TENACITY WINS

STORY BY BRITTANY SMITH & PHOTOS COURTESY OF BOBBY HILL

“You’re not good enough.” “You don’t fit the role.” “You do not speak well enough.” “You are dyslexic. You’ll never be able to learn a script.”

“You have a learning disability.”

“You’ll never make it in this class.”

“You don’t have what it takes.”

Time and time again, Bobby Hill heard these words.

He heard them from superiors, from people in the entertainment industry, from friends and family. There was even a point when his mother, the woman who ignited the fire for the arts in his soul so many years ago, didn’t think he would be able to pull it off his biggest dream of having a full studio. But for Hill, there was always a knowing. He was determined to live his passion. His love for the arts started when he was just two years old. He and his twin brother Casey were in a music video together in New York. From that point on, the two worked together throughout their childhood on numerous projects. They took acting lessons and participated in other opportunities, like commercials and print work. But Hill’s true passion was art. Hill wanted to be an artist. He loved to draw and fell in love with the aspect of creating. Then his family relocated to Alabama, and everything came to a screeching halt; No more acting classes. No more music videos. No more print work. Even the drawing became less important; however, Hill’s love for the movies began to grow. “It was when I was graduating from high school that I decided acting would be a cool thing to do,” Hill said. “And my cousin, who is a professional dancer, said, ‘you need to go ahead and try to do acting. You can get a full-ride scholarship to Southern Union.

You can do something you enjoy and if you decide to do something else later, go right ahead.’”

That was when Hill decided to step outside of his comfort zone and audition for the theater program at Southern Union.

“I got up the nerve, I studied for the audition, and I bombed it,” he said. “I did not do good at all. But the professor there said, ‘I think you know your lines. You are just nervous.’ So he had me walk around the room. I walked around the whole stage, the whole auditorium. He said,’ While you are walking, say your lines.’ And so I started saying my lines, and they just came out fluent. And so he told me, ‘You see there. You know them. You are just nervous.’ And he said, ‘Own your space.’

“He said, ‘You act like you are timid, but just be yourself. You don’t have to be great. Just be yourself. That is greatness.’ He said, ‘Own your space no matter where you are.’ And that blew my mind.”

Hill said that he had been labeled with a reading disability when he was younger and was scared because memorizing lines and reading was difficult for him.

“What I learned that day and why it blew my mind was because if I was able to read that script and memorize those lines even though they labeled me as having a disability, I knew I could accomplish anything. I knew the possibilities were endless,” Hill said.

Hill said his mom, Cassandra Hill, is the one who always pushed him, who had faith in him.

“When I was younger, they wanted to keep me back a grade, and my mom was like, ‘No, you just have to work harder,” Hill said. “She is the type of person that believes you never give up; you just work harder than everybody else. And she instilled that in my brothers and I.

“I also believe that when you are labeled as something, it is because you aren’t at a level that they think someone should be, but those people are at the level where they need to be right then. And my mom

always just encouraged us to ‘do you, do you.’” Once Hill was accepted to Southern Union and had his first 100-page script to memorize, he was scared. He knew it would be hard, and through it all, his mom, Cassandra, was there to encourage him and remind him that he was capable of anything. “She said to me, ‘You need to know everyone’s lines,’ and my professor agreed with her,” Hill said. “I learned their lines and my lines so that I could learn what was coming up.” He said some people just learn their lines and then react to the others, but he had to work a little harder. “I had to study more and understand more, which made me a better actor because I could then help pick the others up if they fouled on something,” Hill said. While at Southern Union, Hill had three different directors, which played an instrumental part in his education. “So, I had three great directors – one pushed more into the understanding of space on stage. There was one who taught more voice and dialect, and the other one taught movement and presence,” Hill said. “And these are great fields. If you know your voice, Compassion is Everything you know where you Hill credits two of his high school teachers, Ms. Newman and are moving and you Ms. Griffin for always making him feel special and pushing him understand why you to know that he could do anything. They made sure he knew are there – then that is that he was more than a label. great.” Hill also began writing a bit while at Southern Union, despite having never been a writer. Inspiration from those around him encouraged Hill to step out of his comfort zone yet again and put pen to paper. When he left Southern Union, it was to obtain a scholarship to The University of South Alabama in Mobile. Although the scholarship did not work out, Hill pursued his goals at USA and received his degree anyway. While he studied at USA, he took acting courses, but the teachers weren’t so upfront with him. Hill said he didn’t feel as though they were helping him. “The teachers there, they really didn’t help me,” Hill said. “They told me that my speech was horrible. They

thought my acting was horrible. They basically said, ‘We know you are here, but you need to be a lot better. You’re not going to be in plays right now. You’ve got to keep working at it.’ And that was discouraging.”

From there, Hill joined the lighting department, where his professor pushed him to be inquisitive.

“My professor said, ‘Bobby, you’re a smart guy, but you have to ask questions. People who don’t ask questions don’t know anything.’ And that helped. He pushed me in lighting, and I became an advance lighter in the theater. As a matter of fact, I took all the lighting courses and acting courses. I almost had a double major.”

But they still wouldn’t put Hill in plays.

“They kept saying one thing after another, and then one day, I was frustrated. I said to my professor, ‘What do I need to do to get in a play?’ And the professor told me that I needed to work on my speech. So I said, ‘Where do I need to go?’”

Hill ended up going to see a speech therapist, which had never been offered to an actor at USA; however, the university implemented this option after Hill’s journey was widely successful.

It still wasn’t enough. The next hurdle Hill had to jump was his acting skills. Nevermind that now his speech was impeccable and he had grown by leaps and bounds, his acting skills still needed work.

Hill was frustrated. Despite the fact that he had done everything they asked, they still didn’t push him through.

“They would tell me the character wasn’t right for me or that I needed to work on my skills,” Hill said. “And instead of crying or getting upset, I thought, watch me.”

In his final year at USA, he took an acting course with a really good professor. Hill was excited because the guy really knew his stuff, but the professor just did not care for him.

“He just did not like me. He told me, ‘You might need to drop this course and just do lighting.’ I was so mad at that. And I knew then I was going to prove him wrong,” Hill said.

“We had a performance in class where we had to pick a task out of a jar and perform a movement. Then we had to pick from another jar whether we could speak, yell, sing, etc., combining the two. And, in addition, the professor told us to do something that we would never do. At that moment, I chose to say, ‘I hate you,’ that was something I would never do.

“So, my task was not to speak, gyrate with irrational movements and say I hate you at the same time,” Hill said. “And so, I’m just gyrating, I’m just doing it and doing it, and he said, ‘This is looking pretty good – go big. Go as crazy as you can, but don’t say a word.’ Now, I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I’m doing it, and everybody was really into it and said, ‘OK, now take it down a notch. Take it down one more time,’ and I got to the point where it was almost like I was whispering something cynical to somebody, and said, ‘Now say your line.’

“I was like, ‘I hate you.’ And people were crying after that performance. My professor and everyone clapped, and after class, he pulled me out and said, ‘Bobby, I was wrong about you. You did everything I asked you to do on task, and you really got into your character. You didn’t hold back, and I apologize.’”

Hill said that they became good friends after that, and the professor became one of his biggest supporters, especially once he began to film.

“If I had to say one thing about that situation, never put someone down but also, never burn your bridges because you never know when you may have to cross them again,” Hill offered.

A ton of great moments came out of the shadows from Hill’s time at USA.

Hill said he still wasn’t getting plays, so he gathered everyone else in the program who was not getting plays and began putting together films.

It didn’t take Hill long to realize that he wanted to turn this endeavor into a full-blown production company. He wanted lighting. He wanted a camera. He wanted an acting director and a crew. So he and his brother, Casey, created BChill Entertainment, LLC.

“From there, our first film was a horror film starring me and my twin brother, Casey,” Hill said. “No editing, just us doing practical things, like he pops up and disappears, he pops up and disappears. It’s pretty creepy. It is on Youtube.”

After Hill’s initial horror film, BCHILL was officially born. They did fundraisers and purchased a camera, lights and a computer.

“We made a couple of short videos, and then everyone went their separate ways because of life. But I kept it going,” Hill said. “I really wanted to make something.”

After college, Hill was challenged. He wanted the production company to become something, but it was at a standstill, and he moved home to Dadeville.

“I told my mom, I want to make something. She believed in me but didn’t believe it would happen. She thought it was unrealistic. So once again, I said, ‘OK, watch me.’

Hill’s first major production once he moved back to Dadeville was for a nonprofit called the Underage Drinking and Driving Coalition. He created a commercial for free that played in the movie theater for a year.

“They called me back a year later and said, ‘Bobby, that commercial was so successful that we want to make another one, but we want to pay you this time. The job was for two video commercials and one radio commercial. We discussed the price. I mulled over it. They mulled it over. The next thing I know, I got a phone call that there was a check waiting for me,” Hill said.

Making Moves

Facing Page: Hill was a background photographer on the set of His Hers & the Truth with Director Coke Daniel; Top Right to Bottom: Hill was an extra during the first season of The Residents, and is photographed here with actor Matt Czuchry, who plays Conrad; Hill met the music producer Jazzy Pha in Atlanta while working as a background photographer and personal videographer for Kim Ford in the filming of The Kim Ford Show.

The best part, Hill said, was that his mom always knew he could do it, but she was just pushing him. She wanted to protect him.

“The commercials were a big success,” Hill said. “They were in the theaters for about a year and on the radio for two years, which led to me doing stuff in Atlanta, Chicago, I even went out and did a few commercials in Utah.

“I’ve worked as a stunt car driver, a cameraman, a production assistant, an assistant director and a director. So I just went on and pushed it full force and really just succeeded and propelled myself. So now we have the studio here, we have the bakery and I’m trying to get 50 to 100 acres of land to build a cool studio here in Dadeville.”

Hill has also started a non-profit that supports hiring crews and training them to be professionals in the workforce.

He has worked at Tyler Perry Studios and the Pinewood Studios that made the 007 and Avenger movies. Hill has also worked with Third Rail Studios, Turner Studios and participated in a few independent films.

“The coolest thing was when one of the biggest producers shouted me out on Instagram and said, 'Yo, BCHILL everybody – BCHILL Entertainment in the house.' To me, that was when I made it,” Hill said. “That was something I always wanted to see, was to hear my name a little bit from a higher up.”

For more information about BCHILL Entertainment or any of Hill’s other projects, visit bchillent. com or follow him on Facebook and Instagram @ bchillentertainment.

Getting Busy

Hill at Sweet C's Sweet Treats in Dadeville while filming a commercial.