http://skstimes.com/filmmaker070908.html
July 9, 2008

Seymour Filmmaker’s Second Effort
Local talent, locations in short
feature to premiere in October

By David Grimes

Dusty Clark, the Seymour director and producer whose previous short feature Caregiver was an entry for the Fox reality television show On the Lot, has put the finishing touches on his latest film, set to have its Tennessee premiere at the Secret City Film Festival in October.

Titled In a Blink, Clark's new film is similar to Caregiver in its dark tone, but carries with it what Clark described as "more of a redemption story - this film has more of a real discovery to it."

"It's a good story, with local actors and locations," Clark told the Times. "Although seeing these people and locations is going to be familiar, seeing them in these situations is not going to be familiar at all. Every actor is stretching who and what they are for this film."

The film centers around a young girl who, in Clark's words, "makes some bad choices. Because she has everything she wants financially, but not emotionally, she goes looking for that in the wrong places."

Caught up in the consequences of those decisions, she finds herself at the mercy of a man with ill intent.

"You battle things for the wrong reasons sometimes," Clark said of the character's motivations, "and you battle the wrong people. You try to hurt family members and you end up hurting yourself instead."

The inspiration for the story, which Clark co-wrote with longtime friend and fellow Seymour High School graduate Ben Lawson, likewise his partner for the short feature The Simple Job, was based in part on the elements they found in their own backyards.

"When you are working with a tight budget," said Clark, who finished the 21-minute feature for only $12,000, an amazingly small amount of money for the high production quality you'll see on screen, "it comes back basically to what are our resources and our financial abilities." In this case, it was an old car Clark still had from his college days, which figures prominently in a key scene of the film.

Once again, Clark has drawn on local talent and locations for his work. Michael Mynatt, who edited more than half the film, is a Seymour native. Erick Percy helped produce both In a Blink and Caregiver, and is from Seymour. Laurel Hackworth, from Seymour, plays a major role, and Barbara Pendergrass' lovely home near Seymour Community Park was used for most of the interior shots. Pendergrass, along with Clark's mother, is also credited as a set decorator.

Pendergrass, Clark said, works with his mother and is interested in films and theatre. When she offered the use of her home for the interior shots, Clark paid her a visit.

"When I was there, I was thinking, wow, you can put a camera everywhere here," Clark said of the home's spacious interiors, "and it was such a warm tone, where a mother, a homebody might live. Very Martha Stewart."
Exterior scenes were all shot within a ten-mile radius of Clark's family home in Seymour, including a critical ditch. That may sound like something one could film almost anywhere, but setting up the scene took a phenomenal amount of thought and effort, especially working on a small budget.

"The car's gotta be upside down in the ditch," for the scene Clark told the Times, "but we had to make sure it wouldn't harm the nearby creek, so we had to drain all of the potentially hazardous fluids out of the car," before upending it for the cameras with the help of his brother Cody.

As with most artists, Clark is already working on his next project, for which he hopes to secure as much local funding as possible. Based on a big idea once more hatched with Ben Lawson, Life Audit revolves around the implications of the development of medical technology that allows people to live much longer lives, but isn't offered to everyone, only those whom the government deems worthy.

"With Life Audit, we are just taking something they say will happen in twenty-five years, and asking how this would change society - how would we have to change, to evolve as people to living that much longer?"

Following the lives of several characters, the film examines the moral implications of such changes in depth. "What would you do if you got the life extension and someone you loved didn't?" Clark asked hypothetically.

In a Blink will light up the big screen at the Secret City Film Festival in Oak Ridge on October 26. In the meantime, you can scope out Clark's current projects and progress at his website.