From there to here
Mississippi-born, Annette Haywood grew up in Macon. Ken Carter was an Army brat whose family moved around a lot; he spent his formative years in Atlanta. When they married and moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, they both dove neck-deep into the film business. As aspiring writers, they hoped to learn as much as possible by steeping in the culture of Hollywood. He worked various crew positions, and eventually became an in-demand still photographer. Her job was script supervisor, a key role in any production. The script supervisor knows the movie, and its day-to-day operations, better than anyone. The job requires a thorough study of shot-by-shot continuity, dialogue changes and a thousand other things invaluable to the director. Haywood-Carter worked on dozens of big-budget movies, including Driving Miss Daisy, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Cliffhanger, Queens Logic and The Flintstones. Some weren’t so great. Often, she says, she would have to bite her tongue while a particularly badlywritten scene was being shot. “How could anyone actually write this stuff?” she’d think, using the experience to learn just one more lesson in screenwriting. “The bad ones gave me confidence,” she remembers. “But the good movies, and the good directors, actually taught me how to do it. So in terms of writing and directing, my graduate school in film was entirely on the set.” In 1994, Annette and Ken co-wrote a short film called The Foot Shooting Party (Official synopsis: “Set in 1970, the members of a rock band decide to shoot their lead singer in the foot so he won’t be drafted.”). She directed; Leonardo DiCaprio starred. Eight years later, with their children growing up, the couple decided Los Angeles was no place to raise a family. Haywood-Carter was offered a teaching position in the SCAD film department; Ken was hired to manage the Lucas Theatre.
Annette Haywood Carter and Ken Carter wrote Savannah; she directed. The film will open in 10 markets on Aug. 23.
The cast is key
Savannah was filmed, in Savannah, over 21 days in early 2011. “We were able to get the film on the budget, and in the 21 days, because of Savannah being Savannah,” Carter says proudly. “One particular home interior was shot as it is, as it’s furnished. There was no set dressing required — we just shot this home, because it was absolutely authentic to the period.” Their casting efforts were surprisingly easy. Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ, Pay it Forward) agreed to accept the pivotal role of Ward Allen. “When you’re making a low-budget film, and you’re not paying an actor their normal salary, you have to think about what’s going to attract them to the movie,” Haywood-Carter explains. “And what will usually attract an actor is a character that they haven’t done before. “Jim not only had not done this character, he had been typecast as the solemn, moody, quiet guy. That’s all he was being cast in. So when we offered the role to him, he was very excited. What I saw in Jim was that he had a fantastic sense of humor. He’s really funny. And when he lets it go, he is this kind of big, fun, bigger than life character.” Christmas Moultrie is played by Chiwetel Ejiofore (American Gangster, Love Actually); other names in the cast include playwright/actor Sam Shepard (Fair Game, Black Hawk
Down), Bradley Whitford (an Emmy winner for The West Wing), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock) and the venerable Hal Holbrook. And Jaimie Alexander (The Last Stand, Thor) stars as Lucy Stubbs, the well-to-do woman who stole Ward Allen’s heart. This part of the story is absolutely true. “Lucy,” explains Carter, “was the one force of nature that he could not overwhelm. They had a tumultuous relationship.” Ward and Lucy married and moved into a comfortable house on Liberty Street. But their only child was stillborn, and Lucy never recovered from the emotional trauma. She was sent away to Milledgeville, to convalesce. When she died in the mental hospital, her distraught husband abandoned the city once and for all. In his later years, Christmas Moultrie was his constant companion and his only friend. “He saw his river and the city that it had nourished turning into something he didn’t recognize,” Carter says. “And he couldn’t go there.”
The reel world
Things started rolling for Savannah, and the Carters, in 2012. With positive advance buzz on their movie, and their kids old enough (and eager) to travel, they left their jobs in Savannah and re-located to New York City, the center of independent filmmaking in the United States. They’re already hard at work on their next project. In May, Ketchup Entertainment picked up Savannah for national distribution; the hope is that after the limited Aug. 23 opening, word of mouth will result in wider demand. As the marketing machine is greased — you’ll start hearing a lot about the movie in the coming weeks — Annette and Ken are feeling pretty good about their Ward Allen project. “When you make a niche film, you have no idea how broad your audience is going to be,” says Haywood-Carter. “And we’ve just been overwhelmed at how powerful the response to this film has been. “We’ve been at three festivals, and in two of these markets there was a second screening at the festival because the first one sold out.” cs For updates, see the Facebook page for Savannah — The Movie.
CinemaSavannah Muses on movies In an informal nod to his organization’s third anniversary, Tomasz Warchol of CinemaSavannah is bringing in a trio of indie films to Muse Arts Warehouse to spice up the late summer. Coming up this Saturday in two screenings is the hot new British film Berberian Sound Studio. Directed by Peter Strickland — “whose Katalin Varga has been one the most phenomenal feature debuts of my film experience,” says Warchol — the film is getting tremendous buzz, having already won multiple British Independent Film Awards and the London Critics Circle Film Awards. Cosponsored by Psychotronic Film Society of Savannah, this particular screening happens only two weeks after Berberian Sound Studio’s opening in New York. The uniquely imagined horror film is about a meek British sound engineer who’s in Rome to work on the soundtrack of a tale of witchcraft and murder in an all-girl riding academy. (!) Hot on the heels of its New York and LA openings will be CinemaSavannah’s screening of Tanta Agua (Too Much Water), a Uruguyan/Mexican project marking the debut of directors Ana Guevara and Laticia Jorge, winner of this year’s Miami and San Sebastian Film Festivals. It’s about a 14-year-old boy reluctantly on vacation with his father. On Sept. 7, Warchol brings in The Hunt, a Danish film from 2012. Mads Mikkelsen (Open Hearts, After the Wedding, ) won the Best Actor Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Lucas, a former teacher forced continued on page 32
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the script she and her husband wrote. Savannah was to be more than just another story about an enigmatic hermit in the rough. “For me, as a woman who’s not a hunter, this had to be a movie that I would want to go see,” Haywood-Carter says.
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