Over the past couple of Christmases I’ve written a personal round-up of the year for The Scratching Post. Since 2007 was a busy one for me and I haven’t had a chance to blog as much as I’d like, I guess it’s time for another annual summary.

Please note that I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet in this blog. It’s an update for friends, family and supporters who want to know what I’ve been up to. None of it would have been possible without the help and hard work of my colleagues based here in Charleston, South Carolina. Thanks guys.

JANUARY

Rant: I taught acting to groups of 1st – 5th Graders at a private school in downtown Charleston this year. I’ve taught all kinds of children, from abused 8-year-olds to shy tweenagers. I was expecting the pupils at the high-rent private school to be the best behaved I’ve ever worked with.

Boy, was I wrong. The disrespectful tikes made every lesson hard going. At least I didn’t have it as bad as another teacher who worked with them for one week – they threw scripts at her and refused to listen to her instructions. She compared the experience unfavorably to working in LA inner city prisons.

Rave: A documentary about abstract artist Patrick Pelletier premiered at the Dunnan Gallery, King Street. When I was hired to shoot the doc, I was told that it would be a very simple “talking head” film – i.e. the artist just sitting on a stool, chatting about his work. The end product became a far more complex, non-linear piece charting a day in the life of the up-and-coming painter. It was completed just in time for Pelletier’s inaugural solo show, Block Party.

I also film the Charleston Youth Company’s musical extravaganza, and I was struck by the professionalism of the kids involved. They were disciplined, talented and their production was actually better than some of the semi-pro shows I’ve seen in recent years.

FEBRUARY

Raves: More filming, this time of the Miss Charleston Scholarship Pageant. I followed the whole process from interviews through to the crowning of Miss Charleston, Miss North Charleston and Miss Coastal Carolina. This gave me a fascinating insight into the pageant process, guided in our area by the tremendously hard-working Randall Dukes. And not a geography question in sight.

I moved to the Lowcountry in 2003, but this month marked the first time I danced the Charleston. I played a cocky nightclub owner in a “Roaring 20s” themed gig for the Actors Theatre of South Carolina.


MARCH

Rants: I was well on my way to completing a rough assemblage of my first feature, All For Liberty, when disaster struck. The edit suite threw a wobbly and footage was deleted.

Fortunately, all the scenes were still on tape; unfortunately, weeks of work were lost. Still, I managed to salvage several sequences to make life easier for our fine cut editors. The film would go through several versions as the year progressed.

After the stress of editing Liberty for months, I needed a relaxing job as a casting assistant and stand-in for Warner Bros.

It was the opposite of relaxing.

The studio rolled into town to shoot Reinventing the Wheelers, behaved in an obnoxious fashion, pissed everyone off then left. After the relative good manners of Touchstone’s Army Wives crew – also shooting in Charleston – the attitude of the Warner guys was a shock. They got their comeuppance, though; they were attacked by a plague of gnats at Fort Moultrie, left town and the pilot was never picked up for screening. Good riddance. The Politest City in America has no room for obnoxious cinematographers.

Raves: I shot a historical sequence for screening at the brand spankin’ new Upcountry History Museum in Greenville, SC. The museum’s an ambitious one, encompassing religion, sociology, wars, agriculture and present oral accounts. The scenes were filmed at Fort King George, Georgia, under the guidance of veteran producer Michael Schaffer (Michael Schaffer Productions) and director Craig Hadley (The Living History Group). Our star actress Jenny Pringle gave an incredibly detailed performance, aged through decades with prosthetic makeup as she recounted various periods in the Upcountry’s history (photo by The Living History Group).



Back in (North) Charleston, I was a guest lecturer at Springfield College for a course led by Roy Freedman. The students all work in the human services field, from police work (cold cases) to supervising troubled teenagers to standard casework. I incorporated role play and team-building exercises into my acting workshop. They did good.

APRIL

Rave: In April I spent a lot of time teaching. I have a great bunch of students at the Lowcountry Senior Center on James Island. The Senior tag is just that - a mere tag. Their ages range from mid-50s to late 70s. They’re whip-smart and ready for anything I throw at them – improvised scenes, short films, monologues or one-act comedy plays. At the end of the year they performed a hilarious version of John Pielmeier’s short play, Splatter Flick.

MAY

There was too much good stuff to see at this year’s Spoleto Festival and its Piccolo fringe – in the latter I reviewed underwear-loving comedian Paul Thomas, the touching if overlong Denmark Vesey: Insurrection by Julian Wiles, Henry Riggs’ Hobo: The Musical, PURE Theatre’s mesmerizing Cloud Tectonics and several other colorful shows.

Raves: On the 4th I organized a second (hopefully annual) Night of Short Films at the Gibbes Museum of Art and recorded an audio interview with video artist Janet Biggs.

After filming a show by rock/soul band Black Eyed Susan until about 2 a.m., I had to drive up to the border between North and South Carolina to shoot a battle scene at Kings Mountain for the Upcountry History Museum. After an arduous cross-state drive I reached the location at the crack of dawn and dragged my ass through rain and smoke for the hectic action scene. Meanwhile over in Columbia, a group of shorts from the Folly Felder Film Festival were screened at the Nickelodeon for their Film Crawl.

Later in the month I hung out with artist Johnny Pundt and we doodled our way through a few ideas – one of which was improved upon and recreated for a Pundt T-shirt. I now wear the shirt with pride, even though I don’t know what the hell the Japanese words on the front mean.

After that I worked in Greenville for a 10 day stretch, interviewing important figures from the past and present of the city for the new History Museum. I returned later in the Summer to interview more civil rights leaders, spiritual gurus, corporate Big Cheeses and regular, ethnically diverse business owners.

JUNE

In June, the fourth annual Felder Film Fest on Folly Beach was the biggest one ever. We had to turn away some high quality entries simply because we didn’t have the space to show them all.

On the 18th, disaster struck. Nine firefighters lost their lives in a raging fire at the Sofa Super Store on H17. The smoke darkened the sky that evening; the event continues to darken the lives of the people who knew the Nine.

Charleston was in the national news because so many men had died in one blaze; for a while, newshounds and political candidates buzzed around the area. Now they've left us to mourn in peace.

JULY

Four years after moving to the USA, I had some extra responsibility thrust upon me. The Charleston City Paper’s A&E editor, Patrick Sharbaugh, moved to Japan. I picked up some of the slack as the paper’s “arts go-to guy” until a new managing editor and A&E editor were hired. After two months of sourcing and writing articles, I was pooped.

Rant: Think you’re living in a free country where you’re at liberty to do what you want? Not if you’re fond of a ciggie. A smoking ban kept puffers out of bars and restaurants. It wasn’t uncommon to see folks lined up on the sidewalk, smoking, chatting and fuming about the new law.

I also bought a Sprint phone around this time, enticed by a $150 rebate when I purchased the contraption online. I mailed in the rebate then Sprint informed me that they’d changed their tiny minds and didn’t want to give me any cash back. Not a great way to create customer loyalty.

Rave: For the second year running I taught a Summer acting course at Creative Spark learning center. This time it ran parallel with an excellent Rock Camp, led by Josh Kaler of Slow Runner. Potential band names for the kids included Cremated Tennis Shoes, Petrified, Ghost in My Arms, Fungus Flush, The Fire Breathing Dragons, The Beastly Beavers and Nauseous Nailheads from Norway. True to their gnarly names, they rocked large and hard.

AUGUST

While other people took a vacation, I kept my wheels spinning in Chucktown. I produced a top-secret yoga video for Mary O’Neill out of Washington, D.C.; I was cameraman at Actors’ Theatre of SC’s Movie Camp; and I took a short-lived seat on the Late Night @ Footlights Theatre committee before I dropped out for fear of a clash of interests (I occasionally review Footlight plays).

Among the many theatrical productions I reviewed this year for the City Paper, the College of Charleston’s Richard III stands out for its sheer ambition: strong acting, sumptuous costumes, clever moving sets and a buttock-numbing hours-long running time. And it wasn’t the only Shakespeare-oriented play that the College put on at that time.

SEPTEMBER

In September I interviewed Black Eyed Susan for their promo video, and produced a few commercials for local company Muhler Windows and Blinds (catchphrase: "we make your homes better'). It gave me more insight than ever into the workings of Charleston's Channel 2, 4 and 5.

The Upcountry History Museum opened, with video clips shot all over the Greenville area and one or two historical characters voiced by yours truly. Producer Michael Schaffer soon burst my acting bubble by making a jibe about my Bristol accent. But hey, he’s from Boston.

OCTOBER

I caught my first hockey game (Stingrays v. Columbia Inferno in North Charleston) and enjoyed it – partly because my son and I snagged ringside seats. The month also marked the first read-through of my new independent feature film, Cold Soldiers; before the year was out, half the cast would change and half the movie would be in the can.

On Kiawah Island, I teamed up with DJ Tucker (who'd been a tremendous help to me on the Museum shoots) to play a Legend of Bagger Vance-style golfer, surrounded by classic ‘20s cars all aiming their headlamps on a putting green – a re-enactment of a scene from the Robert Redford movie.

NOVEMBER

Rant: While performing in a murder mystery event on Kiawah, I was confronted by a guy who thought my British accent was fake (er, I’m from Britain) and insisted that England uses kilometers, not miles to measure road distances. Confusing the UK with mainland Europe is as offensive to a Brit as mixing up Canada and the US is for an American. I kept my cool. Kind of.

As preproduction for Cold Soldiers picked up speed, I filmed the South of Broadway Theatre Company’s Nightmare ‘Til New Years! show. With my acting hat on, I worked with students at Trident Technical College where an innovative (for Trident) program got actors and directing students together to work through potential challenges.

DECEMBER

In December I finally got to launch my fourth book, Undead on Arrival. The book-plugging started with a zombie groan as the Walking Dead invaded The Black Cart bar on the corner of King & John Streets. Sadly, a pair of attending vampires did not challenge the zombies to a game of pool; maybe they were afraid of the cues (anti-vamp fact: when snapped in half, cues make handy stakes).

When I wasn’t in sick & twisted author mode, pushing my book, I was Santa Claus on Marion Square, writing for the City Paper or directing my second feature on East Bay Street. Every day I learned something new – about cinematography, about sticking with my decisions or communicating my ideas. That’s what this year’s been all about – improving communication. Hopefully I’ll get it right in 2008.

Happy New Year to you,

Nick

Got a nice mention in Charleston's Post & Courier today. You can read the article right here.

Dr. Scott Bradley is an amazing man. At home he's a regular Joe who plays soccer and basketball with his three kids. He's also partial to kayaking, hiking and watching NASCAR.

At work, he performs miracles, saving the lives of children - including newborns and premature babies - as a heart surgeon.

When I interviewed him for a Charleston City Paper story this month, I was struck by his sheer friendliness. Most surgeons I know are brusque at best; in my humble experience, they're a bunch of cantankerous bastards. Conversely, Bradley was helpful, polite and didn't use too many big words in front of me.

He's one of the good guys, and you can read his story here.

Yesterday marked the end of the City of Charleston's Holiday Magic program, and my final day as their Marion Square Santa this year. This has been my fifth Christmas as The Claus, and I've seen over 1000 children since December 2nd. This year, I've really noticed the same children from previous years who are starting to grow up. I probably remember them better than they remember me (a year's a long time for a fourth grader).

I'm not a Christmas kind of guy. I enjoy receiving presents much more than giving them. I hate shopping at this time of year, unless I see what I need the instant I step in a shop & there's no line to pay for it. Christmas songs make me want to hurl. The day before Holiday Magic started, I wondered how I could get out of the job - the mere thought of wearing an itchy beard and a fur-lined suit in 80 degree heat was enough make me want to quit ere I'd begun.

Yet the Santa job gets to me. The kids' excitement and their unstinting belief in the Big Lie that is Santa eventually gets me in the Christmas spirit, too. With the same carols looped ceaselessly at my grotto in downtown Charleston, I end up singing them at home.

So there's the answer: even the scroogiest bugger can get in a festive spirit if he plays Santa for a while. Merry Christmas, and here's hoping that you get the chance to do a good deed this week and catch a bit of Holiday Magic.

Now excuse me while I go hurl.

http://arts.ccpblogs.com/2007/12/19/journal-screen-printing-101-and-mr-nick/

Undead on Arrival Book Launch Party

Come to The Black Cart bar for a Zombie Night! Dress code: cadaver casual.

I'll be officially launching my new novel Undead on Arrival at The Black Cart (above Joe Pasta). It's a free event that starts at 8 p.m., with a book signing, zombie art, DJ/music and a special zombie shot.

Be warned - there may be zombies around on the night. The only sure way to be safe is to come dressed as one yourself!

Where: The Black Cart, 54 John Street, Downtown Charleston, SC

When: Thursday, December 6, 8:00 p.m.