Patricia Carpenter – Olympia Empty-Nester Shifts to Making Films

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By Eric Wilson-Edge

seven inlets spaPatricia Carpenter needed a new task. The fifty-something mother of three was an empty nester.  At one point she’d been a professional dancer, skilled enough to tour Europe. “I hadn’t focused on anything but my family for 25 years,” says Carpenter. “I woke up every day thinking, ‘what am I doing?’”

What she decided to do was a make a movie.

red wing movie
After raising three children, Patricia Carpenter decided to make a movie. After pouring through scripts, she chose Red Wing.

Carpenter started Integrity Film Productions nearly three years ago. She didn’t waste any time. “I jumped right into the deep end of the pool,” says Carpenter. The Olympia resident got to work sorting through scripts until she found the right one.

She chose Red Wing, which Carpenter says is a, “story about the power of love and about how love can change a life.” The script sat idle for more than a decade before Carpenter purchased the rights from famed director Terrence Malik.

Carpenter had her story. Now all she needed were a crew, actors and a location. This last part proved to be something of a challenge. Carpenter and the film’s director Will Wallace traversed the country looking for just the right spot.

At one point Carpenter hired a location scout. As Carpenter tells it, she was in Texas looking for a place to shoot the film. There were some nice places but nothing clicked.  “I prayed a lot,” says Carpenter.  “Prayed to figure out where we were going to go.”

The day before she was to leave Texas, Carpenter got a call from the location scout. The scout had found “it.” The next morning Carpenter went to see the tiny town of Whitewright, located in northern Texas. “We arrived on a Sunday and everything was closed,” says Carpenter. “There was a little girl on a bicycle riding down Main Street.”

Texas in the summer is hot. “Hot as a pistol,” says Carpenter. The cast and crew of Red Wing worked in temperatures that frequently peaked over 100 degrees. A few suffered from dehydration, a problem Carpenter quickly fixed. Her husband, Clyde Carpenter, is a doctor. Patricia scheduled a mandatory meeting in which her husband performed medical evaluations on everyone.

red wing moviePatricia is credited as an executive producer on Red Wing. However, she did a little bit of everything.  Carpenter helped with costumes, makeup and did the finances. “When I say something, I’m going to do it,” says Carpenter.  “That’s just how it is.”

Her commitment paid off. Red Wing has played in theaters across the country and is currently showing at the Capital Mall for a limited engagement. “Was I nervous?  Was I scared? Did I lose sleep?  Sure,” says Carpenter.

The idea of making something as nebulous as a movie seems daunting if not unreal.  Carpenter loved the process.  She says everyone came together as a family to help get the project done. Carpenter’s biological family had their doubts at first but came around.  “My husband told me he sees a part of me that he’s never seen before,” says Carpenter.

So what’s next? Another movie. Carpenter is writing the screenplay for her next venture. “I want to make movies you can take your family to, that you can take your grandkids to,” she says.

Red Wing stars Glen Powell, Breann Johnson, Bill Paxton, Frances Fisher, Luke Perry and Joelle Carter.  The movie runs once daily at 7:15 pm through Thursday, January 30.

 

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