THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 17, 1995 TAG: 9511170194
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BELVIDERE LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
What is it about this crossroads community? The water, the climate? Probably the air.
There always seems to a promise of riches in the air.
One of Hampton Roads best-known country singers, Barbara Jean, packed her music and left home and hearth here for a shot at Nashville fame and fortune.
Hugh Copeland, founder of one of the East Coast's most successful children's theater group, The Hurrah Players of Norfolk, was raised a few feet from the home of Wolfman Jack.
The family of that late radio personality recently announced plans for an amphitheater behind their Belvidere homesite. They say major stars will sing, cash registers will ring.
And now O.K. Dip Productions is filming a $100,000 movie in this community which, its director contends, is destined to win film festival awards.
Perquimans County heads are spinning and the camera is rolling on ``Po' Lane Road,'' described by writer-producer-director Oliver Welch as ``a very positive story.''
More specifically, it is a stirring tale of inter-racial romance in the county in the 1950s.
``A friendship grows between a wealthy white boy from Hertford who befriends a poor sharecropper family,'' Welch explained.
Romance enters the scene.
The movie features several well-known local performers including Shawn Smith, director of drama at East Carolina State University; Jim Bridges, an area stage veteran, and Julie Feeney, who has appeared in several local productions.
A starring role went to Dr. Bobby J. Lewis, professor of Biology at ECSU, who has appeared in many plays.
A few of the actors - no names you'd recognize - came down from New York City, but the rest are local including Tokura White, 13, a Perquimans County Middle School student, carefully selected by Welch.
The only recognizable name connected with the movie is Richard Burton - but the actor hasn't come back to life.
Burton is the assistant cameraman, a Jamaican who saw many of his friends working as extras in ``Cool Running,'' the Disney tale of a bobsled team from Jamaica.
The cameraman is Bobby Covington, a Carolinian living in New York. Director Welch is a Carolinian living in New York who wants to come back to Carolina.
The 1956 Perquimans County Union High School graduate hopes to return to Hertford where his family lives.
``If the movie is succesful, I'll work from here,'' Welch said.
If optimism equalled success he would become a household name.
``I expect to win film festival awards,'' Welch said, rattling off names like Cannes and Toronto. ``First, I'll go to small festivals.''
He feels such success will be a stepping stone to release in four, six and 10-screen mall theaters.
In an earlier burst of optimism Welch sent a copy of his script to Spike Lee.
``He sent it back.''
Undaunted, Welch keeps working on the 35-millimeter dream he hopes to complete by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, he and his crew are filming in several areas of the county, being careful to keep the 1950s feel.
Stanley Parker, who lives in Belvidere, found an abandoned house on the corner of Bay Branch Road and Perry's Bridge Road - ideal for ``Po' Lane Road'' location shoots.
The shoots follow Welch's script which is void of the usually cumbersome directions on where to stand, sit, run, etc.
Improvisation is the word.
And money is the key.
Sometimes, getting the necessary cash is more difficult than the filming.
``I'm trying to keep this under $100,000. I raised the money and that included taking a mortgage on my house,'' Welch said. ``That's risky, but it's the chance I had to take.
``I've been writing since 1958, not getting anything published,'' he said. ``In the publishing business, if you don't know someone you can forget about being published.''
So, he decided to write his own movie script, sort of a tribute to his parents.
``My dad is Archie Welch, my mom is Linnie,'' he said. ``Two of the movie's main characters are Archie and Linnie.''
This month they, and an O.K. Dip camera, are running around Belvidere.
The community has a post office, a mom-pop general store, an antique store, homes, a small church, outbuildings and two-lane blacktops running past the house of a Nashville hopeful, the home of a producer-director of childrens theater, the Wolfman Jack homestead where great things are predicted, and ``Po' Lane Road.''
And as always, a promise of riches in the air. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DREW C. WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
Lou Smith, widow of famed disc jockey Wolfman Jack, says the Wolfman
Jack Memorial Blues Park would be a fitting means of honoring the
late entertainer. Wolfman Jack was raised in Belvidere before
heading off in search of a microphone.
by CNB