Movie Theaters are about the Experience not the Movies

“I can watch a movie at home. Why do I have to pay to see something that will be on cable in a month?”

Sweet baby…  Y’all gonna make me lose my mind! Have you people forgotten?

Have you forgotten the first time you saw the Goonies on the big screen?

The excitement of piling into the theater with friends…

The shock and awe of slide…the giant squid? Check it out there really was one

What about the candy and the popcorn that just taste better in the dark for some reason.

How dare you not go to the movies. It is your duty as a child of the 70’s 80’s and 90’s from now until infinity to stumble over dimly lit stairs to run to the restroom so you don’t miss the one part that everyone will talk about in the car, that you missed because you had to have that super sized big gulp.

Crap!!! People it has never been just about the movie that is playing today.

Rather it was the Goonies, Spiderman, Fast and Furious or Dead Pool it has always. Always ALWAYS!!! Been about the shared experience.

People say, “I can watch these movies at home”; but there is something to be said for the theater experience.

The conversation on the way home and the days after when you try, no matter how poorly you are at it, to act out the scenes for your friend who hasn’t seen it yet.

For me, there is nothing better than going to the movies, dimly lit theaters, larger than life image, the smell of popcorn which we all know is better at the theater than at home.

It’s my escape from the madness, the absurd, and the Groundhog Day normalcy of terrible things in the media that has become real life.

Get Out of the Car!!!!

I was having a conversation with a student not too long ago and we were discussing the length of the classes. As a suggestion the student wanted me to consider making the class longer. Currently, the class is three hours and the student suggested making it six hours.

I’m telling you this so you understand the story that I am about to tell you and the context in which it came about…Ok, Ok.

After a few minutes going back and forth as to why this would not be a likely solution to the issues at hand, I slipped back into my minister shoes.

*Not actually as I am not a minister this is just a term I use when I am on my soapbox*

So I tell the student about this one time when I owned a bread truck, and how miserable I was and how miserable I was making my family and how I always wanted to do other things but between making money and spending money I didn’t have the time to pursue anything else.

I was unhappy. Yes, I was making money. But I was miserable and pissed at the world. I was the living embodiment of the Grinch. Then this one day as I was sitting in my depot yard at 2 am, I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. I knew my family needed the money. I knew this job was a blessing and there were many people that wanted to do what I was doing. But I couldn’t get out of the car.

I sat in that car till 6 am. Then without a plan, I called my depot manager and quit.

It turns out that the job was a blessing but not how I thought it was or understood it to be at the time.

How does this relate to my student; you may ask?

Slow your roll I’m getting there.

In life, the world will not bend for us. Achieving anything worth anything takes a level of sacrifice. It will be hard. It will be uncomfortable. It will not be all fanfare and parades. It will test if you really want that thing. Whatever it may be, but you have to know that you will live and die on those decisions.

See coming to class twice a week when you work a full-time job is difficult. It is not easy and you must choose whom you belong to. Are you renting your free time to a company that you have to schedule your life around? Or are you biding your time till you can schedule your work into the life you want to live?

The first day after giving up my bread truck I felt free. I felt like I had something I had lost. I felt like myself. The future was unwritten but I knew wherever it was taking me I wouldn’t hesitate to get out of the car.

We can't coddle our way to greatness

My Dad was the ultimate dream killer. My childhood was “interesting.”

“Wayne” he used to say. “Don’t waste your time on that if you are not fully committed.” Only he wasn’t that nice about it.

I’ve always been a creative, but it really was all I was good at. Everything else I tried could just fake it enough to get by. I played every sport he wanted me to, but at any given time I was only pushing halfway. It wasn’t what I wanted deep down I wanted to be a part of movies and television. My imagination ran wild with stories of comic characters and magic skateboards.

Although my father’s expectations would help me later in life, early on it only served to force my true potential underground.

By the time I made it to high school I was used to pretending to like everything everyone else did. Then on a whim, my Grandma Daisy convinced me Drama would be good for me to take. (Grandma’s see things us that others, including ourselves, don’t or can’t see in ourselves.)

In Drama and creative writing, it was ok for me to say the things that were really on my mind.

Wait!!! Thad, you’re getting off topic. My bad. Where was I?

Oh, yeah I can’t do anything else.

When did it become ok to not be honest about other’s skill level as a creative?

When I watch a movie I can clearly state this movie sucks, or I don’t get it. However, it’s that much better if I could reach out to M. Night and say… M…(cause we are comfortable with each other) what the hell was up with those killer trees?

I mean that is exactly what we have the opportunity to do when we know our independent filmmakers locally.

We have the opportunity; no we have the obligation as fellow filmmakers not to jerk each other off - for instant gratification but to prolong the experience for a tantric nirvana experience that will have us looking for the next chance to Netflix and chill.

Is that the correct thing the kids say, “…Netflix and chill?”

Whatever we want to call it we need to foster those who create quality.

We need to get rid of the participation trophy culture that has become our status quo. We can’t fear that our friends’ feelings will be hurt by our true and honest assessment of their work.

No, everyone’s baby is not cute. And if as a film community we want to get better, then we have to start pushing each other to do and be better. And part of that process is being able to give and accept constructive criticism.

Iron sharpens iron, people.  Iron sharpens iron.

You're asking me to cheer from home

“ We’re doing all we can on our end, but we need you guys to be better cheerleaders for this city”

Jesus, lord in heaven did they just say we need to be louder and flashy to attract business?! I scream to myself.

I guess I should’ve been a better “trick.” But momma always said, “don’t let no one put you in the trick bag.”

Recently I was in a meeting where a group of people actually moved their lips to say that we should be better cheerleaders for our city.

While this idea washed over me I felt a smoldering flame in the pit of my belly begin to grow. A fire that most won’t understand without some context, so please bear with me.

I moved to Columbia, SC from a small hamlet (okay town, but “hamlet” sounds better) in the low country. You see, in my tiny town, I was drowning in a shallow pool, surrounded by people that look at lightning in a bottle as fireflies, and tip their noses to dreams of cinematic grandeur. Like they invented the wheel, and dare you to try and implement it for you your own good. How dare you!! Le sigh (in my Pepé Le Pew voice) I guess I am a stinker, but that’s a story for another time. Anyway…

Now, a decade later I find myself in similar surroundings.

Although there are more people here like me than there were in my tiny hamlet, the power and control is still structured the same. While this place that I have come to call home is leaps and bounds ahead of where I was I am still troubled by the circumstances in which we exist here and not thrive.

There are several issues I would like to help address but the first is not in the arts community or even the concerns for small businesses. Many who know me know that those two things are at the top of my list.

No.

My concern is the lack of affordable housing for families in my Columbia. In a place where the politicians' tout that they want growth and development in the city, they’ve forgotten the most valuable resource of any company, corporate or small enterprise - the people.

You know, the workers that come in every day and turn the lights onto your business, the people you rely on to run the day-to-day operations, make your coffee, cook your food, and park your cars… wait I just broke the first rule of Fight Club.

If I was not a resident here, and I wanted to move here with my family, I could not afford to live anywhere in Columbia, anywhere safe and family friendly anyway.

FYI most of us can’t afford to live here as it is, with the commute in, overpriced rent just because you can, and no remedy for family living. This has an effect on where businesses locate, where developers come, how tax dollars and voting districts are decided. Isn’t it time that we speak truth to life about some of the root issues that plague our communities? What do you think?