Thomasville Pictures' Supercell premieres at Gateway Cinemas

Mar. 22—THOMASVILLE- Last Friday, Thomasville Pictures offered free tickets to showings of their recently produced movie, Supercell, which continued to show through the weekend and throughout this week.

Allen Cheney and Ryan Smith, the owners of Thomasville Pictures and producers of Supercell, said that they were excited about the finished product getting shown on the big screen.

"We loved it when we first saw it," Cheney said. "A lot of editing to get it to the way the team wanted it and, final product, we were really proud of it. It's had an amazing reception actually, it's had a lot of great articles, one in USA today, there are several out there."

Cheney, a Thomasville native, said that he was happy to get to spend so much time in his hometown near his family. Thomasville Pictures officially formed 5 years ago after years of Cheney working in the local area for film production alongside Smith.

"We started Thomasville Pictures because I was born and raised in Thomasville, my family is here and I love this town," he said. "I always saw myself spending part of my life here, I just didn't think I'd spend such a strong part of it here. We're still based in LA, but really had the opportunity to do filming in Georgia."

Having produced films such as Tiger Rising and One Way, which starred Machine Gun Kelly, Smith said that Supercell was a great example of understanding the local area and knowing which pieces to put together for a great production.

"We really put all the pieces together for a great experience," he said.

For Supercell, Smith said that production was actually split between two locations, due to the vision of the director, James Wintersetern, who desired the classic visuals of a tornado film.

"It was interesting. We split production on this one, because obviously it's a tornado movie, and, yes, we get tornadoes here, but tornado movies are not as much fun without wide open vistas," he said. "When you think of a tornado, you think of the plains, at least visually."

Splitting the production in two, he said the Thomasville Pictures team worked out of Thomasville for shots focusing in on the community, while working in locations in Montana for the desired exterior shots.

"So, we split production into two units," Smith said. "We had a Montana unit, we filmed a portion of exterior in the buildings, and then in Thomasville, we were really able to spend a lot of time focusing in on the interior shots, neighborhoods, schools and some specifics there."

Cheney said that they were happy to bring Supercell to Thomasville, and the energy that a film fills the community with, but said that they don't try to force the local area to work for every film.

"We want to bring as much as we can here, as long as it works," he said. "We don't ever want to fit a square peg in a round hole. We're very proud of what we're building down here, but we have a lot of projects that will not come to Thomasville, the ones that we do in Thomasville are only a few of the films that we have going at any one time."

He said that is why they really wanted to find a way for the local area to naturally work, such as using MacIntyre Park Middle School and other buildings, including the Thomasville Picture building itself, for interior shots and close ups.

"We thought, is there a way to make part of this work in Thomasville," Cheney said. "Scenes of houses up close, driving scenes, interior scenes, you know, there were ways that we can use the mechanism down here, feed it to the community, the money and the excitement that we got to bring with it and also still work to create a film."

When Supercell began showing in select theaters, Smith said that he and Cheney went to the distributors to give Thomasville locals a chance to see it at the Gateway Cinema.

"We went and asked them and said, hey, we really want Thomasville locals to be able to come out and see it in theaters," he said. "So, we did a super last minute pop-up the night before we announced it and invited and gave away tickets, and had people come out who wanted to go see it."

Cheney and Smith agreed that giving back to the community was a very exciting event, with all 50 free tickets they offered getting handed out to interested locals.

"We were thrilled to do that," Smith said. "We had members of the community, people who had been a part of the project come out, and then it continued to show throughout the weekend and into this week, as well."

Both Cheney and Smith shared their thanks for the community and the hospitality they provide to cast and crews, with Smith adding that it's that special care that Thomasville shares with visitors that keep them coming back again and again.

"We're always thankful to the community," Smith said. "We're here because people allow us to be and they come out and they help us out, the businesses open their doors to us, and we love to send our crews and send our teams and send people in. It's because of that, that movies keep wanting to come and spend time here, I think that's a very important piece to this, is that the Georgia community takes such good care of people when they come down."