Photo by Photo by Tommy Kha
Filmmakers Morgan Jon Fox (left) and Craig Brewer (right) with actress Clare Grant during the making of an episode of $5 Cover.
Music Television network executives are so enthusiastic about Craig Brewer’s made-in-Memphis MTV series “$5 Cover” — a rock-and-soul drama created as Internet programming for MTV New Media — that they’ve decided to air it on television in addition to presenting it online.
The series debuts on May 1. But Memphians will get to see the full 15 episodes of “$5 Cover” first, in a premiere screening tentatively set for 7 p.m. April 30 at the Malco Paradiso, 584 S. Mendenhall.
Photo by Photo by Tommy Kha
Filmmakers Morgan Jon Fox (left) and Craig Brewer (right) with actress Clare Grant during the making of an episode of $5 Cover.
Tickets, which are scheduled to go on sale next week, will be $10 each. The event is a benefit for the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
MTV officials had not expected to air the series on TV. “It was not made or meant to be a TV series, but the quality is so good we’re putting it there,” said David Gale, executive vice president of MTV New Media. “Since it’s so cinematic, the experience on television is a really good one.”
Beginning May 1 and continuing through the month, “$5 Cover” episodes, music videos and mini-documentaries and musicians’ profiles created by local filmmakers Sarah Fleming, Christopher Reyes and Brad Phelan of Live from Memphis and Alan Spearman of The Commercial Appeal can be found not just on the series’ Web site, fivedollarcover.com, but on such channels as MTV, MTV2 and the college campus-oriented mtvU.
Some of the material also will appear on such sites as commercialappeal.com, livefrommemphis.com and memphistravel.com, the Web site of the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The result will be unprecedented mainstream exposure for at least two dozen Memphis musicians, many of whom have been making records and playing clubs for years for loyal but relatively limited audiences. MTV owns more than 20 cable stations, including Nickelodeon, CMT and VH1, so “$5 Cover” can be promoted on any of its properties.
“Whenever I’ve been on panels or talked about the possibilities of the Internet, this is exactly the kind of thing we’ve talked about,” said Brewer, 37. “And the best thing about it is it’s completely homegrown and home-executed.”
Brewer’s feature films, “Hustle & Flow” and “Black Snake Moan,” premiered here at the defunct Muvico Peabody Place 22, but those red-carpet events were invitation-only affairs. The “$5 Cover” Memphis screening will be the first public premiere of a Brewer project since May 16, 2000, when his pre-fame debut movie, “The Poor & Hungry,” screened at Malco’s Ridgeway Four.
The no-budget, essentially home-made “The Poor & Hungry” was billed as a “digiflik,” because it was shot on digital video. “$5 Cover” is a logical successor, in that it makes use of updated digital technology and marks a return to the fast-and-economical shooting style of Brewer’s debut feature.
“$5 Cover” was shot with an almost all-Memphis cast and crew over about five weeks in July and August, in local clubs, homes, restaurants and studios.
The series chronicles the interconnected romantic and artistic lives of several struggling characters in Midtown Memphis, most of whom are portrayed by local musicians, including Kate Crowder, Al Kapone, Amy LaVere, Muck Sticky and Valerie June, to name a few. Memphis filmmaker John Michael McCarthy, who was script supervisor on the project, characterizes “$5 Cover” as “‘Days of Our Lives’ meets ‘Rock ’n’ Roll High School.’”
On the flagship channel, MTV, three “$5 Cover” episodes will be shown in a half-hour programming block at 11 p.m. for five weeks, each Friday in May. (Created for Internet viewing, the episodes last about 7 minutes each, so three of them fit neatly into a half-hour block.)
— John Beifuss: 529-2394
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