Chris Fuller sits hunched on a stool nursing a beer in the dimly lit Emerald Bar on Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg. The dive is a fitting location in which to talk about his debut film Loren Cass, a dark portrait of St. Pete youth set in one of the city's bleakest times, the period following the '96 riots. After working eight long years from conception to post-production, Fuller, 23, is finally ready to unleash his first filmmaking project on the city that inspired it.
A few major films — Ocean's Eleven, Health — have used bits of St. Pete as a backdrop over the years, but Fuller's movie goes beyond just a few shots of the Pier (although they are in there, too). It features the city itself as a crucial part of the story line.
"St. Pete is in my blood," Fuller says. "There's a lot of shit here. It's got a rich history and an often disturbing one at that."
The film chronicles the coming of age of three St. Pete adolescents, their lives tied to the cycle of violence, suicide and destruction that surround the city after the '96 riots. Cale (Lewis Brogan) and Jason (Travis Maynard) drive the streets, drinking and brawling, while Nicole (Kayla Tabish) keeps falling for the wrong men. On a chance encounter, Cale meets Nicole at her job, starting a fruitless relationship, while Jason spirals more out of control.
Although Fuller is an amateur (he has no formal training in filmmaking), Loren Cass is hardly sophomoric; it has the persuasive acting, stellar soundtrack and quality look of a studio production. Fuller started writing the script while still in Canterbury High School, and immediately after graduating spent almost four years shopping his project around to various private investors. He raised a viable amount of cash (he won't divulge the actual amount but says it's in the thousands). During the same period, he found the actors he wanted, including Tabish (Girl Next Door) and Jacob Reynolds (Gummo, Road to Wellville), a New York-based actor born in St. Petersburg.
"Everybody I've met has some connection to St. Pete," Fuller points out. "It's like that Kevin Bacon shit."
In fact, almost all aspects of the film, from the soundtrack to the actors, have ties to the city: Locally based boxer Ronald "Winky" Wright and Uhuru leader Omali Yeshitela contribute to voiceovers; 'burg denizens like musician Matthew Bistok and street poet Mike Glausier make up part of the supporting cast; the soundtrack's haunting trumpet is the work of St. Pete's Jimmy Morey. Fuller reached across the bay and enlisted the help of strip club magnate Joe Redner, whose Production Services and Systems donated some of the equipment in exchange for "profit points."
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is Fuller's use of recognizable north side landmarks — like, for instance, the nondescript house on 10th Avenue N., where Beat legend Jack Kerouac lived out the last year of his life before dying of alcoholism. These touches, from shots of the old orange and white city buses to the alley behind the State Theatre, add a realistic local texture to the film, creating what Fuller calls a "St. Pete-based Catcher in the Rye."
"Every kid that ever grew up in St. Pete has hung out in that alley," he says. Or eaten at the venerable Egg Platter, the workplace and favorite dating spot for the character Nicole.
"They are the only all-night restaurant in St. Petersburg that let us take over their place," Fuller says, even though it wasn't his first choice. The St. Pete Diner originally agreed, he says, but kicked them out in the middle of filming.
It was just one of many bumps in the road.
"Filming anywhere is a challenge," he says, adding that the Pinellas County Film Commission — with the exception of its free permit policy — did not help much.
"The film commission hassled us a bit from time to time," Fuller says, "and kind of told us we were too ambitious. It's tough. Nobody takes you seriously when you're 21 years old."
After Fuller's crew missed a date to shoot at the transit authority headquarters, the commission pulled their permit. Fuller wasn't notified, and while he and his crew were filming a scene in the Old Northeast neighborhood, police pulled up and shut them down. Although the commission reinstated the permit the next day, the incident left a sour taste in his mouth.
"The city could do more to spur more independent filmmaking," he says.
The film commission's director, Jennifer Parramore, says the purpose of the organization is to provide production support and marketing, not train new filmmakers. She attributes Fuller's problems to inexperience.
"One of my favorite phrases is 'if you don't have the money, you can't afford to do it,'" she says.
Despite the inconveniences, Fuller feels the movie executes his vision perfectly.
"If you gave me $2 million and said do the film again I'd tell you to go fuck yourself," he says flatly. Limitations, he says, spur creativity.
Fuller's next step for Loren Cass is finding audiences.
"We'll show it anywhere," he says. "I'll show it in the bathroom if you can give us the space."
It's already landed an Official Selection at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival and been accepted for New York City's Film Fest Reloaded. Fuller has teamed up with producer Robert Hawk, known for discovering director Kevin Smith (Clerks), to establish national distribution.
He's not looking too much further ahead than that but stresses he's not done with Florida's Sunshine City.
"There's definitely still parts of St. Pete I'd like to explore and commit to film," he says, looking out over North Shore Park, where he filmed a brutal fight scene. "There will be more to come."
On Oct. 14, Studio@620 will screen Chris Fuller's 90-minute production Loren Cass at 7:30 p.m.
This article appears in Oct 4-10, 2006.
