art, how important is art to society, why we should support the artist, etc. All I know is I'm a good writer and I have some stories to tell. They're good stories. They're edifying. An award like this one gives me some freedom to get those stories onto paper, and maybe eventually onto a movie screen, for everyone to enjoy. I don't know what other kinds of programs are out there, but this South Carolina Arts Commission Fellowship means a lot to me. I'm very, very grateful for it.
Tell us about your background and training as a writer, story-teller, and film-maker.
I was writing movies when I was ten, I just didn't know that that's what they were. I left Beaufort for film school in 1995, first Columbia College in Chicago, then North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. I went through the Producing program there, which was great, because I was exposed to all the elements of filmmaking, not just the writing. I got to see how collaborative the process of filmmaking is. It takes an enormous amount of hard work from lots of people to make a movie, even a short one. At the North Carolina School for the Arts, I wrote and produced a few films that won some awards and generated some brief, fleeting buzz. Jumping ahead three years, I just finished working on the Avery Pictures production of The Notebook, which filmed up in Charleston. I was an assistant in the editorial department, which was an amazing experience. I have to say, though, that it's been my jobs in the hospitality industry that have most qualified me as a writer. Humanity is so diverse--there are so many incredible stories out there--the material seems to come in waves, and there isn't enough ink or paper or time to write it all down. I just do the best I can. Lots of snippets of dialogue, scribbled onto cocktail napkins...
Since I’ve known you, what three or four years, you’ve had some interesting day jobs in Beaufort.
My wife, Paige, and I were the Innkeepers at the Craven Street Inn for a couple of years. Taking care of people, in a classic bed and breakfast setting, is definitely a good place to pick up dramatic dialogue, interesting situations, and glimpses of the human condition. Lately, I’ve been working on a pneumonia vaccine study at Parris Island for the last year or so. There’s most certainly a screenplay somewhere in that experience.
Can you give us a brief history of your previous film projects, and maybe expand on what you have planned for the future?
My short films were mostly about homeless guys, filmed in the middle of the night, usually in the dead of winter. Pretty miserable stuff. It got to where I was even boring myself. Fortunately, I got all that out of my system. Turtle Island is bright, sunny, and exciting. It's a lot of fun. It has dominated my thoughts for the last couple of years. I'm going to take it through another rewrite, pray over it, and then try to either sell it or produce it. I have another script that I'd like to work on, a romantic comedy that's set in a small Southern bed-and-breakfast. Newlywed actors become innkeepers, then try not to go crazy. We'll see where that one goes.
I live in Wellington, New Zealand now, a growing city that is building on the dreams of a few independent film-makers and the amazing success of home-grown director Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. I see every day how local leaders and visionaries can turn a small city into a world-wide home to a film industry. This involves offering production support, post-production facilities, and a ready corp of professionals in the local talent pool.
I absolutely love this topic, because I think that a home-grown film industry here in Beaufort is a home run. It makes sense. It's so beautiful here, all you have to do is turn a camera on and it looks like a movie! The visual possibilities are endless. Hollywood knows that, that's why they keep coming back to the Lowcountry to film stuff. Why shouldn't there be an indigenous film industry in Beaufort? It's a natural fit. There's certainly enough talented, qualified people in the region to support it. And there are so many stories to tell here! Why shouldn't the movies come straight out of Beaufort instead of some Hollywood factory? Turtle Island is an example of such a story: Three local boys take their dad's boat to an uninhabited island to look for Blackbeard's treasure, then find more than they bargained for. There's giant alligators, dolphins, turtles laying eggs, shrimp, sand dollars, full moons rising over the marsh, buried treasure, Gullah wisdom--it's a story that shouldn't be filmed anywhere else. Maybe this project can help contribute to the growth of a local film industry in Beaufort. I'd be so proud to be a part of that. I'm sure that's the kind of thing the Arts Commission had in mind when they created the Fellowship.
Since you've had training as a film producer, a varied and complex job if ever there was one, what type of infrastructure would a town like Beaufort need to grow, in order to become the next Hollywood, or a fellow traveler with Wellington, or even a new production center like Wilmington, North Carolina?
Hmmm, I think we’re off to a good start, with agencies like the Arts Commission, Beaufort’s local Arts Council, the state film office. We may seem like a long way away from Peter Jackson (visionary director behind the Lord of the Rings films) and his New Zealand sound stages, equipment houses and special effects workshops, post-production facilities, and the like. But South Carolina actually already has most of these things, as well as the professional technicians and craftspeople to work them. The Lowcountry may not be that far behind, and one thing Beaufort is rich in is writers, and material. We should support the cultivation of screenwriters because that, really, is where all films begin. I think it would benefit Beaufort to teach more filmmaking courses locally, too. Film-making is an industry that could employ our citizens, just like the hospitality or tourism industry do today. The return on investment goes beyond the financial aspects, touches on the cultural, historical, social and heritage aspects of our community.
I know what you mean. I find myself, at least once a year, watching Conrack, the 1970’s movie of Pat Conroy’s homegrown memoir, The Water is Wide. Sure, I grit through John Voight’s hyperbolic attempt at a Southern accent, and the celluloid to video transfer makes the movie look totally dated, but his character and portrayal are so extraordinary. The children are so amazing and familiar and real. And I will never be able to hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and not think of those tearful Daufuskie Island eyes and that old wooden mail boat taking Conrack away on his final crossing.
Beaufort really has been blessed by the story-tellers in our midst.
I know. It makes you think how vacant our culture would be without its literary and oral traditions. How much would be lost without the literary arts. It’s a tradition that begins first with stories told to small groups ages ago, and advances with the poems and novels that could be written and published for larger distribution, and continues in the 21st century with the films and videos, Conrack included, that reach millions of people around the world.
Hey, I thought you were doing the interview.
OK, let’s switch topics and talk a little about another sort of creation. Two years ago, almost to this day, my wife and I had our first daughter in Beaufort. I can't think of a more amazing source of earthly inspiration and creative wonder than those months awaiting the birth and then seeing that new person arrive. I am still amazed at how a child can instantly and forever capture something inside you and, at the same time and every day thereafter, give you things magical and new. It's almost like discovering a new country or, with a nod to your script, finding a pirate's treasure chest. You and Paige welcomed daughter Lydia Jean into the world and into your lives just a few months ago. How has becoming a father affected your creativity, your artistic process, your poet's soul?
Believe it or not, she's actually served to put my feet back onto the ground. I get loopy every time I look at her, or rather every time she looks at me. But realizing that her mother and I are her providers and protectors --- that's a sobering thing. I look at some of the stuff out there in the world and I really want to protect her from it. It's amazing to me that God put these children’s stories onto my heart, just in time for the arrival of my own child. I couldn't imagine giving her anything sweeter than a fantastic, magical story like Turtle Island. I want to do it for her again and again and again.
Besides little bundles of joy, what are your favorite or most inspiring things, films, stories, authors?
Well, in no particular order: Moonstruck, Roman Holiday, The Big Chill, Chariots of Fire, the 1933 original version of King Kong. I love the old Universal monster movies from the 1930’s and 40’s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing from Another Planet especially. Dearest of all, is It’s a Wonderful Life. Paige and I were married in a movie theater, and invited our guests to watch that movie with us on the big screen. As for directors, Frank Capra, Ang Lee, Billy Wilder, Lawrence Kasdan, and Elia Kazan come to mind. I still think To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is the sweetest thing I've ever read. I'm pretty simple.
I agree. I think Atticus Finch is one of the great American characters ever, with Scout not too far behind. And then there’s the little slices of Americana, good and bad, and all sorts of ethical and symbolic situations that elevate that story above most others I can think of. You mentioned how working in the hospitality industry has provided insight into the human condition and people's psyche. Have any wild or unusual stories or anecdotes similar to, with a nod to Harper Lee, a small-town girl having to wear a chicken-wire costume of a baked ham to a civic event?
Well, no ham outfits or Boo Radley’s yet. There were great pieces of dialogue, for those of us who listened. "The cat lived on popcorn for six weeks," and, "I found her bathing suit in the freezer," are memorable. What was going on there? And exposure to the bed-and-breakfast sub-culture, and the diversity of people who populate them, was an eye opener. The French family with young boys in dirty diapers running around the living room, dancing around the cheese tray, yelling "fromage! fromage!" while their toilet overflowed upstairs. Or the man from New York who threatened to sue us because a lizard in his room had bit him. There are many others, but most of it is just too painful to talk about.
I guess that’s where writing and literature come in and, perhaps, where some of your many future film projects begin. Thanks for talking with me, David, and congratulations on the recent honors and the art that you are making in Beaufort.
-------
Eric Vaughn Holowacz lives in and writes from Wellington, New Zealand, a place more cinematically known as Middle Earth. He is a champion of the artist in everyone, and jumped at the chance to resume these interviews and creative dialogues for Lowcountry Weekly. While never an inn-keeper, his past titles have included executive director, monastic guest, panel moderator, rock and roll manager, and high school academic team national champion. His favorite role, assumed in April 2001, has been that of father.
...with Award-winning Screenwriter David Solomon
BY ERIC VAUGHN HOLOWACZ
Following a few month’s absence in the pages of Lowcountry Weekly, and after moving his family half way around the world, former Beaufort arts advocate Eric Holowacz resumes our popular interview feature. For this issue, he talked with local writer and film-maker David Solomon, who is part of our region’s growing literary and media arts reputation.
Raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Solomon moved to Fripp Island in 1989, and remembers his first morning in the Lowcountry: “Waking up, I discovered fiddler crabs scurrying across the deck, and the marsh stink at low tide --- it was so beautiful, it got completely under my skin and ruined me. Ever since, my stories have seemed to come out of this “place.” Solomon spoke with Holowacz, from 18 time zones away, about a major prize, a major new source of inspiration, and the media arts around us.
Being selected for a South Carolina Arts Commission Fellowship, which is based on the strength of the creative work submitted, is a little like winning the lottery. You sent a feature-length script called Turtle Island, and were recently announced as a 2003 Fellowship winner. Congratulations!
I'd hoped that the odds were a little better than the lottery. As you said, the competition is based on the strength of the creative work submitted, so I knew I had a chance. Still, the process is somewhat subjective. Who are the judges, and what are they looking for? Their personal tastes are bound to be a factor. I'd worked hard on the script, which is an action adventure for children, and felt good about it. The story is ecologically sensitive and very tied to the Lowcountry. But it's not everyone's taste. I guess it pushed their buttons as a worthwhile screenplay.
This is a coveted honor, intended to recognize excellence in the arts and the artists of our state. How did you feel when you got word that you would be among the 2003 Fellowship artists?
It felt great, because I took it as a vote for the Turtle Island script. I know that I can write effectively, but I also know I have a lot to learn about the craft of screenwriting. For me, the award represents an industry opinion that the story has merit. I think it's a sweet story, but I've also had my moments of doubt. I'm just glad the judges responded positively to it.
The honor comes with a $5,000 cash award, with no project strings attached, and general duties to represent your art form in and around the state. Can you tell us what your plans are and how they might have been changed by this award?
I want to see Turtle Island on the big screen. I think children deserve this kind of entertainment. The award will help me market the story more effectively, more professionally. It will help me move the script towards the ultimate goal, which is getting the movie made. Using the money to visit friends in New Zealand is a tempting idea, but I think it's best if we use it as seed money for the production.
South Carolina is lucky to have one of the most active, diverse, and ambitious state arts agencies in the nation. I know, because I started my own career in the so-called cultural industry as an intern there over a dozen years ago. What's your assessment of programs intended to support creative people and projects here at the dawn of the 21st century?
It's hard to be creative when you're working 60 hours a week for someone else, I know that much from experience. I've always resisted discussions about what is art, how important is art to society, why we should support the artist, etc. All I know is I'm a good writer and I have some stories to tell. They're good stories. They're edifying. An award like this one gives me some freedom to get those stories onto paper, and maybe eventually onto a movie screen, for everyone to enjoy. I don't know what other kinds of programs are out there, but this South Carolina Arts Commission Fellowship means a lot to me. I'm very, very grateful for it.
Tell us about your background and training as a writer, story-teller, and film-maker.
I was writing movies when I was ten, I just didn't know that that's what they were. I left Beaufort for film school in 1995, first Columbia College in Chicago, then North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. I went through the Producing program there, which was great, because I was exposed to all the elements of filmmaking, not just the writing. I got to see how collaborative the process of filmmaking is. It takes an enormous amount of hard work from lots of people to make a movie, even a short one. At the North Carolina School for the Arts, I wrote and produced a few films that won some awards and generated some brief, fleeting buzz. Jumping ahead three years, I just finished working on the Avery Pictures production of The Notebook, which filmed up in Charleston. I was an assistant in the editorial department, which was an amazing experience. I have to say, though, that it's been my jobs in the hospitality industry that have most qualified me as a writer. Humanity is so diverse--there are so many incredible stories out there--the material seems to come in waves, and there isn't enough ink or paper or time to write it all down. I just do the best I can. Lots of snippets of dialogue, scribbled onto cocktail napkins...
Since I’ve known you, what three or four years, you’ve had some interesting day jobs in Beaufort.
My wife, Paige, and I were the Innkeepers at the Craven Street Inn for a couple of years. Taking care of people, in a classic bed and breakfast setting, is definitely a good place to pick up dramatic dialogue, interesting situations, and glimpses of the human condition. Lately, I’ve been working on a pneumonia vaccine study at Parris Island for the last year or so. There’s most certainly a screenplay somewhere in that experience.
Can you give us a brief history of your previous film projects, and maybe expand on what you have planned for the future?
My short films were mostly about homeless guys, filmed in the middle of the night, usually in the dead of winter. Pretty miserable stuff. It got to where I was even boring myself. Fortunately, I got all that out of my system. Turtle Island is bright, sunny, and exciting. It's a lot of fun. It has dominated my thoughts for the last couple of years. I'm going to take it through another rewrite, pray over it, and then try to either sell it or produce it. I have another script that I'd like to work on, a romantic comedy that's set in a small Southern bed-and-breakfast. Newlywed actors become innkeepers, then try not to go crazy. We'll see where that one goes.
I live in Wellington, New Zealand now, a growing city that is building on the dreams of a few independent film-makers and the amazing success of home-grown director Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. I see every day how local leaders and visionaries can turn a small city into a world-wide home to a film industry. This involves offering production support, post-production facilities, and a ready corp of professionals in the local talent pool.
I absolutely love this topic, because I think that a home-grown film industry here in Beaufort is a home run. It makes sense. It's so beautiful here, all you have to do is turn a camera on and it looks like a movie! The visual possibilities are endless. Hollywood knows that, that's why they keep coming back to the Lowcountry to film stuff. Why shouldn't there be an indigenous film industry in Beaufort? It's a natural fit. There's certainly enough talented, qualified people in the region to support it. And there are so many stories to tell here! Why shouldn't the movies come straight out of Beaufort instead of some Hollywood factory? Turtle Island is an example of such a story: Three local boys take their dad's boat to an uninhabited island to look for Blackbeard's treasure, then find more than they bargained for. There's giant alligators, dolphins, turtles laying eggs, shrimp, sand dollars, full moons rising over the marsh, buried treasure, Gullah wisdom--it's a story that shouldn't be filmed anywhere else. Maybe this project can help contribute to the growth of a local film industry in Beaufort. I'd be so proud to be a part of that. I'm sure that's the kind of thing the Arts Commission had in mind when they created the Fellowship.
Since you've had training as a film producer, a varied and complex job if ever there was one, what type of infrastructure would a town like Beaufort need to grow, in order to become the next Hollywood, or a fellow traveler with Wellington, or even a new production center like Wilmington, North Carolina?
Hmmm, I think we’re off to a good start, with agencies like the Arts Commission, Beaufort’s local Arts Council, the state film office. We may seem like a long way away from Peter Jackson (visionary director behind the Lord of the Rings films) and his New Zealand sound stages, equipment houses and special effects workshops, post-production facilities, and the like. But South Carolina actually already has most of these things, as well as the professional technicians and craftspeople to work them. The Lowcountry may not be that far behind, and one thing Beaufort is rich in is writers, and material. We should support the cultivation of screenwriters because that, really, is where all films begin. I think it would benefit Beaufort to teach more filmmaking courses locally, too. Film-making is an industry that could employ our citizens, just like the hospitality or tourism industry do today. The return on investment goes beyond the financial aspects, touches on the cultural, historical, social and heritage aspects of our community.
I know what you mean. I find myself, at least once a year, watching Conrack, the 1970’s movie of Pat Conroy’s homegrown memoir, The Water is Wide. Sure, I grit through John Voight’s hyperbolic attempt at a Southern accent, and the celluloid to video transfer makes the movie look totally dated, but his character and portrayal are so extraordinary. The children are so amazing and familiar and real. And I will never be able to hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and not think of those tearful Daufuskie Island eyes and that old wooden mail boat taking Conrack away on his final crossing.
Beaufort really has been blessed by the story-tellers in our midst.
I know. It makes you think how vacant our culture would be without its literary and oral traditions. How much would be lost without the literary arts. It’s a tradition that begins first with stories told to small groups ages ago, and advances with the poems and novels that could be written and published for larger distribution, and continues in the 21st century with the films and videos, Conrack included, that reach millions of people around the world.
Hey, I thought you were doing the interview.
OK, let’s switch topics and talk a little about another sort of creation. Two years ago, almost to this day, my wife and I had our first daughter in Beaufort. I can't think of a more amazing source of earthly inspiration and creative wonder than those months awaiting the birth and then seeing that new person arrive. I am still amazed at how a child can instantly and forever capture something inside you and, at the same time and every day thereafter, give you things magical and new. It's almost like discovering a new country or, with a nod to your script, finding a pirate's treasure chest. You and Paige welcomed daughter Lydia Jean into the world and into your lives just a few months ago. How has becoming a father affected your creativity, your artistic process, your poet's soul?
Believe it or not, she's actually served to put my feet back onto the ground. I get loopy every time I look at her, or rather every time she looks at me. But realizing that her mother and I are her providers and protectors --- that's a sobering thing. I look at some of the stuff out there in the world and I really want to protect her from it. It's amazing to me that God put these children’s stories onto my heart, just in time for the arrival of my own child. I couldn't imagine giving her anything sweeter than a fantastic, magical story like Turtle Island. I want to do it for her again and again and again.
Besides little bundles of joy, what are your favorite or most inspiring things, films, stories, authors?
Well, in no particular order: Moonstruck, Roman Holiday, The Big Chill, Chariots of Fire, the 1933 original version of King Kong. I love the old Universal monster movies from the 1930’s and 40’s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing from Another Planet especially. Dearest of all, is It’s a Wonderful Life. Paige and I were married in a movie theater, and invited our guests to watch that movie with us on the big screen. As for directors, Frank Capra, Ang Lee, Billy Wilder, Lawrence Kasdan, and Elia Kazan come to mind. I still think To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is the sweetest thing I've ever read. I'm pretty simple.
I agree. I think Atticus Finch is one of the great American characters ever, with Scout not too far behind. And then there’s the little slices of Americana, good and bad, and all sorts of ethical and symbolic situations that elevate that story above most others I can think of. You mentioned how working in the hospitality industry has provided insight into the human condition and people's psyche. Have any wild or unusual stories or anecdotes similar to, with a nod to Harper Lee, a small-town girl having to wear a chicken-wire costume of a baked ham to a civic event?
Well, no ham outfits or Boo Radley’s yet. There were great pieces of dialogue, for those of us who listened. "The cat lived on popcorn for six weeks," and, "I found her bathing suit in the freezer," are memorable. What was going on there? And exposure to the bed-and-breakfast sub-culture, and the diversity of people who populate them, was an eye opener. The French family with young boys in dirty diapers running around the living room, dancing around the cheese tray, yelling "fromage! fromage!" while their toilet overflowed upstairs. Or the man from New York who threatened to sue us because a lizard in his room had bit him. There are many others, but most of it is just too painful to talk about.
I guess that’s where writing and literature come in and, perhaps, where some of your many future film projects begin. Thanks for talking with me, David, and congratulations on the recent honors and the art that you are making in Beaufort.
-------
Eric Vaughn Holowacz lives in and writes from Wellington, New Zealand, a place more cinematically known as Middle Earth. He is a champion of the artist in everyone, and jumped at the chance to resume these interviews and creative dialogues for Lowcountry Weekly. While never an inn-keeper, his past titles have included executive director, monastic guest, panel moderator, rock and roll manager, and high school academic team national champion. His favorite role, assumed in April 2001, has been that of father.