The Other Way

'Hunting Through the Galleries'

Filmmaking fun with stellar teen

Zeek Taylor played the narrator and several other characters. Here, he pauses with columnist Becca Martin-Brown on set at Two25 Gallery in Bentonville.
Zeek Taylor played the narrator and several other characters. Here, he pauses with columnist Becca Martin-Brown on set at Two25 Gallery in Bentonville.

One of these days, there will be a short film with a title something like "Hunting Through the Galleries and What Was Found There" -- and I'll be in it!

photo

Courtesy Photo

Hunter G. Connor, an 18-year-old artist, filmmaker and designer originally from Rogers, shows a piece of his artwork. Connor was in town to shoot his original film, with the working title Hunting Through the Galleries and What Was Found There. See video at youtube.com/nwademgaz.

I've spent a lot of time on stage, back stage and on film sets, but not in front of a film camera. It was a lot of fun -- and I justified regaling you with this story about it -- at length and with illustrations -- because so many cool things happen without fanfare in Northwest Arkansas.

The filmmaker -- writer, director, actor -- was an 18-year-old named Hunter G. Connor. He grew up in Rogers and moved with his family to Dallas to pursue his visual art -- which is gorgeous and sells quite well in Dallas galleries. Along the way, he decided he wanted to make a film, taking a humorous look at what it's like to try to get in to high-end galleries.

He invited Eureka Springs artist Zeek Taylor to be in the film -- and asked Zeek if he knew an actress he'd like to work with. Zeek suggested me.

I tried to back out after I discovered the actress would be playing FOUR roles. No one would let me.

So early on the morning of Jan. 10, I was at Two25 Gallery in Bentonville -- which is a beautiful space with a plethora of art -- being transformed by the marvelous hair, makeup and costume mistress Jennifer McClory into Vanessa, a wacky gallery owner who wore a butterfly laden kimono and butterflies in her short black hair.

Wacky is not that hard for me. But the start-and-stop nature of filmmaking was so different from the stage work I was trained to do! I only had to know maybe four lines at a time -- but I had to say them several times, with the camera in different places. You have to pop in to character like a lightbulb coming on. Weird. Still, I caught on -- and we had a blast, Hunter diving over a table fort, me shouting at Zeek through a megaphone and later in the day, as Sky, a hung-over gallery owner, taking a dive -- or two or three -- behind the Two25 wine bar.

The costuming was unique and fascinating. Vanessa's kimono was designed and created from screen wire by Hunter, who also designed the fabric for Sky's scarf and the skirt worn by the third gallery owner, Castell. Who knew one could even design fabric?

It was a 13-hour day.

It was glorious!

On Jan. 11, we finished Vanessa and shot Castell, the mean one. She was easy, too -- no, I will not tell you whom I channeled -- but the first time I yelled, I almost blew the headphones off our "sound guy," Ethan Robison. His dad, Edward Robison, a visionary Eureka Springs photographer, was the director of photography on the shoot -- and what a wonderful DP he was, not just organized but kind.

It was so much fun to be back on a set -- and such a joy to get to know Hunter and his mom. One of the things that worried me about the shoot was working with a "kid." But this is no child. This is a talented artist, gentleman, scholar and all around nice guy.

When I got back to work on Tuesday, it felt like I had been gone a week. But I had been four people in 26 hours -- yes, four, but I'm not going to talk about the other one. It gives too much away.

I hope you'll see the film soon at regional festivals, and I know I'll be writing more about both Hunter and Ethan, also a cutting-edge artist at 14. They make being a teenager look really, really impressive!

Me? I'm just impressed I did it.

NAN Our Town on 01/21/2016

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