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Freedom finishes first

By JUSTIN HARMON/Staff

Writer/director Rick McVey didn’t expect much when he and a few fellow Barter actors made “Freedom.”
It was an experiment, he said, to see if they could make a movie. Turns out they could. In fact, they could and did make a successful movie.
Most recently, “Freedom” claimed first place in the feature category at the 2008 Virginia Film Competition. The news put a smile on McVey’s face. It didn’t cause his head to swell, though. He said just being part of the festival was enough for him. Winning? That was icing on the cake.
“That’s really cool, too,” he said. “It’s always nice to win something.”
One part of the festival that McVey holds in high regard is the audience reactions. McVey got that by sitting in the back of the theater while his film played. From there he watched one audience member wipe away a tear during a particularly emotional scene.
“That’s as rewarding as anything,” he said.
McVey said winning the festival wasn’t a top priority for him. He was just glad to be able share the story he had to tell with audience members and other filmmakers.
“We don’t make films to win film festivals,” he said.
But he does make films. To that end he and his collaborators meet once a week to try and plan the next step for “Freedom” and the other films McVey Multimedia, his film production company, might work on.
“We’re looking at a couple of things,” he said. “We want to take time to step back… as much as we want to move forward, we want to move forward in the right way.”
According to McVey, with the success that “Freedom” has experienced, it’s tempting to want to jump into another project, but McVey seems to want to make sure things are done right every step of the way.
One thing McVey hopes to do is improve on “Freedom’s” success by fixing some of the things that didn’t work, such as their technical restrictions. But McVey also wants to make the good things even better.
“We’re going to be looking at new ways to do things,” he said.
Justin Harmon can be reached at 628-7101 or