from the Los Angeles Times

"Dances With Films," by Kevin Crust

A highlight of the seventh Dances With Films festival is "Sinkhole," a rural drama by writer-director Paul Schattel set in a bleak corner of the South. Schattel avoids the usual gothic clichés in depicting a man's downward slide into a previously undetected world of corruption.

Things are already bad for Jason Griffin (Bryan Marshall) when the film opens. He lost his job as a high school teacher when a female student accused him of having an inappropriate relationship with her — a charge he denies — and he is living in a hovel.

Now he's left driving a bulldozer at a landfill, hanging out with his pothead pal, Poppy (J.R. Hooper), and putting up with derisive comments from the people in the small town. Plus, his ex-wife (Kelly O'Neal) is threatening to move to Ohio with their young daughter.

Then things get worse. The body of a young woman turns up at the landfill, and soon Jason is being visited by a mysterious, vaguely threatening man in black making offers that may turn out to be too good to turn down.

Schattel and director of photography Steve Agnew, shooting in 35mm, have created a good-looking, low-budget film with a rusted-out palette that accurately captures the protagonist's state and matches the story's country-noir tone.

From "On Filmmaking," in Filmmaker Magazine

"Southern Comfort," by An Tran

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from Entertainment Today, a weekly Los Angeles magazine

"A True Independent," by Jonah Fule and Brent Simon

Click link above to download pdf file.



from Mountain Xpress, WNC's leading alternative weekly

"Local Film Hits LA," by Lisa Watters

" Many of the cast and crew of the locally-made 35mm feature film Sinkhole were on hand in Los Angeles recently for the film's world premiere at the Dances With Films festival, a showcase for films with "no names, no politics, no bullsh*t."

It was an awesome experience, says director (and one-time Mountain Xpress reporter) Paul Schattel . "People seemed to like [the film]. ... We got a really good review in the LA Times and we got in some other magazines."

Sinkhole was also featured as a work in progress at the inaugural Asheville Film Festival this past November.

"We're officially taking meetings now," he continues with a laugh. "That and 35 cents will buy you a cup of coffee. In and of itself that doesn't mean anything, but at the same time, interest is a good thing."

Any success the film garners will be in large part thanks to the crew, says Schattel. "When you're doing a film for such little money, you basically have to surround yourself with really good people, and I was lucky in the sense that Asheville helped me out, because there's a lot of really talented people around just ready to work on something like this. So I found the best people I could, and enlisted them and used their creativity. A lot of the good ideas came from the crew. It's very definitely a team effort. I was very lucky in that."

For more information about the film, visit www.harrowbeauty.com

from the Mountain Xpress

"Scene Stealers and Hometown Heroes" by Ken Hanke:

[At the Asheville Film Festival] Asheville filmmaker Paul Schattel will screen his work in progress Sinkhole; Bryan Marshall stars in this almost David Lynch-esque story about the corruption that lies beneath the surface of a seemingly normal small town.

Sinkhole, Schattel's first 35mm movie, represents a huge breakthrough for him both technically and thematically. Unabashedly quirky and sometimes disturbing, the film has an unsettling atmosphere that's intensified by Schattel's decision to resurrect (especially at the end) the editing techniques used by such late-1960's directors as Richard Lester and John Boorman.

from Indiewire, the nation's leading independent film news source

"Regional Report: North Carolina Aims For More Docs, Less "Dawson's," by David Fellerath

[T]here is filmmaking to be found in other parts of the state. "All the Real Girls" was shot in the western mountains around Asheville, and the region continues to boast such hard-working indie directors such as Paul Schattel, who has a 35mm feature to his credit called "Sinkhole."

from Mountain Xpress

"So Much for the Afterglow," by Greg Lucas, Executive Director, The Media Arts Project

On Saturday night [Nov. 8], VIPs celebrated the commercial viability for the Asheville Film Festival and Asheville at an awards ceremony in Studio B of Blue Ridge Motion Pictures. Simultaneously, local filmmakers and actors gathered in the Diana Wortham Theatre for an impromptu celebration of local talent after the debut screening of "Sinkhole," a nearly complete feature film directed by Paul Schattel. After the screening, Schattel spoke passionately for 20 minutes, with local actors Bryan Marshall and Robin Spriggs, and director of photography Steve Agnew, about the community involvement and support for the film.

To see such a well-made feature, and to know that it was completed within the budgetary limitations of a native do-it-yourself project, is a testament to the future potential of independent film here. The fact that the screening took place within the space of the film festival is more promising for the future of film in Asheville than anything else.

from the AP Wire

"Communication Breakdown"

In a scene straight out of an Irwin Allen disaster movie, "Communication Breakdown" stars Brian Heffron and Jasmin St. Claire, along with one of the film's producers, Linda Jean Marlowe, were trapped in a non-air conditioned elevator inside the Hotel Carmel in Santa Monica, California, for over half an hour Friday night. They were freed when Santa Monica police and fire department personnel arrived on the scene. Also in the elevator at the time were director Paul Schattel and actors Bryan Marshall and Tera Kirk (from the acclaimed independent film "Sinkhole"). The group had just returned from dinner following the world premiere of Schattel's flick at the Dances With Films festival when the incident occurred.

from the Asheville Citizen-Times

"Grace Notes: Musicians, sound technicians discuss the role of music in film" by Paul Clark:

Music in film is most effectively used when it is subtle, said Paul Schattel, an Arden resident whose 35mm feature film "Sinkhole" is paired in melancholy mood with the guilt-doubt-redemtion songs of alt-country artist Richard Buckner.

"For an adventurous filmmaker, [music] can be counterpoint," Schattel said. "'A Clockwork Orange' is a perfect example, where a woman is savagely beaten while "Singin' In The Rain" is sung in the background."

Much of the story in "Sinkhole" is advanced by music that local composer Jason Smith created. "Paul had an idea of the textures he wanted when he came to me," Smith said. "He wanted a more brooding, more organic feel, so the music is not really 'songs' per se. I used alot of "ebow" stuff, which is a thing you put on a guitar that gives it a sort of delay.

"You definitely hear the music, but you're not aware of it. Each character has a [musical] theme, so when you hear it again, you may associate it with them. I've watched rough cuts where music hasn't been a part, and it's like watching a different film."

from the Asheville Film Festival guidebook

Schattel's bio as one of the festival judges:

Paul Schattel is the screenwriter, producer, and director of Sinkhole, a 35mm feature film shot entirely on location in and around Asheville. Having first gained local notoriety with the early digital feature 78, Schattel has worked as a journalist, teacher, multimedia producer, cameraman, editor and commercial director. Approaching filmmaking with an unusually literary style, Schattel is working to help turn Asheville into the next Austin, TX.

from the Asheville Citizen-Times

A sidebar from an article about the Asheville Film Festival:

"The Asheville Film Festival is full of good film, and one of them is Paul Schattel's "Sinkhole," a movie shot around Asheville that details the dark underbelly of small-town corruption and intrigue. See Buncombe County Commissioner David Gantt as crooked Commissioner Whitley. "

from Richard O'Sullivan's film webblog

"'Sinkhole' Trailer Now Online":

The trailer for 'Sinkhole,' the much-anticipated feature debut from North Carolina Writer/Producer/Director Paul Schattel can now be viewed online at
www.harrowbeauty.com.

'Sinkhole' is a dark, gritty drama which follows the misfortunes of a disgraced schoolteacher in a rural mountain town. Compared to such filmmakers as John Sayles and Larry Clark, Schattel is a true find as a director, as he paints a bleak yet moving picture of lost souls traveling down a unavoidably tragic path. The film, shot in and around Asheville, N.C., stars Bryan Marshall, Robin Spriggs, J.R. Hooper, Kelly O'Neal, and Patrick Green.

And just because, dammit:

"White Noise: Local honky-tonkers White Heat pay their respects"

Paul Schattel's original article about Bryan Marshall's band White Heat, from 1999. (And anyone paying attention will note that there is more in common with this article and Sinkhole than simply Schattel's and Marshall's participation.)

Though it's undoubtedly popular in terms of cash flow and "units" sold, country music may be the most misunderstood art form in America today. Mocked and marginalized by the urban cultural elite, it's the last social phenomenon about which blatantly racist and classist epithets – such as "white trash" and "trailer trash" – are tossed around by even the haplessly politically correct. And in a world where the suburban insolence of artists like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock is seen as the true soundtrack of the time, listening to country music – let alone playing the older style your father used to enjoy – is probably as far off the "hip" barometer as you can get. Which, for some musicians, is entirely the point.

The members of Asheville's White Heat play country music – that is, they play the old stuff, without irony. And though pedal-steel guitars and laments about lost highways and my-baby-done-me-wrong have been somewhat rediscovered lately (due to the recent surge of so-called "No Depression" bands around the country), White Heat is not part of some zeitgeist-chasing "Johnny Clash" bandwagon. The band possesses an in-the-bones sincerity that only the truth can provide. Pedal-steel player Scott Murray puts it this way: "I try to play the steel breaks exactly how I hear them. There's just no way I'm going to improve on the original."

Lead singer/rhythm guitarist Bryan Marshall agrees. "We take it pretty seriously," he says. "We'll play a Buck Owens song or a Merle Haggard song pretty much the same way they did it. We feel ... strongly about that sound."

"That sound" is late-'50s/early-'60s honky-tonk – trucking songs and drinking songs, heavy on the pedal steel and Bakersfield treble and twang – evoking a time when men wore flat tops and women sported bouffants, when you'd get the Beatles on one station and Lefty Frizzell on another (and the jury was still out on which of the two was truly more influential). It was a time before "country" had become "countrypolitan" – when high-haired women like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette were standing by and up to their men (men like George Jones, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Dave Dudley, Jim Ed Brown and Harlan Howard).

White Heat started out inauspiciously enough, when Murray caught Marshall singing Hank Williams' "Lost Highway" last December at a local open-mike session. Then Jamie Sterling – former drummer for the now-defunct local psycho-blues power trio The Merle – joined up, bringing former Merle guitarist and front man Chris Geer along to make things even more interesting. And with laconic bassist Dave Gay – who also does time with the celebrated dark-country combo Freakwater – on board, White Heat found themselves instantly elevated somewhere near the level of a local supergroup.

Quiet and self-deprecating, though, the band goes out of its way to pay respects to country music's legends – announcing the original performer of each and every cover tune in their live shows. That's changing some, however, as the band unveils more original tunes. "We try to give credit where it' due," says Murray, grinning. "But we like it when our originals sound like the [older] songs."

So far, most of the originals have come from Geer – some written recently, some retooled from The Merle days. "Chris already has an incredible backlog of songs," Murray reports. "It's just a matter of picking out which ones work best for our purposes."

"A couple of The Merle's songs were written as country before they were done as rock songs, anyway," Sterling confirms.

White Heat takes a fairly laid-back attitude toward the kitschier aspects of their chosen genre – the straw-in-the-mouth, hillbilly-gothic, Jethro Bodean-on-crank mannerisms that a growing contingent of bands of a similar ilk (think Southern Culture on the Skids) seem all-too-eager to flaunt. "A lot of those guys come off as more kitschy than they really are," Murray offers generously. "I think their intentions are probably more pure than they seem."

Still, there's a sense that what the kitsch bands and what White Heat are doing are two very different things. Says Sterling: "Personally, I don't appreciate people making fun of this tradition. Everyone's got their hair slicked back, or they're all dressed alike. ... There's something sort of artificial about it." Bassist Kevin Sluder, who fills in when Gay is on tour with Freakwater, is less diplomatic: "If you listen to those people play," he says, "they're not nearly the caliber of musicians who play it for real."

In the end, though, White Heat seem less interested in what everyone else is doing than in what they're doing: celebrating the music, the culture and the mythologies of "that sound" – the broken hearts, late-night roadhouses and highway dreams of a once-pervasive culture, now forgotten by most of the nation.

The irony of that is not lost on them, however. "We're in a weird place, playing 'older' country music," Murray says. "I mean, do you even call it country? As soon as you say it's country music, so many people think 'Darth' Brooks or something." Hell, what's the sense in fencing off traditional country, anyway? Isn't it really just American music, after all?

-----------------

Sinkhole Press Release

For Immedate Release:
March 10, 2003

Sinkhole is a 35mm feature film written, produced and directed by Paul Schattel.

Detailing the dark underbelly of small town corruption and intrigue, Sinkhole tells the story of Jason Griffin, a one-time high school English teacher dismissed due to suspected romantic relations with an underage student. When Jason, now working at the local landfill, discovers something disturbing among the refuse, he sets in motion a chain of events that can end only in violence and emotional devastation.

“Sinkhole was written when I was working as a journalist covering the local county commission,” says Schattel. “I had a close insider’s view of the surprisingly vicious local political intrigue going on. That, and some investigative research involving small-town methamphetamine activity – the nightmare drug of the heartland – coalesced into the film we shot this winter. We like to think of it as a thinking man’s thriller.”

To bring life to these sometimes unsavory characters, Schattel assembled a talented cast of local professional actors, including Bryan Marshall as Jason, Robin Spriggs as Alfonse, J.R. Hooper as Poppy, Kelly O’Neal as Pris, and Patrick Green as Bob White. Among the crew are Director of Photography Steve Agnew, 1st AC Greg Hudgins, Production Designer Pearson Hobart-Beaumari, and Art Director Linda Jean Marlowe.

“I took the time to assemble just the right team of people,” says Schattel. “The modest budget dictated that we would all have to be very determined to get everything right – effectively substituting talent, time and persistence for the lack of money. The cast and crew have risen to the occasion, though, and I’m pleased to say we’ve got a great film on our hands.”

Schattel is also surprised at the help he’s received from the local community. “Because of the difficult nature of the subject matter, we’ve had some resistance to acquiring locations and things here and there. But on the whole, Asheville has been more than kind to us. Particularly helpful has been local restaurant community, the Asheville Police Force, and Blue Ridge Motion Pictures.

Sinkhole was in production throughout Winter and Spring 2003, with a projected arrival date of Fall 2003. For more information, contact Paul Schattel at (828) 681-8441, email pschattel@harrowbeauty.com.