By Charles Owens
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON — A new motion picture being filmed at locations across Mercer County will not only feature local residents and landmarks, but will also share an important message with viewers about the perils of social media on young people.
“Disconnected” is a project of Mercer County native Kevin Sizemore, an actor and producer who is hoping to create awareness of his hometown through film.
“I didn’t want to necessarily bring Hollywood to Princeton,” Sizemore said Saturday during a break in between scenes being shot inside of the Renaissance Theater in Princeton. “I wanted to just bring good filmmaking to Princeton, because you know, when you bring Hollywood to Princeton, it has a weird stigma to it. I’m just a guy that left Princeton to go where I can try to have my career. And I’ve been working for years and years and years to try to get back home.”
Sizemore has an immense movie and television resume that includes “Mine 9,” “A Christmas Tree Miracle,” “Diagnosis Murder,” “Fear the Walking Dead,” “NCIS,” “Woodlawn,” and much more. Filming of “Disconnected” began in Princeton on December 27, and is now nearing a conclusion. Sizmore also just finished a second movie that was also filmed entirely in Mercer County, which is called “Cryptid.
“We have four more days left and we’re coming off the hills of the last film we just brought in town called Cryptid,” Sizemore said. “We did about a 20 day shoot on Cryptid, and we had 10 days off and now we’re bringing back Disconnected.”
Scenes for “Disconnected” have been shot across Mercer County over the past two weeks, including at Princeton Senior High School, PikeView High School, Jimmie’s Restaurant, the Dream Bean, the Renaissance Theater, Bluefield State University and other locations.
The movie stars actress Kayla Ewell, who is known for her roles on “The Vampire Diaries” on the CW Network and “The Bold and the Beautiful” on CBS. According to the movie’s narrative, after social media shatters a families lives, a mother and her children leave everything behind in Reno, Nevada for a new start in West Virginia. But healing isn’t easy when the damage follows them into a school run by social media, the narrative says.
The movie’s setting will be Mercer County, and all of the local landmarks featured in the movie will be identified as being in Princeton, Bluefield and other communities, according to Sizemore. The only exceptions will be PikeView High School, which in the movie will be identified as a high school in Nevada, and Jimmie’s Restaurant, which according to Sizemore will be identified as a location on the road to West Virginia.
Otherwise Sizemore said the setting in the movie will be “100 percent” Mercer County.
“We talk about Mercer County, we see Mercer County, and I want to put Mercer County on the map,” Sizemore said. “These last two movies — Cryptid and Disconnected — are both Mercer County films. Everything is Mercer County so people can come back in and wonder where this creature (in Cryptid) lives. And they’re gonna know all that was over at Lake Mountain Manor. So they can find where the creature is. And then on this movie (Disconnected) they’ll know that it’s Princeton High School.”
Local students, whose parents signed off on permission forms, also will be appear in the movie as extras during the scenes shot at Princeton Senior High School and PikeView High School. Local residents also will appear in the movie, including Dreama Denver of Bluefield and County Commissioner Greg Puckett. Even country music singer T. Graham Brown will be featured in “Disconneted.”
For her part, Ewell has been impressed with West Virginia. In fact, she spent New Year’s Eve in Princeton enjoying the Downtown Countdown activities.
“I’ve never been to West Virginia before, and I think that’s something that is so fun about our job is we get to constantly see new places,” Ewell said. “And I am not just saying this because you’re asking me this, and we’re here in West Virginia. I have loved every minute of it. It’s beautiful. The locations we have shot at have been so cinematic and stunning, and as soon as we landed the plane, I looked out and it was just forest for miles, and I thought, oh, I’m going love this being a city girl from Los Angeles. It has been so nice to be here.”
Ewell, who spoke with the Daily Telegraph at the Dream Bean in Princeton during a break between scenes, said everyone in Princeton has been kind and welcoming to her.
“The people have been some of the kindest people I have met in my entire life and genuinely asking how you are? How’s your day?” Ewell said. “It’s nice to be reminded that places like this still exist, because small towns, beautiful small towns with vibrant artist communities and the cute bookshop on the corner that has been my favorite place to frequent. I cannot wait to go across the street to the RiffRaff. Everyone has said it’s amazing.”
Sizemore would like to see “Disconnected” premiere at the Renaissance Theater later this year if the ongoing renovations to the old theater can be completed in time, an idea that Ewell also supports.
“We’re shooting at a old movie theater that they’re actively restoring right now,” Ewell said. “And it has just been so inspiring to see the community come together. It would be a full circle moment to have the premiere there.”
Ewell said being able to shoot a movie on location at a setting like Princeton is preferred over a studio setting. She recalled a similar experience while shooting the first season of “The Vampire Diaries” on the CW Network.
“That’s a great question,” Ewell said. “The Bold and the Beautiful which is a show I did for three years when I first started out, yeah that is definitely a studio setting. You arrived at the same place everyday. The Vampire Diaries was different. In Vancouver, we shot just the pilot, and then we went to Atlanta, Ga. and the town of Mystic Falls, which is the town in the Vampire Diaries, is a town called Covington, Ga., which is about 35 miles outside of Atlanta. And it is a beautiful small town with a clock tower, and all these little shops and the quintessential small town vibe that you don’t really find in very many places. You find it here in Princeton. You find it in Covington, Ga. and you realize throughout the United States there are these pockets of these really beautiful, small towns and it’s really nice that they’re small, and that they’ve stayed small because I just had no idea that places like this still existed where people knows everybody’s name. It is idyllic and it is like you’re living in a Hallmark movie.”
In the movie, Ewell is playing the mother to a character played by Gunnar Sizemore, who is Kevin Sizemore’s son in real life.
While Ewell got to experience New Year’s Eve in Princeton, Gunnar Sizemore celebrated his birthday Saturday in Princeton who filming “Disconnected.”
“It was really fun,” Gunnar Sizemore said. “I mean it’s been kind of strange because we really rolled straight out of Christmas into this, and then it overlapped with my birthday. But that’s the way that I would have wanted it to because like this is more fun than anything we could be doing.”
Being able to film on site in downtown Princeton adds a level of realism to the film, according to Gunnar.
“Definitely,” he said. “The town’s authenticity is one of the most important things in the film. And the town is essentially a character. And the film is about a family uprooting, and then having to get comfortable in a completely new place.”
The perils of social media is a theme in the movie that young people can relate to, according to Gunnar Sizemore.
“I think the thing that drew me most to the movie was that it wasn’t looking to necessarily prescribe an answer to how we’re supposed to relate to the technology that dominates culture now, and oftentimes gets in the way of connecting with each other,” he said. “I think the more interesting thing to do, which is what the film does, is to just ask a better question and say did you get people to look at their routines and look at their relationships with other people and say how can we strengthen these things? The intimacy of the cast and the crew outside of filming is reflected honestly in the way that the story is coming about as well.”
Garrett Sutton, who serves as the executive producer of “Disconnected,” also worked on the first couple of screen plays for the film with later assistance from screen writer Ty Demartino.
“The reason I created the story and wanted to make this film is it’s time for people to start talking about social media, the effects that it’s having on our kids. Their well-being and mental health,” Sutton said. “You know whether this is good for the country or not? So we need to start talking about it, and so that’s the whole reason behind it. And so throughout the story, you see examples of how social media can be harmful and people need to, and I think people subconsciously and now are starting to consciously realize that there’s a real problem. You know 20 years ago we didn’t have this, and we didn’t have these problems that we have now.”
Sutton, who enjoyed skiing at Winterplace while in town, said Princeton, and Mercer County in general, is a great setting for the movie.
“Now Princeton has been great,” Sutton said. “I think filmmakers are going to discover Princeton. The people have been great. The government, you know just the people in power who have supported us. It’s been really a great experience to work here.”
Sutton said the movie should help to expose Mercer County and Southern West Virginia to a much larger audience.
While “Disconnected” tackles a serious issue with social media and the amount of screen time children spend on their devices, the second movie that was just recently filmed in Mercer County — “Cryptid” — is more of a creature feature which Sizemore calls a “horror with heart” movie.
“Yes, it’s got a little bit of everything in it and what we come to find out is someone has moved into the state and has a vendetta against some people,” Sizemore said. “And he creates a creature that gets loose, and then some good old country boys have to figure out how to stop it. In a nutshell. That’s what’s going on and it’s a wild ride. It’s not cheesy. It’s fun, right? You know it’s not off the map. It’s really just a fun movie.”
Sizemore said he hopes to see both movies premiere in Mercer County. As for “Disconnected,” he hopes to see a theatrical release before streaming.
“We’re going to go into theaters and then we’ll do streaming after that,” Sizemore said.
Puckett, who has been actively involved in the ongoing efforts to restore the old Renaissance Theater in Princeton, said filming a new movie in Princeton — and at sites across Mercer County — is good business for the area.
“The goal ultimately is to basically create a film industry in rural communities,” Puckett said. “That is why we are looking at Mercer County and saying if it can be done here, it can be done anywhere.”
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