May 22, 2013

'The Dixie Times' showing in Cave Spring to raise money for log cabin

By SCOTT WRIGHT

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CAVE SPRING, Ga. —  The last time Cave Spring native Ken Wheeler was featured in The Post, in November 2007, he was a salesman and aspiring filmmaker with a self-penned movie script and no firm ideas for raising the funds to turn his words into moving pictures.

Five years later, after suffering through more than a few financial fits and starts, Wheeler has sold everything he ever owned to make his film, “The Dixie Times,” a reality.

Listening to Wheeler describe the filmmaking process and reveal intimate tidbits about his main characters, the passion that drove him to make so drastic a decision is obvious.

“I ended up producing the movie out-of-pocket for about $150,000, which is a low budget, but still a lot bigger budget than the typical independent movie,” Wheeler said. “We used a camera recommended to me by James Best, who played Roscoe P. Coltrane in 'The Dukes of Hazzard'. He also gave me a really good review of the script.”

After several casting calls and months of filming, Wheeler had converted his 120 pages of home-spun humor into a full-length feature film by late 2008. Post-production took up most of the rest of the time prior to the world premiere in Atlanta on April 19.

“We shot a lot of scenes in Cave Spring, and several in Centre,” Wheeler said. “The Spring Creek volunteer fire department helped us with a big scene. We also shot in Forney, at John's Crossroads, and at the old Hardin School store.”

“The Dixie Times” tells the story of an aspiring small-town newspaper reporter who stumbles across a series of major crimes.

The discovery eventually garners national attention and notoriety for many of the film's characters—among them a desperate farmer in danger of losing his tractor to the bank, a self-obsessed police dispatcher, a local moonshiner-turned-sheriff, and several other hilarious, often semi-nefarious characters.

“Most Hollywood films about the rural South are inaccurate,” Wheeler said. “I wanted an accurate movie about the rural South.”

On Saturday, May 25, Wheeler is offering people in the part of the world that inspired him to make “The Dixie Times” a chance to see what he believes is a film that will appeal to just about anyone with a drawl and a decent sense of humor.

Wheeler will present two showings of “The Dixie Times” at the Hearn Academy in Rolater Park in Cave Spring, at 5:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. (EDT).

Tickets are $10 each and a portion of the proceeds will be used to help restore the Green Hotel on Broad Street, revealed a few years ago to consist partly of a rare, two-story log cabin possibly built by the Cherokee Indians in the 1830s.

“I've always had a great love for Cave Spring and when I found out about the cabin, I was thrilled,” Wheeler said. “We started talking to the Historical Society about helping them with funding to restore the cabin.”

Wheeler said a portion of ticket proceeds, along with money raised from the sale of concessions, T-shirts and movie posters will go to the Green Hotel/Log Cabin Committee.

For anyone who can't make it to Cave Spring Saturday night, don't worry. Wheeler is working on a way to get everyone their own copy of “The Dixie Times.”

“Within a year we hope to have a national distribution deal and hopefully a worldwide deal,” Wheeler said. “Redneck movies really go over well, especially if they are accurate and not corny. The accuracy of this movie is what makes it hilarious.”