Film company debuts doc series

First stop: Waynesboro. The next stop: public television? That’s the goal of an upstart Waynesboro filmmaking company.

“Basically what we want to do is find a way for our films to be seen by people,” said Mark Miller, the director of photography at Alpha Vision Films, which premiered its “Truth on the Table” documentary film series Wednesday night at the Waynesboro Country Club.

More than 80 invited guests took in the four short features with a common theme – the efforts of people far and wide to reconnect with the rural roots of life in the Shenandoah Valley.

Alpha Vision Films has been producing original dramatic films, and turned its attention to documentary films as a way, according to director and producer James Overton, to “sharpen” the team’s skillset.

“Truth on the Table” series creator Theresa Reynolds Curry has been a spearhead to the effort – coming up with ideas and lending her skills as a veteran journalist to interviews.

“One of the things that I love about journalism, and particularly feature writing, which is what I do, is everybody really has a story,” Curry said.

The films are another way to tell a story, said Curry.

The focus at Alpha Vision Films is to get the attention of public broadcasters like WVPT to provide an medium through which the company’s documentaries can see the light of day.

“If we can get ‘The Truth on the Table’ in some kind of programming position on public television, it may be years before we see any kind of economic compensation for any of that work. But this is the kind of thing that opens doors for you, looks really good on a filmmaker’s resume, to have that kind of association,” Overton said.

Alpha Vision Films to premiere documentary series

A local film company will be rolling out the red carpet this week for the premiere of a series of documentary films focusing on life in the Shenandoah Valley.

“This is a showcase for us to get our work out in front of the local community,” said James Overton, a local musician and the principal in Alpha Vision Films, a film company that he founded in 2010.

The premiere of the Alpha Vision Films “The Truth on the Table” series is set for Wednesday, Dec. 28, at the Waynesboro Country Club. The AVF team includes Overton, who organizes and hosts a twice-monthly film-appreciation series through the Classic Cinema Club, and CCC members Mark Miller and Theresa Reynolds Curry.

Alpha Vision Films grew out from the Classic Cinema Club as club members decided to try to experiment with filmmaking techniques that they had discussed and dissected in club screenings.

The film company first tried its hand at dramatic feature films, putting together short films such as “Last Call,” a piece examining an interaction between a man and a woman at a local bar, and “A Visit from Annie,” an experimental piece chronicling a visit from a long-dead family member on an important anniversary day.

In recent months Alpha Vision Films has turned its attention to documentary films, at the behest of Miller, an award-winning newspaper and magazine photographer, and Curry, an award-winning writer and food critic.

Overton said the idea to go into documentary filmmaking appealed to him at first “mainly because I wanted to keep the camera rolling between projects.”

It didn’t take long for the group to see how the documentary genre would stretch them creatively and have an impact as well on their dramatic features.

In a documentary, “there’s always something going on,” said Overton. Somebody is talking, somebody is meeting, somebody is illustrating a point. In dramatic features, there’s a more cinematic approach. “There are times when the image is just lingering there for a little while. You’re letting the viewer soak it in. You’re creating a mood.”

“The Truth on the Table” series includes films on local author Lynn Coffey, an Augusta County farm harvest, an in-depth look at native Virginia grains and a spotlight on the Virginia Agritourism Festival.