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PrintGet the picture: Welcome to Sunday Town
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey.
“So,” I say, for openers, “why do you call it Sunday Town?”
I was speaking by phone with David Wagoner, creative and marketing director for Sunday Town Productions, which specializes in creative and commercial video as well as feature- and documentary-film production. The company consists, in sum, of Wagoner and his business partner, Elvis Ripley.
Ripley started Sunday Town and Wagoner came aboard after these two met through a mutual colleague a few years ago. Both are 30-somethings who grew up in Tulsa, and both have ample experience in commercial as well as creative filmmaking.
Previously, Wagoner worked as a colorist for DC Comics and a photojournalist in Darfur, Vietnam, Egypt, Thailand and elsewhere. He’s still in the comic book biz, working as the illustrator and co-creator, along with Derik Hefner, of a forthcoming graphic novel, “The Lost Chronicles of Ephraim Grey.”
“Once we get the book out,” Wagoner adds, “Sunday Town will make it into a narrative feature (film).”
Ripley, for his part, has worked on various video editing and production gigs, and began his career assembling motion-video art works. Recently, he served as editor and technical director for the locally produced (and rather bizarro) biopic/documentary “Biker Fox,” which Tulsan Jeremy Lamberton directed.
Over the last several months, “Biker Fox” has been screened at film festivals in New York City, Oklahoma City and Utah. In July, it was shown at Tulsa’s AMC Southroads 20 as well as the Circle Cinema. Sunday Town also handled the audio mastering and post-production for the movie. The film won the Audience Award at the San Francisco Film Festival.
“Well,” Wagoner says, getting back to my opening question, “there are a few different theories out there as to where we came up with the name. My favorite is that we chose ‘Sunday Town’ because we’re based in Tulsa, Okla., and, um, we have a lot of churches here.”
True enough.
Here is the skinny on three projects Sunday Town is working on:
“The Dowry of the Meek”
This doc profiles a man named Hoa Stone, a Vietnam War orphan who was transported to Australia in 1975 via LBJ’s controversial Operation: Babylift. Stone’s life has been one of profound and tragic challenges — among them polio, drug addiction, homelessness and poverty — and yet, as this film reveals, Stone has overcome these trials. He’s returned to his native Vietnam, where he now runs an orphanage called The Company of Grace. This film will be completed near the end of 2010 and will be distributed by Dolphin Bay Films/Black Mesa Entertainment, also a local firm.
“Green Country Red Dirt”
A project that’s still in the funding and pre-production stages, this film will document the development, dispersal and continued influence of Oklahoma music. Employing several in-depth interviews, it will explore where this music that we all know and love (and rightfully take pride in) actually fits in with the music of America — and the world, for that matter. From Woody Guthrie to western swing, from the “Tulsa Sound” to the Tractors, “Green Country Red Dirt” is sure to feature (among other assets) a killer soundtrack. It will likely be completed in early 2012.
“Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey: Ludwig”
Speaking of homegrown music we can take pride in, Tulsa’s Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey (or JFJO) is a progressive/postmodern jazz combo with a healthy following locally, nationally and, indeed, globally. Back in June, at this year’s OK Mozart Festival, JFJO collaborated with the 44-piece Bartlesville Symphony Orchestra to perform reconstructed renditions of Beethoven’s 3rd and 6th symphonies. From rehearsals to performance, Sunday Town captured the entire journey. The feature-length documentary depicting this memorable night in B’ville is being edited now; it will be finished in early November. Then, early next year, the film will “hit the circuit” in a worldwide manner, with as many screenings and film-festival showings as possible. It will also be for sale as a DVD around that time. (Also: Sunday Town and JFJO will put out a two-CD live recording of this concert. Thank goodness.)
“We’ve done a fair amount of commercial and documentary work so far,” says Wagoner, in conclusion. “And more of this is planned for the next couple of years. We’re also planning on doing some music videos, then a narrative feature for the graphic novel I’m working on now and — down the road — we might even look at the gaming market.
“There’s a lot of cross-pollination these days with this stuff. Doing it all under one roof gives us more creative control, more control of our brand.”
Scott Gregory hosts “All This Jazz” on Public Radio 89.5 KWGS, where he’s also the producer and editor of “Studio Tulsa.”
