Past Filmmakers

Jim Sharkey
The Fourteenth Shop 49:05:00

1. How did you come up with the idea for the film?

I had heard about the McCanless family shortly after I first visited Seagrove. I heard they did a lot of crystalline pottery and I thought that would be interesting to do something on a family who did that type of pottery. But, not only that, I also heard they were great musicians. So, the combination of crystalline and music made me think I should really get in touch with them and see if they'd want to do a documentary and so I went down one day and asked if they'd like to do it and they said that would be fine.

2.  How long did the production process take?

I think I shot for about six weeks. But it wasn't six weeks solid. Mostly half days, in the mornings and afternoons. Then it took about three months to transcribe all the footage and start putting it together. I started shooting sometime in April 2001 and finished in December 2001.

3.  What challenges did you experience in the creation of the film?

I was working with a new editing machine and it was giving me some problems syncing up the video with the audio but I eventually got that worked out and other than that there is nothing that held me up. Shooting it was easy. It was just a nice time down there.

4. What is your favorite memory from creating the film?

Sometime near the end of taping we had a great music session in the McCanlesses house. We started playing around 5 pm and ended up around midnight. We did take a break in between to go to a restaurant in Seagrove around 8 o'clock. Then it was back again to play some more music. That's one thing I remember most.

5.  When someone has finished watching the film, what do you hope they take away form the experience?

I hope they go to Seagrove and buy a bunch of pottery! Actually, Will said two tour buses visited them once and one of the buses had a tape of The Fourteenth Shop playing on the way down to the pottery shop. The other bus was going to watch the tape on the way back from the pottery shop. All the folks on the first bus were so familiar with the individual McCanlesses after viewing the tape that they bought twice as much pottery as the people on the second bus who hadn't gotten to view it yet. So, I hope that happens again. The purpose and intent of the documentary was not to sell pottery but to get to know this family. But once you know them you do want to take a piece of their creations with you. For me, that's what I like best about pottery. The pottery can stand on its own and is beautiful in every way, but it's no where near as beautiful as when you know the people who made it.

6. What type of reaction has your film received from viewers?

People who like pottery, or art in general, really like it. Others who don't know much about pottery like it a lot too for a variety of reasons. The documentaries I do depict everyday, interesting people going about their lives like us all, trying to do the best they can. Nothing momentous or life altering ever really happens. Or if it does it's treated with no more or no less significance than other events. They're like having little hour long visits with people you'd like to get to know more about.

7. What advice would you give to aspiring young filmmakers?

I really don't have any good general advice beyond the obvious. But if any young filmmaker wanted to ask me anything they're welcome to email me at jsharkeys@netscape.net I'll try and help in any way I can. One thing I would say about doing documentaries like these is that you shouldn't expect to make a living doing them. Only a lucky, or very talented, few can do that. You have to want to do them. I was at a conference in Boston last March and met some documentary filmmakers and they all agreed that financially making documentaries was not very rewarding. And these were very talented, experienced filmmakers. However, I do believe there's a lot of things that are not financially rewarding in this life but that are extremely rewarding in other ways. Some of those ways you might never even know about.

8. Please tell us about the next film you plan to work on?

I'm not sure what I'll work on next. I'd like to do something on the Irish in Maine. A lot of the original immigrants walked from Canada down to Bangor, Maine because the immigrant ships weren't allowed to dock in Maine for fear of disease. So, the Irish took off walking south from Canada and landed in Bangor to work in the woods harvesting lumber. But I don't know when I'll be able to start that. I'm working on getting a Masters so I can teach High School. I want to teach history and hopefully set up a video/film production club or class at the school I teach in and continue doing stuff like this through teaching younger people.

9. What are your thoughts on the film industry in North Carolina?

I don't really know much now about the North Carolina film industry since I've been gone since 2001.