Filmmaker’s documentary could include local stories
By Eric Johnson
When Richmond County Deputy JD Paugh was shot and killed after stopping behind a vehicle on the Bobby Jones Expressway on October 23, 2011, the CSRA’s law enforcement community was forced to deal with a tragedy. That tragedy was sadly repeated two months later, when Aiken Department of Public Safety officer Scotty Richardson was shot and
killed after stopping a suspicious vehicle and then again in January, when Aiken’s Corporal Sandy Rogers was shot and killed while investigating a suspicious vehicle.
Three local law enforcement deaths within three months produces an awful lot of anguish for an awful lot of people, many of whom struggle for appropriate ways to express it.
This Thursday, May 10, a California filmmaker will be in Augusta raising money for his documentary about fallen law enforcement officers, and members of the local law enforcement family, who are still coming to terms with the tragedy, want to make sure Paugh, Richardson and Rogers are included and that their legacy lives long after the headlines fade.
There are many ways to heal, and maybe preserving the memory and sharing the loss is one of them.
Local businessman and reserve police officer Lewis Blanchard hopes the fundraiser — a Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ concert at the Country Club Dance Hall and Saloon, with all proceeds going toward the movie project and a local support group — succeeds at raising awareness for the movie and increases the chance that the three stories can be shared with a larger audience.
“I just wanted to do whatever we needed to do in our area to make sure our fallen officers were included,” Blanchard says. “I wanted to make sure we helped them raise enough funds that they put our area on one of their production stops so that our people would be involved.”
The film, called “Fallen” (fallenproject.com), is being funded primarily through donations from the law enforcement community. Its director, Sergeant Thomas Marchese, is a narcotics specialist and tactical team leader for the Soledad Police Department in California, whose interest in photography lead him to filmmaking and whose closeness to the subject matter lead to this film.
“With the rise in officer deaths in the last few years, it just seemed the logical direction for me to go,” Marchese says. “These officers get a little smidgen of coverage and then they’re forgotten about forever.”
According to Marchese, firearm-related officer killings have risen by 40 percent over the last two years and overall officer deaths have risen by 50 percent.
Though the film will focus on this rise in officer deaths, it’s going to deal primarily with the effect the deaths have on the officer’s partners, families and loved ones.
“It’s basically going to be built around interviews with the family members and the partners and the people that were involved,” Marchese says. “Everyone deals with this kind of thing in different ways, and while some people don’t want anything to do with it, other people need to get their stories out.”
Such a film wouldn’t have been feasible just a few years ago, but the affordability of quality digital video cameras has revolutionized filmmaking and allowed talented amateurs like Marchese the ability to jump into the Big Leagues. He’s already thinking about entering film festivals and finding a distributor.
“The tools available to filmmakers now are so affordable that you can actually make a top-quality film for an absolute fraction of what you could have done it for just five years ago,” he says. “Now, you can have a set up where you can actually go out and make a studio-quality film if you have $20,000 worth of gear, so it’s pretty amazing.”
This is Marchese’s first film, however, and while most first-time filmmakers have the luxury of operating with little or no expectations, Marchese is asking very committed people to fund a very serious project that hits very close to home for an awful lot of people.
If Marchese feels the pressure, he doesn’t seem too worried about it.
“First of all, documentary filmmaking is a lot different than narrative, fictional filmmaking, so the learning curve isn’t quite as steep,” he explains. “If you have the proper gear, you’re basically going to go out and capture a story. The vast majority of this film is going to be interview based, which is a lot different than going out with a script and building a narrative visual story.”
The real challenge, he says, is going to be in the editing room, and while he was initially concerned with approaching friends and family members in the wake of their loss, finding willing participants hasn’t been a problem.
“Over the course of the last five months or so in doing our fundraising and getting the word out, we’ve had dozens of families contact us wanting to be involved,” he says.
While that involvement has been on a national scale, that same sense of solidarity has been mirrored throughout the CSRA, which has experienced an outpouring of gratitude directed at law enforcement since the shootings.
“That’s something that’s had a huge wow effect on me — the fact that there’s so much community support out there for the emergency services,” says Chris Chavous, an Aiken County Sheriff’s Deputy who established Support 1, a nonprofit support organization for emergency workers. “Even though a lot of it is probably due to the three incidents, the awareness is huge in the community as a whole. I can throw out countless organizations that have stepped up for minor little requests to huge requests like for our golf tournament.”
His inaugural golf tournament, held last Monday to raise the initial money for the organization, earned well over the $5,000 he was striving for.
Chavous, who has been a firefighter for 19 years, a police officer for 13 and had five years in 911 communications before that, has experienced a number of traumatic incidents that culminated when Sergeant Jason Sheppard was killed directing traffic at an industrial fire in Aiken in December 2006. The two were promoted together, and Chavous helped do CPR on Sheppard, who died later that night.
After the incident, Chavous participated in some of the support elements that were in place from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Assistance Program. Eight months later he was involved in a nonfatal shooting of a suspect who stabbed a deputy.
“Basically, the next year, I went through different training and awareness classes,” he says. “I saw some of the changes that can take place when you go through a traumatic event like that. I went through the training to the point where I was actually interested in becoming a peer team member for the State of South Carolina.”
He became a critical incident stress manager and now helps counsel police officers around the state who are involved in similar incidents. In doing so, he discovered that while law enforcement was fairly well taken care of, fire departments and EMS departments were often left to fend for themselves, so he created Support 1 as a group that can help counsel all emergency response providers. The organization also provides financial assistance to families of killed or injured personnel.
Chavous says he has six members who are prepared to do debriefings and defusings for departments who go through critical incidents like the one Aiken experienced when Scotty Richardson was killed. Such incidents affect more than just those immediately involved.
“It affected the entire shift,” he said. “The shift, the whole crew of dispatchers and about half their firefighters, who were very close to him.”
The debriefing process is painful, but necessary.
“You sit around and discuss it,” he says. “You might shed a tear or two and you talk about your feelings, which is something a lot of though guys don’t like doing, but when you do it with each other, with people who have walked the walk and are feeling the same way you’re feeling, it actually tends to go pretty far and it helps you get through it a little easier. It’s not a cure all and it’s not a catch all, but it does help make it a little easier.”
Chavous’ next big event is the Bikes and Cages Memorial Ride sponsored by the Defenders Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club. The 72-mile ride will go from Aiken Tech, visit some of the graves of Aiken officers who have been killed in the last few years, to Wagener where Jason Sheppard is buried, and then back to Aiken Tech for a full afternoon of vendors, food and music.
And while a portion of Thursday’s Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ concert will go to Support 1, he says he wants to make sure it’s the movie and the memory of the three victims that get the exposure.
Marchese will be at the event, and though he hopes to meet many of those close to the fallen officers, he says the official interviews will come at a later time.
“We’re not going to have all our gear, but we’re planning on updating some kind of video blog,” he says. “We’ll have a second trip that we’ll do for production.”
Benefit Concert for the Fallen Project and Support 1 featuring Drivin’ N’ Cryin’
The Country Club Dance Hall and Saloon
Thursday, May 10
Doors open at 8 p.m.
$20
For more information visit metrospirit.comYou Might Also Like:
The film, called “Fallen” (fallenproject.com), is being funded primarily through donations from the law enforcement community. Its director, Sergeant Thomas Marchese, is a narcotics specialist and tactical team leader for the Soledad Police Department in California, whose interest in photography lead him to filmmaking and whose closeness to the subject matter lead to this film.
“With the rise in officer deaths in the last few years, it just seemed the logical direction for me to go,” Marchese says. “These officers get a little smidgen of coverage and then they’re forgotten about forever.”
According to Marchese, firearm-related officer killings have risen by 40 percent over the last two years and overall officer deaths have risen by 50 percent.
Though the film will focus on this rise in officer deaths, it’s going to deal primarily with the effect the deaths have on the officer’s partners, families and loved ones.
“It’s basically going to be built around interviews with the family members and the partners and the people that were involved,” Marchese says. “Everyone deals with this kind of thing in different ways, and while some people don’t want anything to do with it, other people need to get their stories out.”
Such a film wouldn’t have been feasible just a few years ago, but the affordability of quality digital video cameras has revolutionized filmmaking and allowed talented amateurs like Marchese the ability to jump into the Big Leagues. He’s already thinking about entering film festivals and finding a distributor.
“The tools available to filmmakers now are so affordable that you can actually make a top-quality film for an absolute fraction of what you could have done it for just five years ago,” he says. “Now, you can have a set up where you can actually go out and make a studio-quality film if you have $20,000 worth of gear, so it’s pretty amazing.”
This is Marchese’s first film, however, and while most first-time filmmakers have the luxury of operating with little or no expectations, Marchese is asking very committed people to fund a very serious project that hits very close to home for an awful lot of people.
If Marchese feels the pressure, he doesn’t seem too worried about it.
“First of all, documentary filmmaking is a lot different than narrative, fictional filmmaking, so the learning curve isn’t quite as steep,” he explains. “If you have the proper gear, you’re basically going to go out and capture a story. The vast majority of this film is going to be interview based, which is a lot different than going out with a script and building a narrative visual story.”
The real challenge, he says, is going to be in the editing room, and while he was initially concerned with approaching friends and family members in the wake of their loss, finding willing participants hasn’t been a problem.
“Over the course of the last five months or so in doing our fundraising and getting the word out, we’ve had dozens of families contact us wanting to be involved,” he says.
While that involvement has been on a national scale, that same sense of solidarity has been mirrored throughout the CSRA, which has experienced an outpouring of gratitude directed at law enforcement since the shootings.
“That’s something that’s had a huge wow effect on me — the fact that there’s so much community support out there for the emergency services,” says Chris Chavous, an Aiken County Sheriff’s Deputy who established Support 1, a nonprofit support organization for emergency workers. “Even though a lot of it is probably due to the three incidents, the awareness is huge in the community as a whole. I can throw out countless organizations that have stepped up for minor little requests to huge requests like for our golf tournament.”
His inaugural golf tournament, held last Monday to raise the initial money for the organization, earned well over the $5,000 he was striving for.
Chavous, who has been a firefighter for 19 years, a police officer for 13 and had five years in 911 communications before that, has experienced a number of traumatic incidents that culminated when Sergeant Jason Sheppard was killed directing traffic at an industrial fire in Aiken in December 2006. The two were promoted together, and Chavous helped do CPR on Sheppard, who died later that night.
After the incident, Chavous participated in some of the support elements that were in place from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Assistance Program. Eight months later he was involved in a nonfatal shooting of a suspect who stabbed a deputy.
“Basically, the next year, I went through different training and awareness classes,” he says. “I saw some of the changes that can take place when you go through a traumatic event like that. I went through the training to the point where I was actually interested in becoming a peer team member for the State of South Carolina.”
He became a critical incident stress manager and now helps counsel police officers around the state who are involved in similar incidents. In doing so, he discovered that while law enforcement was fairly well taken care of, fire departments and EMS departments were often left to fend for themselves, so he created Support 1 as a group that can help counsel all emergency response providers. The organization also provides financial assistance to families of killed or injured personnel.
Chavous says he has six members who are prepared to do debriefings and defusings for departments who go through critical incidents like the one Aiken experienced when Scotty Richardson was killed. Such incidents affect more than just those immediately involved.
“It affected the entire shift,” he said. “The shift, the whole crew of dispatchers and about half their firefighters, who were very close to him.”
The debriefing process is painful, but necessary.
“You sit around and discuss it,” he says. “You might shed a tear or two and you talk about your feelings, which is something a lot of though guys don’t like doing, but when you do it with each other, with people who have walked the walk and are feeling the same way you’re feeling, it actually tends to go pretty far and it helps you get through it a little easier. It’s not a cure all and it’s not a catch all, but it does help make it a little easier.”
Chavous’ next big event is the Bikes and Cages Memorial Ride sponsored by the Defenders Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club. The 72-mile ride will go from Aiken Tech, visit some of the graves of Aiken officers who have been killed in the last few years, to Wagener where Jason Sheppard is buried, and then back to Aiken Tech for a full afternoon of vendors, food and music.
And while a portion of Thursday’s Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ concert will go to Support 1, he says he wants to make sure it’s the movie and the memory of the three victims that get the exposure.
Marchese will be at the event, and though he hopes to meet many of those close to the fallen officers, he says the official interviews will come at a later time.
“We’re not going to have all our gear, but we’re planning on updating some kind of video blog,” he says. “We’ll have a second trip that we’ll do for production.”
Benefit Concert for the Fallen Project and Support 1 featuring Drivin’ N’ Cryin’
The Country Club Dance Hall and Saloon
Thursday, May 10
Doors open at 8 p.m.
$20
For more information visit metrospirit.comYou Might Also Like:
