TAKING PICTURES SERIOUSLY

Of the 15 movies Cape Girardeau native Christopher Greenwood has been associated with, he's proud of just one -- 1999's "The Green Mile."

Greenwood was in charge of video playback on the movie and was seen briefly as a guard, an uncredited role. In a movie, photography and video production career that dates to the early 1980s, he has been an assistant director, grip, set dresser, on-set still photographer and location manager among numerous other jobs on movie sets and music video productions.

For many years, he took what Hollywood offered. "Porky's," one in a series of teen sex comedies, gave him one of his early jobs. He was the photographic consultant on the more recent "Last Dance," the Sharon Stone film about a woman on Death Row. The movie was well-made but the language troubled him.

He doesn't intend to work on those kinds of movies anymore, which pretty much means making his own.

"I'm interested in putting good quality family entertainment out there," he says. "Anything I can do to counteract the smut."

Greenwood, who now lives in Nashville, and his family are in Cape Girardeau this weekend for the marriage of his cousin, Kristy Staley, to Jeff Bebej. Naturally, Greenwood is taking the wedding pictures.

He directed his first film last fall. "Date Fate," a 15-minute comedy short, will be screened this June at the Nashville Film Festival.

In a few days, he will film Loretta Lynn giving the final interview for a documentary called "The Mae Axton Story." Axton, the mother of the late singer Hoyt Axton, was a well-known figure in Nashville who wrote "Heartbreak Hotel" and fought to get benefits for artists.

"She was an ambassador of country music," Greenwood says. "Everybody knew her."

The film includes interviews with many luminaries, including Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Reba McEntire, Tanya Tucker, Lee Greenwood and even the pop singer Tiffany.

The BBC and A&E are likely outlets for the film, he says.

The documentary has taken eight years to complete, so long that Mae Axton died three years ago.

Greenwood spent some time pursuing filmmaking in Los Angeles and had some disagreeable experiences.

"Since I decided to make my own road it's been a lot better," he says.

He lives in Nashville rather than Los Angeles because the quality of life is higher and the cost of living is lower.

That allows him to work on documentaries.

Monday, he begins work as the director of photography on a documentary called "Dixie Rose," a film about a struggling songwriter who lives near Nashville. "She has made a name for herself because she's so determined to make it," Greenwood says.

Greenwood's family moved from Cape Girardeau when he was a sophomore at Central High School. He returned later to attend Southeast, and in 1986 came back to Cape Girardeau again to work at KBSI-TV as production manager. He and his wife, Shara, a Scott City native, have two children, Cydney, 7, and Christopher, 4.

"I consider Cape Girardeau my hometown," he says.

Greenwood was a childhood friend of Cape Girardeau-born screenwriter Jim Uhls, who wrote the script for the recent "Fight Club." At one time in the mid-1980s they were trying to make a movie together along with friend Dan Irvine.

The unexpected is part of moviemaking. Greenwood was the set dresser on the HBO movie "Attica." One of the scenes was set in a prison metal shop, where a 1,500-pound drill press fell on his foot, crushing it.

Greenwood's life sounds much like making movies.

"Nothing is cooler than starting a project," he says, "because you don't know where it's going to go."