The following film was my thesis at the Savannah College of College of Art and Design. I went out to try to find out what defined southern writing and embrace the city of Charleston on film. Early on in the process the answer came to me. Jim Rigney told me that the most common image in all of southern writing was that of the dead mule. At that point my film was directed towards where it was going and all thanks to my family friends Jim and Harriet Rigney.

 

Over the next four months I interviewed a dozen writers, shot hours of b-roll footage, went to reading, and traveled to DragonCon in Atlanta to make the movie. During all this time I knew that my favorite piece was the interview with Jim Rigney. He was very supportive of me and kept in touch and was eager to see the finished film. Sadly that was not meant to be.

 

Just as I was starting to edit the film, Jim passed away. To my shock I found out later that my interview with him was the last piece of footage ever filmed of him. I didn’t know what to do whether to cut him out, structure the whole film around him, or replace him. My editor Shannon and I decided that Jim gave us a direction to go in, and we should stick to that. The film remained as I intended, a film about Charleston and its writers. With the film dedicated to Jim. I hope that fans of his books will like my film and appreciate the interview with him.

 

Although a great deal of footage of Jim was cut from the final product I felt that fans should see the whole interview that we did of him. My Cinematographer AJ suggested a feature length Documentary about Jim Rigney, which would use more of the footage that we used for "The Written Path" and a tribute to him. I talked to his widow Harriet early on about the idea and with her blessing we started planning the film. For the next year or so I will be raising money, conducting interviews, shooting b-roll, and researching the film. With the help of fans like you we can make a wonderful film. I hope you all enjoy my film and would love to hear back from you at my email:

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Share and Enjoy,

Hunter Wentworth

 

 

(Be sure to watch until the last few seconds!)