$5 cover: 'Webisodes' spotlight Memphis music scene

Photo by Alan Spearman/The Commercial Appeal, Alan Spearman/The Commercial Appeal

Director Craig Brewer used an all-Memphis cast and crew to make the "$5 Cover" series for MTV.

Erin Hagee, Craig Brewer's sister-in-law, who has worked with the Memphis writer-director since the beginning of his career, is one of the credited producers of "$5 Cover," which makes its debut online and on television Friday.

But the family likely to benefit from Brewer's made-in-Memphis MTV project extends beyond blood and marriage to include brothers and sisters in ambition, artistic temperament and geography: The local filmmakers, musicians, actors and other creative spirits whose talents flourish here even when the rest of the world takes little notice.

Photo by Alan Spearman

Craig Brewer's $5 Cover project features Memphis musicians in a semi-fictional story. Commercial Appeal photojournalist Alan Spearman's $5 Cover Amplified films features the musicians and Brewer in real life.

Divided into 15 five- to seven-minute "webisodes" (or "tracks," as the episodes are labeled, in keeping with the project's musical theme), "$5 Cover" is a reality-inspired rock-and-roll-and-rap serial set in the studios, nightclubs and bedrooms of the Midtown music scene.

Many of the actors are musicians, portraying fictionalized versions of themselves. Each episode is built around a musical performance that typically comments on the action of the story. Essentially, the series is a tribute to the vitality of Memphis music today.

"This is a new way for everybody outside of Memphis to learn about Memphis artists, without those artists having to compromise who they are," said Brewer, 37.

"$5 Cover" was created for MTV New Media as a Web series that would be viewed primarily on computer screens and cell phones. (The Web site fivedollarcover.com is already loaded with videos and songs for purchase featuring such "$5 Cover" musicians as Snowglobe, Muck Sticky and Jack Yarber.)

However, MTV executives were so impressed with Brewer's work -- which retained the cinematic impact of feature films despite its modest scale, low budget and fast-and-loose shooting style -- that they decided to air the program and its companion documentaries on television as well as online.

In perhaps the most significant moment in the series, drummer Paul Taylor confronts singer Amy LaVere at a Halloween party, and asks: "What are you supposed to be?" The unanswered question hangs in the air like a chastisement and a challenge -- a challenge that "$5 Cover" itself answers, in a way, by suggesting that Memphis can become whatever it wants to be in the 21st century, as traditional recording and filmmaking strategies merge with the innovations of "new media" approaches to online music-making, storytelling and entertainment distribution.

Said Brewer: "All over America right now, everybody's trying to figure out the models for 'new media.' The good news is, we've got that behind us, and we know what we're doing.

"I think we're coming to a time when I don't think we can bank on a lot of feature filmmaking on a major-studio level coming to Tennessee. But we could possibly lead in new media. It's something that our crew base could handle. We can develop it, we can shoot it, we can edit it, we do the (postproduction) -- all out of Memphis."

About 160 Mid-Southerners worked on "$5 Cover," said Hagee, co-producer of the project with composer Scott Bomar.

In fact, Brewer -- like some sort of Bluff City version of a Marvel Comics superhero crying "Avengers assemble!" -- mobilized an all-star squadron of Memphis filmmakers for the project.

Longtime local writer-director John Michael McCarthy was script supervisor on "$5 Cover." (The project's nearly $450,000 budget could have financed a couple hundred of McCarthy's early films, such as 1994's "Damselvis, Daughter of Helvis.")

Others included award-winning writer-director Morgan Jon Fox, assistant director and editor; Nathan Black, cinematographer; and Geoffrey Brent Shrewsbury, actor and camera operator, to name a few.

"It really wasn't everybody pulling their own weight, it was everybody pulling the weight," Brewer said. "I don't even really consider myself the director on this thing; I was more the wrangler, pulling all this talent together."

For the musicians in the series, "$5 Cover" could mean a career boost in sales and exposure. LaVere already has a relatively large and international fan base, but she'd like her music to be discovered by more listeners.

"It's so cool to get your art to see the light of day," said LaVere, who leaves town this week for a tour of Scandinavia. "If an artist tells you that's not a good feeling, they're lying. You don't do it just for yourself, you do it be appreciated."

"I'm excited to see what happens," said Brad Postlethwaite, co-leader of the band Snowglobe, which performs a pair of songs in "$5 Cover."

Postlethwaite also acts in the series, in a role that plays on his real-life experience as a medical student. "Even though I've chosen the path of becoming a doctor, a physician, I can't stop playing music and I can't stop myself from wanting people to hear my music," he said. "There's a natural drive there, so the timing (of '$5 Cover') is great because we have a new EP coming out."

In the spotlight: $5 and change

In addition to the local artists working directly on the MTV series, two groups of filmmakers have created documentary shorts in affiliation with "$5 Cover" to provide national -- and international -- viewers with insight into Memphis and the performers in the series.

Details

Set to debut Friday on fivedollarcover.com, livefrommemphis.com and memphistravel.com, "Flipside Memphis" is a collection of 35 mini-documentaries about unique local businesses, characters and trends, created by the arts support collective Live From Memphis, with sponsorship by the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau. Nineteen "Flipside" films will be screened in a sneak preview at 7 p.m. Monday at Malco's Studio on the Square. Admission is $5.

Also set to make its debut Friday is "$5 Cover Amplified," a series of 12 intimate documentaries focusing on the real-life stories of the "$5 Cover" performers. It will be available on MTV, fivedollarcover.com, a special Web site of The Commercial Appeal and in the newspaper. The films were created by a team led by Alan Spearman, a Commercial Appeal photojournalist who is the co-creator of the award-winning documentary feature "Nobody." The "Amplified" sneak preview takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Studio on the Square. Admission is $5.

The premieres don't end there. The big one -- the sneak preview of "$5 Cover" itself -- is Thursday night at the Malco Paradiso, 584 S. Mendenhall. The screenings will be attended by Brewer and many cast members. The two early shows are sold out; tickets remain for the 9:30 and 9:45 screenings. For tickets ($10 each), visit indiememphis.com.

All the sneak previews are fundraisers for Indie Memphis, the organization that promotes the annual Indie Memphis Film Festival.

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