THE FILMAKER'S PERSPECTIVE

Sunday morning I’m driving to the mill with Ken and Greg. It’s been hard to find time with them because their work is so intense that it tends to isolate them. Filming is a continuous process and when your eye is clamped to a camera viewfinder for hours at a time, or you are concentrating on holding the sound boom just out of view like Ken does, it is hard to indulge in conversation. Also, during breaks at the tree site they often disappeared to film interviews with local people and to capture locations around Early County as background material. Now, as we drive along narrow winding roads through fields of unharvested cotton, I listen to them talk about the quiet landscape.


Greg Andracke filming the action at the sawmill, Blakely Burl Tree Project.
Photo: Terry Martin

Ken and Greg are both New Yorkers and their conversation tends to abrupt repartee, pretend-aggression and an air of worldly weariness. I can’t imagine a bigger contrast with the gently-paced manner of the Georgians we are among. It’s hard to impress New Yorkers, but after watching them work for a week, I can see that they love this project.

Ken explains what it was like when they first arrived: “I’m a big-city guy with minimal knowledge of rural America and agricultural communities, and it was really like being in a foreign country. Fortunately we speak the same language—more or less. Occasionally I can’t understand what somebody is saying and recently when I look at the footage we’ve taken the thought has crossed my mind that we might have to use subtitles! But I’ve been really charmed by how well they’ve treated us. I can’t help thinking about the second night we were in Blakely when Stanley was saying grace before a meal. He said, ‘We thank you Lord for bringing these high-caliber people to our little town.’ That kind of respect is pretty nice.”

Greg agrees: “You know, as a New Yorker I always have a bias about New York being the best place in the world. But in Georgia the people welcomed us so warmly and when you see how supportive they are, you can’t help but think these are really fine people. Take Steve Cross for example. When I first met him, I thought he was speaking another language, but once I began to understand him, I found a man who is brilliant. That saw of his, if it was packaged up all slick it could probably be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but he put it together with his own ingenuity.”


Greg Andracke (left) discusses the angle and direction of the shot with Gary Stevens
Photo: Mark Lindquist
 
I ask them how they came to be involved in the BBTP and Ken tells me how he started filming studio potters about ten years before. “I found the people had a certain glow and humor, a kind of magnetic quality, and they all seemed to have many friends and collectors. I loved their world and I’ve continued making films like that. I met Mark last year when we made the film about the Icons exhibition in Chicago that involved Mark and Gary. When Mark contacted me about this Project, the pictures he sent me were very intriguing. The tree had a real mystique about it, almost a mythic quality. I almost felt there was some spirit in this tree that was calling out to people and I suppose I was one of them!”
 
Greg is new to this world of wood art and it’s a radical change from his recent work in Afghanistan, filming for a major television network. He has already told us about his experiences around the world, so I ask how he came to be here in this quiet place. “I heard about the BBTP from Ken,” he says. “I didn’t even know what a burl was, then I saw the photographs of this gigantic tree in Blakely, and the plan to take it down and turn it into works of art. I was really jazzed up because in my career I’ve worked on everything from the Popes and their art, to covering wars and mayhem. Somehow in my later years I’ve come to like covering art much more than mayhem.”


Greg Andracke filming the fresh cut Blakely Burl Tree log.
Photo: John McFadden

“We’re lucky,” says Ken. “Greg’s very difficult to book. I was actually shocked when he said he’d take this project on. I’ve been trying to get him for a long project for at least a dozen years, and this is the first time he’s agreed. That’s another thing that makes me feel this tree was exerting some kind of magnetism on people, even a guy like Greg who gets called by network news and big documentary producers.”
 
I ask them what it has been like for them working on the Project. Ken laughs: “Let’s face it, we started out as a couple of New Yorkers with chips on our shoulders. But we’ve been having such a great time and the work has been fascinating. At one point Greg said to me, ‘I want to be sure all this footage is saved because I think I’m doing some of the best work I’ve ever done in my life.’ That’s pretty impressive from someone with Greg’s experience.”

Ken Browne "riding the carriage" to get a closeup shot of the sawing.
Photo: John McFadden

When I ask them about the days spent cutting the tree down, Ken says: “I got such a kick when Mark showed his cutting plan to the tree crew on the first day. They clearly hadn’t expected that. I suppose it’s usually just ‘one-two-three’ and off they go with the wood, but his plan was so meticulously done that they realized they were dealing with somebody who knew exactly where he wanted that tree cut. Also, Mark told them, ‘None of this tree is to be lost, we want every last shred of it.’ I’ll never forget when Mark was finished and Jim Carver, the local contractor, turned to the crew and said, ‘I want everybody to take their thinking caps off and put their following-order caps on! We’ve never done anything like this before, so if anyone has any doubt whatsoever about what to do, they have to ask Mark.’ And it worked because a really disparate group of contractors and machine operators and farmers all cooperated so well. If you stepped back to look at what we were doing you could say it was the strangest thing, but I believe they were all pulled into the energy that surrounded that tree. It showed me how much people are drawn to a dream.”


Ken Browne (left), Mark Lindquist, Greg Andracke (right) discussing the filming.
Photo: Terry Martin