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Jon Parrish Peede
Photography by Stan Magee Following photos: Emling on the Canton set of A Time to Kill |
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FADE IN.
A metal "Welcome Home" sign in one corner. A collection of baseball caps smothering a coatrack in another. Some John Grisham novels. A miniature Zen garden on top of a small bookcase. A copy of Faulkner's Mississippi. A grouping of forty, fifty, sixty?, post-it notes beside a brown desk. Folders and more folders, a mountain of them on the floor and in armchairs. Videotapes, film scripts, maps, and more. On the walls a child's finger painting, framed movie posters, a calendar. The man in the blue shirt rises from his desk, cups his palm over the phone he is still speaking into, and says, "Come on in." You shake his hand and sit. He's the movie man, and you don't know much about movies. But something about his eyes, his facial expression, makes you comfortable. FADE OUT. |
Ward
Emling, B.A. 1976, is Director of the Mississippi Film Office, but his
office does not exactly shout "State Government." Rather it screams
creativity. Literally. In the form of a three-foot-tall blowup
doll of Munch's "The Scream" that stands behind his desk, rubber hands
grasping rubber head in agony. Sharpened pencils hang precariously
from the ceiling tiles above it. The doll appears to be in eminent
danger, frozen in protest against hazardous placement. The message
is clear soon enough. This is a serious office where serious business
gets done in a usually relaxed - but sometimes frantic - manner.
Celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary this year, the Mississippi Film Office was established in 1973 shortly after the popular movie "Thieves Like Us" wrapped up filming in the state. The Mississippi Film Office (MFO) is in the Division of Tourism, itself within the Department of Economic and Community Development. PAGE 1 OF 4 | NEXT PAGE |
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Millsaps Magazine | Millsaps | Last Edited April 27, 1998 |