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Daily News
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L.A. Cameraman is Agape
Shocked by what he saw in his east coast hometown, Harold B. Pritchett decided to do something about it the best way he knows how.
Friday, October 5, 2007 at 9:25 PM
By FilmStew Staff
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hpb.00video.com
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Digital postcards are a lot cheaper too
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A year and a half ago, when Harold B. Pritchett came back to his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware to tend to a sick mother, he was horrified at how the city had changed. Plagued by drug-related violence, it was enough to inspire the L.A.-based cameraman to write his first screenplay, Agape, which he is now directing in and around the city.
You won’t find much about Pritchett on IMDB, but he’s part of the fabric of Los Angeles nonetheless. Since the beginning of the 1980’s, he has worked steadily as a TV and movie cameraman, supplementing that work when needed by shooting actor audition tapes. In keeping with his film’s super low budget, the villain of the piece – drug dealer Salencio – is played by 26-year-old friend and cosmetologist Mark Anthony Noel. Actor Neil Carr (The Wire) plays the lead role of a young boxer trying to keep the drug dealers away from his crack-addicted sister.
Pritchett is wasting no time with his maiden feature. He started shooting in August and plans to offer a DVD of Agape next month to local residents. Pritchett has also been making use of YouTube, posting segments as he edits and scores them.
It’s also worth noting that Pritchett is African-American, filming a story about the fragmented inner city of yet another metropolitan locale. Not exactly the kind of film that could have been made as easily in the old days, before digital video, before DVD burners and before YouTube. “The desktop technology that’s available today is remarkable,” raves Pritchett. “I’m able to produce special effects in my personal studio today, that just a few years ago could only have been created by major Hollywood companies at the cost of many millions of dollars.”
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