LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION

Many people have asked how we managed to get access to such an amazing location as the historic Albemarle Opera House for our current project G.H.O.S.T.. In truth it takes fineness, accountability and most of all relationship management skills.

I first met local business man and downtown Albemarle champion Gene Starnes many years ago. It was only last year that I discovered the amazing piece of history located above his place of business, Starnes Jewelers. Gene is a member of virtually every civic organization related to doing business in Albemarle and has a list of community contacts that boggles the mind. I began to ask him about the possibility of a tour of the opera house which his grand father originally built in 1908. Gene readily agreed and before you knew I was filming our walk through.

I, of course instantly realized the cinematic potential for the space, with it’s aged walls, circular French balcony windows and extremely high ceilings, but it wasn’t as simple as winning Mr. Starnes over to the cause. The space covers a neighboring building as well and is co-owned by the adjoining business underneath. There was the matter of establishing a certain rapport and illustrating that Mutantville Productions can be trusted. I really needed Gene to sell the idea to the co-owner of the space with whom we personally had no contact.

To satisfy certain insurance requirements a few ground rules had to be established. For instance, no smoking up there or out in front of the building. As far as I know this only inconvenienced one or two cast and crew members the whole time. As Dave Mustain of Megadeth  once said, “We don’t smoke in this band!”

Contact numbers in case of power failure had to be maintained. I think there are 6 – 8 numbers in that call chain for instance. It turned out that we needed these on the night of the black out so that preparation paid off.

I recall a solid 3 months of discussions before final approval was granted. Even after that through the 9 months of pre-production I kept in constant contact with Gene, say on a bi weekly basis at least, keeping him up to date on the productions progress.

Throughout the process and even in the face of what I’m sure must have been an annoyance to him personally, the night the power went out and it took us 4 hours to find the fuse in the 100 year old structure Gene has really been amazingly supportive of MVP. At this time he is reaching out to a few contacts to help us possibly locate a local resource where the civil war period dream sequence can be shot.

Jumping back into to our mammoth half decade horror film production C 4 Chaos, we actually managed a ton of real locations. If a bar was called for, we were shooting in a bar. If the script called for a bunch of scenes in a comic shop, of which there are precious few around these days, you betchya we were in a honest to goodness comic shop. This really, really elevated that production to be working in the great locations instead of sets.

Like they say, it really is all about LOCATION! LOCATION!LOCATION! Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!

P.S.

Visit the most amazing Jewelry Store in Stanly County. Gene Starnes wants to be your jeweler. Tell him MVP sent you.