In November 2017, Richard and I spoke at great length about which direction to head next with SubMotion. This conversation consumed much of our time, from morning chats over coffee, our hours spent travelling to shoots and even into the night. We had happily produced all types of short form content for nearly three years, working alongside many long term clients creating beautiful branded content and documentary for the some the worlds largest brands, but it seemed like there was an itch that needed scratching!
Richard had been wanting to produce a narrative film for years, but like many, the daily workload of projects kept taking precedence and quite rightly so, deadlines are deadlines! However in November 2017, Richard came across a story that halted him in his steps.
Procrastinating on social media when he should have been working, Richard stumbled upon a story that appeared on his Facebook feed. A story that rocked him emotionally, a tragic story based on a woman from Greenup, Kentucky. He decided this would be the basis for our first short film and announced he was going to write a script. I listened, nodded and made encouraging noises, but this man had never written a script before - so I didn't get too excited at this point.
Two weeks later, he brings me a script.
I have known Richard for 15+ years and I have never known him to write anything, so I was slightly taken aback. I settled down to read this script, just titled "Screenplay" and within 10 minutes I was crying.
We then proceeded to make anyone who popped in, read the script. Our amazing circle of friends and family (who never question our bizarre actions or ideas) all loved this script and many got teary.
This was enough of a response for Richard to plough on to phase 2 and that was to reach out to Sabrina Archey, the person living this true life tragic story. Coming from a documentary background, Richard seems excellent at tracking people down and getting them on the phone and he did just that. He contacted Sabrina at her place of work in Kentucky and asked if she would mind him making a film about her heart wrenching story which he'd seen online. I wish I had been on this call, because from Richard's description, she thought he was a complete looney. But never the less, she agreed.
Pre-production was next!
Sabrina's heart wrenching story went viral online, which is where Richard came across it. Below are the photos from the online article, plus a photo of the original letter written by Sabrina. I hd no idea when I read the story that a year later I could almost recite those words and that these people would be such a huge part of our lives!
Sabrina Archey with daughter Corbyn // Kevin Duke and his daughter Jada.
Sabrina Archey with daughter Jensyn and Mother Wilma who Sabrina sadly lost on 25th February 2015.