ABSTRACT
Almost two years ago I spent some time in Scioto County, Ohio, researching a feature film script I am planning to shoot later this year. I grew up there, but I have not lived there since high school, and I thought I should get up to date. It is classified as Appalachia, and there has been an economic crisis going on there for my whole life, so the things that are suddenly worrying everyone else are not really news there. With the exception of the new geography of methamphetamine and prescription opiates, which had not yet swept the nation when I was growing up, the rest of the atmosphere feels a lot like it used to. The landscape is filled with ruins and reminders of things that used to be there-farms, businesses, factories, boarded up storefronts. It can sometimes feel like a lot of the life of the place has already happened. Still, life goes on.
