New Reality Web Series Insists No Acting Allowed

OXFORD, Miss. - March 15, 2020 - PRLog -- Here's a slightly self-effacing but hopefully realistic self-review of my new web series…

A filmmaker from New Zealand living in Oxford, Mississippi, has created a reality web series using everyday people around him. In the first episode, Rusty, a local celebrity who earned the title of The Walking Man when he walked fifty-thousand miles, becomes homeless, which no one in the idyllic small Southern college town is aware of.

"We're going to talk about life, being alone, not having a place to live." Rusty, a proud man in his sixties, admits as he eats a hot pocket with chips washed down with a glass of Mountain Dew on the messy counter of the liquidated liquor store where he used to work. It's his supper. It's nighttime, so he eats in the dark under a camera spotlight, so customers don't pull up to the store, thinking it's still in business.

The concise and straightforward narrative in the filmmaker's native New Zealand accent offers continuity. It is mindful of Rusty's plight while his questioning on camera sometimes makes you wonder if he's enjoying it a bit too much.

Either way, he finds the essence of the story, which is about homelessness when he brings in a professor from the local university who starts off by plugging his new book about forgiveness which he calls his "Ellen book because I want to get on Ellen with this book!" After that, the filmmaker finally gets around to the reason for his visit when he asks, "what would you say if I were to tell you there's a homeless person in Oxford?" It reeks of Seinfeld and questions if there is acting going on? After a disclaimer of sorts in which the professor admits he's being sarcastic, he launches into his reasoning why homelessness is prevalent if not seen in the small town that satisfies the critic in me.

A local entrepreneur interviews Rusty for a job at his cleaning company. Friends of Rusty, who weren't aware that Rusty is homeless, are stunned when they find out.

It ends with a dance scene by a librarian who is also a landscaper who the filmmaker met at the local library where he holds his interviews. The librarian (who aspires to teach dance or become a choreographer) dances his heart out in front of the courthouse under the American flag.

It was well worth the thirty-three minutes that seemed to dissipate quicker than the time it took me to read the opening synopsis. And it left me feeling optimistic, a trait of Rusty The Walking Man.

No Acting Allowed - Episode 1: Rusty The Walking Man

https://youtu.be/vMuD2TGtta4