This week, The Extraordinary Times catches up with the multi-talented Dale Farmer. A Fairfield native now living in Preble County, Ohio, Dale Farmer stays busy honoring his Appalachian heritage with film, writing, and music. He can be found performing traditional Appalachian music with the Jericho Old-time Band and The Farmer and the Crow.
Miami University Appalachian Studies will be screening Dale’s acclaimed movie, The Mountain Minor, on November 16, 2023, at Wilks Conference Center, Miami Hamilton. This free public program begins at 6 p.m. with a light dinner, followed by film screening at 6.30 p.m. The program features live musical accompaniment from the Jericho Old Time Band and an audience Q&A to follow. * How and when did you first get into filmmaking? For as long as I can remember I’ve had stories playing out in my head: characters, situations, places, various time periods. I never had the drive to write novels, so the stories just remained in my head where I’d revisit them all from time to time. Then I discovered the screenwriting format and some user-friendly software that really suited my storytelling style. So I began putting the stories in black and white. One of the duties of my previous career was making training and promotional videos. My employer furnished video production classes at a local college where I learned a lot of the basics of filmmaking. As I neared retirement, I began thinking about putting my storytelling, video knowledge and music background together to make of my screenplays into a 20-minute short-film idea I had called The Mountain Minor. As more people became involved and greater possibilities were realized, the short film eventually evolved into a feature length film. * How closely does The Mountain Minor reflect the story of your own family? Almost everything in The Mountain Minor actually did happen in one way or another. The film was mostly a collection of stories my grandfather told me over my lifetime until his passing in 1985. I had to take some liberties with reality to make my family story into a more compelling and affordable production. I could list out all the details and differences the film has from the actual story, but what matters most is what The Mountain Minor has in common with many thousands of family stories of having to leave Appalachia to come north and find work and sustenance. I was especially compelled to tell the story of how my family, and nearly every Appalachian family I’ve known, are more than stereotypes portrayed in Hollywood and the media in general. They’re resourceful, hardworking people of moral character. I wanted The Mountain Minor to help us to embrace our family stories of our ancestors’ sacrifices that we and society are benefitting from today. * What were some key source materials you drew on for inspiration and historical context? My primary source was The Harpers of Pongo Ridge, Christine Harper McKinney’s biography of growing up in the mountains of Kentucky and eventually moving to Reading, Ohio to make a living, There are a few pages in the book about my paternal grandparents who briefly lived next to her childhood home. During my research I met Mrs. McKinney and spent a lot of time with her over the past few years until she passed earlier this year at the age of 96. I also somehow inherited my great grandmother’s old suitcase full of family photos from Kentucky. I spent a lot of time with those photos of my ancestors; a lot of “speak to me” moments looking into their eyes. The old suitcase makes an appearance in the film when the family is leaving the farm for Ohio. I also went back through all my old Foxfire books that I’ve had since my teenage years. I referred a lot to Gerry Milne’s book Play of a Fiddle. I listened to old Appalachian field recordings collected on front porches and living rooms, just like in our film. I took trips to the mountains of Kentucky and met descendants of relatives Grandpa and I visited during my childhood and teenage years. My newfound cousins and I explored old family farm ruins back in the hollers. There’s so much inspiration out there when we go looking for it. * Your movie enjoys a remarkable cast, including many local musicians (Dan Gellert, Ma Crow, Judy and Warren Waldron, to name a few). Did you know going into this project how these folks would shine as actors? I’ll just say that I took a big chance using musicians to act rather than actors to play authentic music. But having authentic music was so important to this story. These musicians took this project very seriously and worked very hard to portray their roles. Nobody won an Oscar for their acting but so many people have told me that it was so refreshing to see actors just being genuine, relatable people on screen. I’m very proud of all of them. * What's next on the horizon, project-wise? We started work on a short-film project in 2019 that was shut down by Covid. It was one of a few short sequel stories to The Mountain Minor I’m hoping to resume later this summer. But I’m primarily focused on my next feature film with the working title Girls Can’t Fiddle. I’m trying to take this project to the next level, so I’ve been meeting with potential established producers and hope to find the right fit and begin pre-production soon. Girls Can’t Fiddle is a narrative film about a teenage fiddler in 1939 rural West Virginia who is prohibited from playing the fiddle because that was something ladies just didn’t do. So she sneaks off and learns from her secret mentor, an aging African American fiddler. My hope is that the film will both pay homage to early African American and women traditional musicians and also help promote racial healing during this difficult time in our history.
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AuthorMatthew Smith, PhD (History). Public Programs at Miami University Regionals. Historian of Appalachia, the Ohio Valley, & the early American republic. Archives
February 2024
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