HEY! WE ALL HAD TO START SOMEWHERE: an interview with screenwriter/director/producer and author of Jug Face, Chad Crawford Kinkle

This is the next post in a series of interviews with writers who have had their first films, web series, television assignment, etc. make it to the big or small or computer screen. It is an effort to find out what their journey was to their initial success.

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Next up: Screenwriter/director/producer and author of Jug Face, Chad Crawford Kinkle

 

Born in a small town in Tennessee, Chad Crawford Kinkle grew up making horror movies with his parent’s camcorder. This led him to earn two degrees in film with aspirations to become a horror filmmaker. After eight years of writing, his career finally began with his award winning screenplay Jug Face.

1. What is the name of your first screenplay that was produced?

JUG FACE was the first feature that I had produced.

2. Can you tell us a bit about the journey as to how it came about?

I was visiting my wife’s aunt and uncle in north Georgia and they took us to a new folk pottery museum. I wasn’t excited at all since I had been bored to tears in art school studying pottery. But I saw there my first face jug. I wanted/needed to have one of these things. They were so ugly and grotesque. I loved them. As I walked around the exhibit, I stopped before a video of a potter describing the process of making them and it seemed like he was talking about backwoods black magic. I imagined a possessed potter who was making a jug with a girl’s face on it and clay that came from a pit that spoke to him. I knew immediately that the pit wanted the girl on the jug to be sacrificed.

I wrote the script on spec for a company in Nashville that was interested in getting into the movie business. But they ended up not having any money. I submitted the script to a few screenplay competitions to help generate proof that the script was good as I looked for investors. The script ended up winning Slamdance’s screenplay competition; the horror category and the grand prize. And that’s when everything changed.

I sent the script around and Andrew van den Houten, at Modernciné, loved it. It was the type of story that fit in with the other films that he had made. But he needed to see that I could direct. Lucky enough, I had been planning for months to make a horror short. Three weeks later, I sent Andrew the short (Organ Grinder) and that night he offered me a deal to make JUG FACE.

 

3. Tell me a little bit about the experience of having the project come to completion.

I still have a hard time realizing that I finally made a feature. The experience was like a strange dream.

 

4. What was the hardest obstacle to overcome in achieving that first project?

Learning to write and finish a good story. It always comes down to the screenplay.

 

5. What have you learned about the industry when it comes to being a writer?

The industry thinks that the act of writing is like falling off a log.

 

6. What are you working on now?

I spent most of the fall working on an adaptation, but that project has stalled. Since then, I’ve been working on a new horror screenplay.

 

7. What is your favorite movie or TV series?

Favorite move is IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

Favorite TV series is THE WIRE.

 

8. Where do you think the movie and television industry is heading? What do you think its future is?

Movies will always exist. They may be formatted for different mediums, but people crave visual storytelling. Fear is part of human nature, so Horror will always be around as well.

 

9.  What parting advice do you have for writers?

It all comes down to your voice. The deeper you can tap into that, the better your work will be.

 

10. What do you do when you’re not writing? What do you do to get away from the industry?

I read, rock climb, play video games, hunt, and drink beer. I live in Nashville, Tennessee so I am always outside the industry.

 

11. Tell us something about yourself that many people may not know.

I love monkeys. Nothing makes me happier.

 

And check out the other interviews in the series:

Mikey Levy http://ow.ly/HA9Xm

Hilliard Guess http://ow.ly/HcOmr

Amir Ohebsion http://ow.ly/H8aPq

Donald McKinney http://ow.ly/GvPfn

Michelle Ehlen http://ow.ly/GvPr1