Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press on August 13th and online HERE.

The words action, pan, zoom, and cut were recently heard at The Coffee Mill in Radford where a team of local filmmakers were shooting scenes for an independent film called Boots, named for one of the film’s featured players: a cat.

After living in Los Angeles for seven years and experiencing some encouraging developments in their careers, Joe Caldwell and Angela Caldwell decided they didn’t want to raise their children in L.A. and have returned to the New River Valley to pursue filmmaking in this region.

Angela, the film’s producer and videographer, graduated from Radford University in 2001 with a Bachelors degree in Electronic Media Production. In Los Angeles she worked for the Buchwald Talent Group, was a background actor for film and television, and produced and edited commercial and narrative projects.

Joe, who wrote and is directing Boots, graduated from Virginia Tech in 2000 with a degree in history and a dream to become a filmmaker. His first short film, Open Season, won him a best director award at a Hollywood film festival. “It landed me on the post-production studios of Fox Studios and the likes of an Emmy winning composer wanted to collaborate on my work. I expect no less on my future projects, including Boots,” he said.

While scouting for shooting locations, Joe Caldwell passed by The Coffee Mill after hours and noticed an exhibit of cat portraits hanging on the wall. When he returned the next day he learned that the portraits were painted by Gretchen St. Lawrence of Floyd’s Blue Ridge Art Connection at The Station. “To me it was as if God had winked at me that this would be the place,” Caldwell said.

In the sun filled café, amidst customers drinking morning coffee and working on laptops, the crew began filming scenes for what Caldwell describes as a dry romantic comedy between a guy and a cat. “Guy meets girl. Girl moves in with her cat. Girl leaves guy with her cat. Now the guy, who really isn’t a cat person, must come to terms with his new roommate through the process of trying to do her in,” he explained.

“The girl” is played by Colleen Walsh, an actress from Richmond who answered the couple’s casting call ad and auditioned for the part. Local musician Brady Stevens plays the male lead, and the rest of the cast and film crew assistants are also from the New River Valley.

The cat? The Caldwell’s family cat – whose name is actually not Boots, but Jupiter – was used in all the cat scenes. St. Lawrence agreed to paint a portrait of the rising star and finished it in time to be hung as a prominent backdrop for some of the café scenes.

Capturing the cat’s likeness from a photograph in 2 ½ hours, St. Lawrence worked fast but said that painting Jupiter (aka Boots) was a challenge. “Such a wild thing and with a face like that!” she said, explaining that all the cat’s markings were off center. “But I wanted to get it right.”

Joe Caldwell, who will soon be teaching classes combining video film arts and social studies for the Pulaski school system, explained that when the film is finished it will go into post production for editing and will then be submitted to film festivals. He hopes to show a first screening at the Coffee Mill, or perhaps at the Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg.
“Our goal is to work with area talent and businesses to promote filmmaking in the New River Valley,” he said. “The history here is rich. It just takes a bit of talent to draw it out, and the talent is by all means here.” ~ Colleen Redman