Film Productions
Current Productions
- Poet of the Swingin’ Blade
“Poet of the Swingin’ Blade” is a 23-minute film about one raucous Saturday night in the lives of Black Turpentine Workers enslaved under debt peonage in the pine forests of the Florida Panhandle, 1937. Turpentiners often became Runaways, seeking to escape their oppressed circumstances in any way possible, sometimes even in death. "Poet" tells the story of three Black men who "fled" the turpentine camps: The Runaway, on foot, with the aid of the Woods Witch; Jake, through his stories and with the help of a White boy; and Tush, killed in a skin game. The "swingin’ blade" of the title is a lyrical description of a turpentining tool, but also of the weapon used in a knife fight during the skin game (card game played by turpentiners) featured in the film.
Future Production
- Gone Phishin’
Gone Phishin’ is a feature film script about four forty-something buddies, three Black and one White, who decide to flavor their annual trip to the woods with three high-priced call girls. The women are part of an elaborate phishing scheme that involves the upper management of a national strip club chain. In Gone Phishin’ everyone is on the take, and you're never sure who's scamming who in this complicated, "Usual Suspects" style action/mystery. To be filmed on location in Lake Malibu, California in Spring 2009.
Theater Into Film
- Turpentine Jake & Poet of the Swingin’ Blade
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American history tells us Slavery ended in 1865. But deep in the swamps and pine forests of Florida and Georgia, over half a million Blacks were held in debt servitude until the 1970s. More than 100 years after the last cotton plant was plucked by an unpaid Black hand, turpentiners tapped the longleaf pines, harvesting pine gum fourteen hours a day, but earning less each week than they were forced to spend on food and clothing in the company store. “The onliest way out is to die out,” says a seasoned worker in the play Turpentine Jake, Bannister and Hurd's poetic look at the extraordinary lives of the Blacks enslaved by debt peonage, but freed by their stories, songs, rootwork, and magic.
Based on dozens of interviews with surviving centenarian turpentiners and the memories of Hurd's own grandfather, Jake, Turpentine Jake and “Poet of the Swingin’ Blade” (a short film based on the play) are rich spoken word poems, full of dreams and wonders and hard realities. Part history lesson, part poetry, part American Folklore and all inspiration, Turpentine Jake and “Poet of the Swingin’ Blade” are “Blues Dramas.” Their magic, on stage and on screen, sparkles with the wit and tenacity of the turpentiners, truly poets of the swingin’ blades that carved the faces of the pines in the deep South.
Photos (L to R and T to B):
- (Top) Poet of the Swingin’ Blade, on location in Angeles Crest Forest: Julius Noflin and James E. Hurd, Jr.
- Poet of the Swingin’ Blade, on location in Angeles Crest Forest: James E. Hurd, Jr. and Dean Mitchell
- Poet of the Swingin’ Blade, on location in Angeles Crest Forest: Carlin Smith and DeSean Terry
- Poet of the Swingin’ Blade, on location at Crenshaw Studios, Los Angeles, CA: Jook, Entire Cast