Bumper Crop! Film Series at museum features student's film

By Brandy McDonnell

Published: August 15, 2008

Mark Potts' first feature filmmaking experience involved a broken-down van, an 18-hour trek from Austin, Texas, to Norman and a maxed-out credit card.

But the University of Oklahoma graduate student couldn't be happier with the result: "The Stanton Family Grave Robbery,” a darkly comic road trip movie screening Aug. 22 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

The film is part of Bumper Crop!, a series of six recent Oklahoma-produced independent films the museum is showing in collaboration with the Oklahoma Film & Music Office, deadCENTER Film and Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. The series will run Thursday-Aug. 24, and each screening will include a question-and-answer session with the filmmakers.

"Oklahoma has definitely demonstrated an increase in its independent filmmaking talent over the last few years. This year in particular has been a breakout year for both the quality and quantity of narrative and documentary films,” the museum's film curator, Brian Hearn, said in an e-mail.

The series also includes the murder mystery "Unsolved”; filmmaker Brad Beesley's documentary sequel "Okie Noodling II”; singer Matthew Alvin Brown's rock musical "Rainbow around the Sun”; and a documentary double-feature of "Art 365” and "Twelve.”

"Oklahoma filmmakers have unique stories to tell,” said Jill Simpson, director of the state Film & Music Office, in an e-mail.

In "The Stanton Family Grave Robbery,” Potts and his college mates tell the tale of three brothers who try to smuggle the remains of their recently deceased father, a lifelong OU fan, out of Texas and into Oklahoma for a proper burial.

Potts came up with the idea two summers ago, when his parents moved to Hutto, Texas. His father said he would still like to be buried in Oklahoma when he dies, though it costs big bucks to move a body across state lines.

"I just made that comment, ‘I'll throw you in the back of my Jeep ... and take you up myself,' ” Potts said. "He said, ‘That's illegal,' and in my head that's exactly when it hit that this might be a good movie.”

Potts and longtime friend Cole Selix, who had made several short films, decided to turn the idea into their first feature film. With Potts directing, he and Selix produced the film and co-wrote it with Kevin Costello. Selix, Costello and William Brand Rackley play the Stanton brothers.

The crew shot the movie in Norman, Oklahoma City, Enid and Austin, with a budget of $3,000 that ballooned to $5,500 after automotive mishaps.

"We had to buy a van for the movie, and at one point the air conditioner went out, which we were fine with, but then a few days later the engine broke basically. So, I had to apply for a credit card to fix it. And I maxed out my very first credit card I ever got right away,” Potts said with a laugh.

They were returning from a shoot in Austin when the van broke down. After they got it fixed, the head gasket blew, forcing them to drive 45 mph back to Norman.

"During the whole debacle of the van, we actually rewrote the ending,” he said. "It really improved the movie.”

"The whole point in making this was just so people could see it,” he said. "We kind of just wanted to be like, ‘Here's what we can do with $5,500. Do you have double that so we can make another one?'”

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