Independent streak

Ted Speaker fell in love with movies watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — but he fell in love with archaeology more.

He got a degree in archaeology, and it wasn’t until several years later that he realized it wasn’t just digging up old bones that he loved about “Raiders,” but also the way it was portrayed through film.

After working in film for 12 years and being back in town for 10, the Birmingham native is returning his roots — in more ways than one. As of 2016, he is the partial owner of NOHO Studios art collective in Homewood, and he is also one of three partners in a new Birmingham-based production company. 

He, along with business partners and longtime friends Stacey Davis and Greg Womble, both Homewood residents, launched Steel City Films at this year’s Sidewalk Film Festival.

The plan for Steel City Films is to produce three micro-budget independent films representing three different genres over the course of four years, Speaker said. All the films will be full-length narrative features written and directed by experienced filmmakers. 

“I think the model that we’re using as the foundation for the company is what makes us unique and original,” Davis said. “We feel we’re going to attract compelling projects and those projects are going to set themselves apart in the marketplace.”

The three said they are open to producing any type of film, but for Speaker, originality is key. 

“If you’re going to make a scrappy film and put all the time and effort that it takes to get it done, you certainly want to do it with something that provides a new voice or a new perspective on a story,” he said. 

As Womble describes, the three — Speaker, the video editor; Davis, the lawyer; and himself the marketing guru and project manager — work together in concentric circles. Where one partner falls short, another excels, but all three partners have a strong background in both the creative and business side of production, he said.

“We’re all interested in the art and the commerce, and I think if you swing to one side of the spectrum or the other, you may not have the same success,” Womble said. “To us, if these films do well from both perspectives [art and commerce], then that’s what we’re going for.”

For Speaker, their work is simply a matter of “putting together all the pieces,” in order to make a screenwriter and director’s vision come to life. Though they won’t be the primary creative vision behind the movies they produce for Steel City Films, the three have taken their turn at such. 

Womble debuted a short film called “Visitor to Virgin Pines” at Sidewalk Film Festival in 2013, and Davis debuted her first short feature, a 7-minute comedy called “Sibling Code,” at this year’s festival. Speaker’s documentary “Stand Up, Speak Out” about Nina Miglionico, Alabama’s longest practicing female lawyer and the first woman to be elected to the Birmingham City Council in 1963, was also part of this year’s lineup.  

With more than 30 years of combined experience as participants and supporters at Sidewalk Film Festival, Davis, the organization’s treasurer, said for herself and for the group, it all goes back to Sidewalk in one way or another. 

“I know it sounds super cliché, but it’s like a dream come true,” Davis said. “I’ve been going to the festival since 2002 … and you leave a screening thinking, ‘I really want to do this. I can do this.’ Then the years pass and you have kids; you have a job, and you never get to it. So the fact that my first short played at Sidewalk after all these years … and the fact that we’re launching this new company at the same time feels like everything’s coming together.”

Ultimately, the creators of Steel City Films said they hope the company brings attention to regional filmmaking in Alabama and more specifically, Birmingham. 

“We hope that people can see that films can originate in a place like Birmingham and be just as good and just as competitive as any other film made in New York or Los Angeles or anywhere else,” Speaker said.