JW: Should anything be kept off screen? CCK: My answer is no, but there are certain things I probably would never do. A Serbian Film, which contains pedophilia, is an example. I think you could imply that and give the same impact. It comes down to a level of taste in what you’re showing and what you’re trying to say or do in a film. But my first answer is no.
“I EVENTUALLY CONVINCED MY MOM I NEEDED TO BUY PLAYBOY SO I COULD LEARN HOW TO DO LIVE DRAWING.”
JW: Do you remember when you first started to become interested in film? CCK: I was always into movies as a kid. I didn’t wake up for cartoons on Saturday mornings; I got up around 10 a.m. to watch Commander USA, where this weird host dressed up in a superhero costume. He showed kung fu and horror movies, which were the
things I was most into. I built this big Lego mask to wear when I watched horror movies because I would sometimes get scared. JW:Did you write as a child? CCK: In second grade, I had the neatest handwriting in my entire class, but I couldn’t spell to save my life. So, I developed this crazy way of writing to cover up the fact I couldn’t spell. Because of this, I really hid from writing and focused on art instead. At first, I went to these sketch classes with mostly fat guys as models. I eventually convinced my mom I needed to buy Playboy so I could learn how to do live drawing. JW: That’s an interesting segue into making films. CCK: [Laughs] I grew up in the small town of Fayetteville, Tennessee, and I had no idea how movies were made. In high school, my parents bought a VHS camcorder, and I would make little horror films with my buddies. Of course we didn’t have the means to edit, so I would rewind the tape and pause it where I wanted the cut to be. JW: So it seems like the logical next step would have been film school, right? CCK: When it came time to go to college, I figured I’d better go to art school since I was the “art kid.” One guy from my dorm was in the video arts program. He showed me a project he was working on, and it looked just like the films I had made in high school. Suddenly, I was like, “Shit. I can learn how to do this here? I can learn to make movies?” I went to the first class and was hooked.
INTRODUCTION BY CASEY FULLER | INTERVIEW AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFF WEDDING
The back office in the old train station offers few modern elements, but has an abundance of rustic charm—worn leather seats, dusty rugs, aged brick walls. Excluding the current tenant’s editing bay, it would feel as if we had been transported back a hundred years. I begin to think how interesting sitting in on this interview is going to be, due to the fact that our June feature in film, Jeff Wedding, is going to be interviewing this month’s feature in film, Chad Crawford Kinkle. Both writer/directors were selected on FEARnet’s top ten indie genre directors to look out for. Both gentlemen have received national attention for their recent horror film projects. Jeff’s A Measure of the Sin buries a newborn child in a pasture, while Chad’s Jug Face births from incest a miscarried fetus in a bathtub. As I ready myself for the first question...
JW: Tell me about Harpe: America’s First Serial Killers. CCK: I had just moved to Nashville, and I attended the Nashville Screenwriters Conference where I met a guy that really liked my writing. He told me about these guys called the Harpes who terrorized Tennessee and Kentucky around the time of the Revolutionary War. I later met an illustrator, Adam Shaw, and together we created the graphic novel Harpe: Ameri-
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