January 3, 2019
It has been a little over two years since my son Gabe Gray and I started shooting Deep in the Heart, a short narrative/documentary film with local singer-songwriter Rick Edwards. I met with Rick several times before Gabe and I spent a couple hours with him on December 27, 2016, and ended up at Riverview Apartments in Phenix City where Rick was raised. It was a good start and we completed several other shoots, including a live performance. However, Gabe and I were waylaid when I had an idea that turned into a passion project and became the first Father and Son Films production, Romeo, which was screened at the 2018 WayDown Film Festival at the Springer Opera House, here in Columbus, Ga.. In the coming weeks and months, I'll be making regular updates to the story of Deep in the Heart-stay tuned!
January 12
Deep in the Heart will be a short docudrama based on the life and music of Rick Edwards, a plainspoken, seriously talented 72 year-old singer songwriter from Phenix City, Alabama. Rick grew up on the west bank of the Chattahoochee in Riverview Apartments, which bordered downtown when Phenix City was a haven for organized crime, prostitution, and gambling. The first part of our film will deal with Rick's early life in "The wickedest city in America" (U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson). Here's a link to Rick's Reverb Nation page.
January 18
The son in Father and Son Films is my son, Gabe Gray, who will be shooting Deep in the Heart. If you followed the Romeo story you know that he did some superb handheld photography, like the very challenging flashback scene (please ignore low-fi video quality).
In the coming weeks and months, I'll be posting more clips from Gabe's DH work. Stay tuned!
When she isn't working on her novel-in-progress, Songs My Father Barely Knew, Rachel might be writing liner notes for a country music album, presiding over an International Country Music Conference in Nashville, or working as a free-lance editor/photographer. She is a regular contributor to Columbus and the Valley Magazine and taught writing for twenty years at places including Columbus State University, LaGrange College, and the University of West Georgia. Rachel joins Deep in the Heart as a cast member and script consultant. https://rswilliamswrite.com/