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Neo-noir mystery "Dead Write" screened April 25
 

UNCG Acting faculty Marsha Paludan is Sally and UNCG broadcasting and cinema student Sarah Kelly is Beverly in the neo-noir mystery, "Dead Write."

GREENSBORO – Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. When it is, it becomes a movie.

Such is the case with “Dead Write,” a neo-noir mystery written by Dr. Emily Edwards, professor of broadcasting and cinema at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. When Edwards discovered a former neighbor suffered from a hoarding disorder, she was floored.

“We had cogent conversations. I never suspected anything,” Edwards recalled.

The elusive neighbor was friendly, though never allowed anyone into her home. After her death, garbage and assorted items were discovered meticulously labeled and stored in boxes throughout the home, stacked floor to ceiling. There was barely room to walk in the narrow pathways between boxes, bags, crates, and stacks of newspapers and magazines. A person with hoarding disorder saves everything, even garbage.

Inspired by the tragic story, the professor began researching hoarding disorders and drafted a screenplay about the fictitious mystery writer Ethel Shepard. The hour-long film opens with Shepard’s biographer and a publisher’s assistant combing through her apartment. Shepard is dead and the visitors are searching for a missing manuscript. Instead they find the writer’s ripest mystery.

The film will be shown Friday, April 25, at 7 p.m. in the Elliott University Center Auditorium. Admission is free.

While the film was written with entertainment in mind, Edwards was careful to respect her subject.

“My goal is to be accurate, yet engaging,” Edwards said. “I don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes. That’s how American audiences get confused. Even in complete fantasy, you want to be true to the human condition in some respect.”

In 2000, the screenplay won the Bare Bones Independent Film Festival, an Oklahoma-based festival designed for filmmakers on a shoestring budget. The script was also given a reading at the University Film and Video Association conference in Colorado Springs, where Edwards met Michael Corbett, a director of the film and technology program at Piedmont Community College (PCC) in Yanceyville.

Corbett was intrigued with the story and the two decided to collaborate to bring the story to film. PCC provided the “below the line” staff, which includes camera operators, grips and other technical support, while UNCG contributed the “above the line” crew, which includes writers, directors and on-camera talent.

“It took a national convention for me to know what the resources are in North Carolina,” Edwards said. “It was a perfect marriage. Production programs can have a much bigger impact when we pool scarce resources.”

Corbett was the cinematographer for the film, accepting the challenge of shooting a movie that takes place in its entirety in one location - Shepard’s apartment. The set of a refuse-filled dwelling was designed by UNCG graduate theater student Krystyna Iwaniec and built by the PCC art department, under the direction of Sara Costello.

John Lay, a UNCG graduate student, directed the film. The cast included faculty member Marsha Paludan and student Sarah Kelly, both of UNCG.

After adding community actors Sheila Duell and Jonathon Demers to the mix, the project took on a community-wide scope. Duell also wrote the soundtrack for the film.

“A lot of new relationships were established through making this film,” Edwards said. “Any time you have a diversity of people linking creative energies, you create an environment for artistic growth for professionals as well as students.  We plan to do this again in the spring of 2004.”

Next year’s production will be “The Root Doctor,” which won third place in the national faculty screenwriters competition of the Broadcast Education Association.
 

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