I was saddened to learn that a long-time family friend recently passed away: Mr. J. Randolph “Randy” Smith Jr., a man I’ve known since I was an infant.
In tribute, I’d like to share my favorite Randy Smith story.
About ten years ago, my friend Doug Cheatwood and I decided we were going to make a short film; I had written a script that Doug liked, and he was going to direct it. It was a lighthearted film about a high school girl who cannot afford to go to the college of her choice, so she recruits her pushover father into helping her lure wealthy pedophiles to a hotel room, at which point he will knock them unconscious and she’ll rob them. The only catch is that they don’t realize that in real life, you can’t hit someone over the head with a bat and knock them out like in the movies, so he ends up accidentally beating a man to death. This leads to further complications.
It was the feel-bad movie America was begging for in the comparatively innocent days of 2014.
Doug and I felt good about the script, we had a semi-decent camera, and I had recruited a bunch of my favorite Roanoke-based actors, all of whom were excited to be a part of the project. There was just one catch: in order to cover various costs associated with the movie, we needed to raise the princely sum of $1,000.
I had recently become a full-time journalist, so it goes without saying that I’d never even seen $1,000 in one place before. Doug and I needed an investor, someone willing to give us $1,000 in exchange for the title of Executive Producer. This was a very important job title that carried the sole responsibility of giving us $1,000.
I asked a couple of very wealthy people I knew if they would be interested in being executive producer. Both declined to even read the script, saying that they just couldn’t afford to part with $1,000. It was difficult for me to hear them over the sound of the beams of their homes creaking beneath the weight of their fortunes.
I asked my dad if he knew anyone who might be willing to invest, and he suggested I call Randy Smith.
Like I said, I’d known Randy since I was a baby. Before I was even born, my dad had worked with him under then-Commonwealth’s Attorney John Hartley and they had become friends; Randy would later become Commonwealth’s Attorney himself.
I remember Randy coming over for dinner regularly when I was a kid. He was a kind man, and he always had hilarious stories of how he had gotten caught up in some absurd situation through no fault of his own.
When I graduated from high school, Randy gave me a graduation gift: a nice set of towels, along with a brief note explaining that everyone needs a nice set of towels. And he was right! Those towels did yeoman’s work over the years.
My dad told me that Randy had invested in a couple of movies back in the ‘80s; he’d lost some money on them, apparently, but maybe he’d be interested in trying again.
I called up Randy and asked if I could swing by his house and tell him about the exciting opportunity to become the executive producer of a short film. He said he’d love to know more, and the next day, I was ringing his doorbell, script in hand.
We sat down in the living room and began to talk.
Anyone who knew Randy will attest that the man could talk, and we talked about a wide-ranging number of topics. We discussed my job at the Martinsville Bulletin. He told me about some extensive repairs he was doing to his house at the Outer Banks. We discussed the merits of the Jeep Comanche pickup truck. About two hours in, Randy asked me about the movie.
I handed him the script; I told him I didn’t want to spoil anything so I’d let him read it himself, but if he was interested in the project, we would give him a big executive producer credit; all we needed was $1,000 to cover our expenses. Randy said he would read the script and call me the next day.
Sure enough, just as I was getting off work the next day, my phone rang. I recognized Randy’s number and hit the “accept” button, excited to hear what he thought about the script.
He hated it.
When I say that Randy hated the script, I don’t mean that he told me he wasn’t interested; I mean that he spent 30 minutes detailing every single thing he despised about the script.
He hated the protagonists. He hated the antagonist. He hated the premise. He hated the setting. He hated the tone. And he really, REALLY hated the ending. He said the ending was the most unrealistic thing he had ever read in his entire life. I didn’t tell him that the ending was literally the only part of the script that was inspired by a true story.
At the end of the phone call, I thanked Randy for his time and he wished me the best.
You might think I would have been disappointed by this phone call; in fact, I was thrilled. Randy was my favorite critic I’ve ever encountered.
As a writer, I generally have two main fears: the fear that the thing I’ve written will be misunderstood, and the fear that it isn’t very good to begin with. Thanks to Randy, I was able to dismiss both of those concerns immediately.
Randy didn’t pass on the project because he misunderstood the script; he understood it completely, he just despised it. Furthermore, he had no issue whatsoever with the quality of the writing; he told me it was well-written, he just believed I should be writing about something that wasn’t so horrendous and morally objectionable.
When you’re a writer, the single worst reaction you can receive is indifference. A strong negative reaction is far better than no reaction at all.
When I got off the phone with Randy, I immediately called my buddy Doug. I informed him that we didn’t have any money, but we DEFINITELY had the right script.
