This week, South Florida’s WLRN Channel 17 will premiere its new documentary “Deep City: The Birth of the Miami Sound,” which explores the early days of soul music in Florida, the era’s pioneers and their contributions to American music. The movie documents the life of Deep City,  the state’s first black-owned record label, based in Overtown, and how it brought local talent like singers Helene Smith and Betty Wright to the forefront.  Here, filmmakers Chad Tingle and Marlon Johnson, who produced Deep City along with Knight Foundation’s VP/Arts Dennis Scholl, talk about their favorite behind-the-scenes moments. In South Florida, you can watch the documentary at 9 p.m. Sept. 23 and 25^th (the full film schedule is below.) Dennis Scholl, Chad Tingle and Marlon Johnson

Favorite Scene – Marlon Johnson

I loved filming the title sequence. I had been shopping at a local vinyl record shop, Sweat Records, in Little Haiti. As I filed through the records, I would occasionally come across a local group and wondered where they pressed their records. That’s how I learned about the Alpha Music Plant in Broward County, one of only 16 left in the entire country and the only one of its kind in the state.  We wanted to create something truly unique and saw this as an opportunity we had to explore. We arrived at the plant and immediately became completely enamored by the texture of the machinery. It was old and rusted and burped out steam. In short, it was perfect. Now the challenge would be just how to incorporate it into the film.

After some back and forth, we decided to use this industrial space as our title sequence. The idea was to follow the process of making a record from beginning to end while revealing the names of the filmmakers on parts of the machines and other objects found in and around the plant.

In some instances we built hard plastic nameplates and adhered them to the greasy metal fronts of particular machines.  Another time we printed credits on a bucket or on work shirts. Each time the camera revealed the name of another member of the film in unique fashion. At the end of the record making process, the film’s title is revealed on the face of a new pressed record.

In many ways, the sequence was an homage to vinyl. It gave us an entirely new and refreshing way to think about starting a film and has left a lasting impression on so many  of our viewers.

 Favorite scene – Chad Tingle

My favorite moment in the film is the second to last scene where we go into the breakup of the Deep City Label.  The Clarence Reid song ” Don’t be a fool”  really drives it home and sets the tone thematically and emotionally. I get a little sad  every time I watch it because you want to root for each of the characters, but the odds are against them. It’s drama, but it’s not fictionalized drama. It’s real and exists in some way in all our lives. This scene for me is a perfect illustration of why I love the documentary genre and why it’s the canvas I choose to paint on.

 Favorite part of the Editing Process

From the beginning we always knew the segments we wanted to include in the film but the sequencing of those segments makes a big difference in the final outcome of the film. This is my favorite part of the editing process because  you are rewriting the story while doing your best to maintain a consistent narrative thread throughout the story.  Marlon and  I spent many hours in a small room in the summer of 2013 taking the film apart and moving the sequences around until we discovered what worked best. Once we found the right sequencing we then had to work to create seamless transitions from one segment to another.  I loved this process because it felt like we breathing life into the story.

You can hear more about the making of Deep City on WLRN’s South Florida Arts Beat, with Producer/Host – Ed Bell, Social Media Producer – Paul Leary. 

Check out Deep City on WLRN Channel 17:

• Tuesday, September 23 at 9 p.m.
• Thursday, September 25 at 9 p.m.
• Friday, September 26 at 8 p.m.
• Saturday, September 27 at 2 p.m.
• Saturday, September 27 at 10 p.m