{"id":6006,"date":"2012-08-02T09:01:22","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T13:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=6006"},"modified":"2012-08-09T08:35:08","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T12:35:08","slug":"caught-on-film-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2012\/08\/caught-on-film-13\/","title":{"rendered":"CAUGHT ON FILM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film.small_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film.small_.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Film.small\" width=\"80\" height=\"82\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6008\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Writer-Director Rob Underhill<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>by Margot C. Lester<\/em><br \/>\nFilmmaker Rob Underhill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest project is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sci-fi featurette\u00e2\u20ac\u009d based on the Carrington Event. <!--more-->No, not that first epic catfight between Alexis Carrington and Krystle Carrington on Dynasty \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking a full-on solar flare and resulting electromagnetic pulse (EMP) like the preppers have been warning us about. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In 1859 a tremendous solar flare exploded from our sun, the coronal mass ejection on collision course for Earth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Underhill recounts. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The cloud of charged particles was so powerful that the American telegraph system was sent offline and even set machines on fire. In newspaper accounts people all over the country claimed they could read by the light of the Northern Lights that stretched across the sky all the way to the equator.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6009\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6009\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film2.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Film2\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6009\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film2.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film2-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6009\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A funeral-home scene from writer-director Rob Underhill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first feature, Still Life, which he completed in 2009. Photo courtesy of Rob Underhill<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nUnderhill and Larry Gardner co-wrote <em>The Carrington Event<\/em>, inspired by a 2005 NASA report predicting that a similar \u00e2\u20ac\u0153event\u00e2\u20ac\u009d today would be catastrophic. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What if a solar super-storm as powerful as the historic Carrington Event happened today? We take you there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Underhill explains. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We make it very personal by concentrating on a family on the outskirts of a large Southern town. No electricity. And without electricity there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no water from the tap, no gas from gas stations. All communications go down. Phones do not work, no TVs, no radio signals. The family has to figure out what is happening in time to switch to survival mode. In little time, the all-essentials \u00e2\u20ac\u201c food, water, gas \u00e2\u20ac\u201c run out or become inaccessible, and a life-and-death struggle is close behind.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Learn more at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aravinddp.org\/tce\/\">TheCarringtonEvent.com<\/a>) <\/p>\n<p>You may know Underhill from one or all of his three films on Emmett Till, two of which \u00e2\u20ac\u201c <em>Empty Space<\/em> and <em>Wolf Call<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have won a combined 23 festival awards, including Best Actor and Audience Choice awards at the <strong>Carrboro Film Festival<\/strong>. <em>Wolf Call<\/em> received a 2012 Black Reel Award for Outstanding Short Film nomination. The third, <em>DAR HE: The Lynching of Emmett Till<\/em>, has won six<br \/>\nBest Film awards on the festival circuit. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I grew up in Michigan. I knew a lot about Nazi Germany and the persecution of the Jewish populations in World War II. I had never known the story, or that it is considered by some as the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcspark\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 that ignited the civil rights movement in America,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Underhill says of the murder at the center of these works. <\/p>\n<p>Making sure others knew \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was the impetus for the first film. The others were products of the momentum and Underhill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deepening exploration of the story and the people involved in it.<\/p>\n<p>For Underhill, depicting historical events is more than just good storytelling.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I love telling history because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only way to learn and do one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part in helping us not repeat terrible things in human history. It was important for me to do my part in educating a new generation of people. By showing the past actions and consequences, this is how we keep history from repeating itself,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asserts.<\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of his mission for <em>The Carrington Event<\/em> too. The film warns about the dangers of an electric-dependant society vulnerable to real solar events that, he says, could be sent back to the dark ages with a strong enough solar super-storm.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6010\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6010\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Film1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Film1\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6010\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6010\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rob Underhill gives instructions to Ronnie Cruz during production of Inspection, a short film he wrote\/directed in 2005. Photo courtesy of Rob Underhill <\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was on a radio interview with EMPact Radio recently and the moderator put it like this: We can have all the high-profile scientific panels decree time and again that we need to protect our electric grid from a Carrington Event-like happening, but no action will happen unless the people get behind it. Like it or not, he said, a popular television show will spur action far more effectively than all the top scientists telling us something needs to be done.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nCheck out Underhill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work, including trailers for all his films, at <a href=\"http:\/\/robunderhill.wix.com\/index#!home\/mainPage\">robunderhill.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Carrboro Film Festival Deadline<\/strong><br \/>\nThe early-bird deadline for submitting shorts to the <strong>Carrboro Film Festival<\/strong> is Aug. 20. The submission fee is $10\/film for filmmakers 19 and older and $5 for filmmakers 18 and under. After Aug. 20, rates increase by $5.<br \/>\nDetails: <a href=\"http:\/\/carrborofilmfestival.com\/submit12.shtml\">bit.ly\/Submit2CFF7<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writer-Director Rob Underhill by Margot C. Lester Filmmaker Rob Underhill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest project is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sci-fi featurette\u00e2\u20ac\u009d based on the Carrington Event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6006"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6057,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6006\/revisions\/6057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}