By SARAH BROWN
Staff Writer
The Mason-Scharfentstein Museum was transformed into a movie theater to screen an independent film on March 27.
“Locomotive” was written by Adam Lucas and produced and directed by Young Harris College professor Jeremy Walton.
It was a humble beginning for the two producers, who filmed the story of a musician named Henry Dicey.
In the film, Dicey tries to reconnect with his former band after his solo career goes down the drain.
When that doesn’t not work, he attempts to rekindle romance with an ex-girlfriend who was once a groupie of his former band.
Waltman explained who Dicey was in only a few words, as he wanted the character to not be defined by who created the character, but by the people who observed him from the other side of the lens.
“Dicey isn’t a black and white character,” Waltman said.
“He does not have a black hat and a white hat that he switches between. Instead, he owns more of a grey one that mixes the two sides of him.”
The 79-minute tale does not simply cover the life and agonies of one person, but of four people who are struggling to find their path in life and to find that one person who will accept them without placing conditions of worth upon them.
“Locomotive” shows how four different people can end up having one grand thing in common: a sense of belonging.
From a girl that Dicey simply plucked off the street, to the boy that Amy, Dicey’s ex-girlfriend, took under her wing, Waltman and Lucas strived to let the audience make their own decisions about the characters.
In a sense, “Locomotive” is an independent film unlike others, as Waltman and Lucas strayed from some aspects of the independent genre.
“While other independent films have the audience stare at a cup of orange juice for more than ten seconds, we saw no point in focusing on something that did not matter,” said Waltman.
“If the characters weren’t showing some sort of emotion and the film wasn’t moving, then we cut the scene and moved on.”
Locomotive is a kitchen-sink kind of documentary about real people in real situations that doesn’t try to hide real meanings behind a symbol that is misunderstood.
“It is the way the characters are: a thing on a powerful course. There are many ways to stop it, but none want to try,” said Waltman of the title of the film.
