Marshall") plays the mayor. Natalie Canerday, who co-starred in "Sling Blade," plays a receptionist and avid softball fan.
Knoxville's own David Keith requested a role in the film after cast member Wes Murphy, who was taking an acting class taught by Keith, asked if he could show Keith the script.
"I said, 'Sure, give it to him,' " says Benjamin. "And then a couple of days later I got a call from David Keith. He was like, 'Hey, I was wondering if you have a part for me.' I was like, 'Well, I guess I do now.' "
"We'll find one for you!" was McDaniel's reaction.
"Yes, exactly," says Benjamin. "There was a small part that we hadn't cast yet, which was Joe, who's the wise bartender who really helps Peter learn a few things about his father."
Benjamin says he learned a lot between his first film and this one.
"When we were making 'Point of Fear,' there were times when I thought, 'I have no idea what I'm doing,' " he says.
Benjamin believed he was going to have to go to film school, but he couldn't afford to do so.
"I thought, 'I can't sell enough blood between now and then to raise enough money to go.' So I started doing commercials and short films and really learning how to do it by that.
"I had a lot of people say it ("Summerville") was the most relaxed, comfortable set they'd ever been on. Even David Keith mentioned that. He said everything was just smooth, which was really nice."
Betsy Pickle may be reached at 865-342-6442.
When Brooks Benjamin was shooting "Boys of Summerville" last June in his hometown of Kingston and nearby Harriman, Rockwood, Oak Ridge, Alcoa and Maryville, he was thinking of green outfields, not red carpets.
But Thursday night, Benjamin and his cast and crew will get the Regal treatment when "Boys of Summerville" has its premiere at 7 p.m. at Regal Cinemas' Downtown West theater.
Benjamin, a filmmaker who earns a living as a schoolteacher, had met Regal's Ted Hatfield, director of film marketing, and Jon Douglas, alternative film marketing manager, when he was trying to promote his first independent film, the thriller "Point of Fear." He sent them the trailer for "Boys of Summerville" in hopes of receiving feedback.
"I got an e-mail from Jon that day saying that we need to have a screening at the Regal and kick it off for the festivals and have a big, red-carpet-type event," says Benjamin. "All of a sudden a publicist came on and people started taking these roles on - pro bono, thank God.
"It's starting to become a much bigger event than I anticipated, which
makes me nervous … But I'm very excited for these actors and the
crew. They put a lot of work into the movie. I'm glad this is gonna
happen for them."
When Benjamin started writing the "Summerville" script in late 2005,
he crafted it as a mockumentary about small-town softball. By the time
it was finished the next year, it was a feature-length romantic comedy
about a young man, Peter (Casey Payne), who returns to his
hometown to sell his late father's house and winds up falling for a
tow-truck driver, Sam (Allison Varnes), getting pulled into the town's
obsession with softball and coming to terms with the father he has
long resented.
Inspiration came from the director's own father, Charles Davis
Benjamin, who died of cancer in February 2000. Details in the
opening narration mirror the father's big-league dreams.
"My father was a baseball player and was recruited by the Atlanta Braves, and then when he got down there and they did the physical, they found that he had tunnel vision," says Benjamin. "He was a catcher, and you have to have really good peripheral vision to be a catcher."
Benjamin says his father knew of his condition but didn't mention it to the Braves.
"It was the chance of a lifetime," he says.
Benjamin, who once dreamed of composing film scores, sold some land - "basically my inheritance" - to finance "Summerville," though he didn't think his dad would approve.
"I'd do it all over again," he says. "I got to make a movie. That's one of my dreams."
Benjamin used savings to make "Point of Fear." When it started playing at film festivals in 2006, it caught the eye of Keith McDaniel, founder/director of the Secret City Film Festival in Oak Ridge.
"It was a really ultra-low-budget film, but I knew Brooks was the creative force behind it," says McDaniel, a documentary filmmaker whose "The Clinton 12" has won numerous awards. "He wrote it, he directed it, he shot it. He did everything on it. I just saw something there."
McDaniel asked if Benjamin had anything else in the pipeline, and Benjamin sent him the script for "Summerville." McDaniel offered to do whatever he could to help get the film made. He ended up as executive producer.
"I probably didn't do everything that an executive producer would do," McDaniel says. "I knew what I was going to be able to do, and I told Brooks that up front, and that was to … help guide him through some things, help cut some deals."
"He did a really, really good job," says Benjamin. "One of the things he helped me so much on was bringing a lot of knowledge my way through contacts and crew and equipment."
Benjamin planned to shoot the movie with his own film equipment, which he'd been buying, one piece a year, since he graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 2002. But McDaniel set up a meeting with HP Video's Danny Harb, who made them good deals on equipment, including a high-end, high-definition professional camera.
Even with a tiny budget, the director was able to cast some high-quality talent. Maryville-based actor David Dwyer ("We Are