Public Safety releases innovative, hilarious recruitment video
by Bill Davis | Current Staff Writer
Folly Beach Public Safety Department just released a series of recruitment videos that may be the most “Folly Beach” thing on the island so far this year, thanks to the second installment in the series.
The first five-minute installment shows former PSO Patrick Shaver talking with Chief Andrew Gilreath about filming a video of what it’s like to work in the department.
The two men chat in the chief’s office and drop a couple wry jokes here and pop culture references there. Shaver tells the chief he wants to try something different, get away from the glorified action of television cop shows.
When Shaver tells Gilreath that according to feedback, people want to see more “Baywatch” type action, the chief says, “I don’t know how to run in slow motion.”
After nixing a video copying a show about lifeguards, Gilreath suggests shooting an “epic opening scene to a really awesome cop show here on beach.”
Funny and dry, but nothing like what’s in store in the second installment, where Shaver basically just goes nuts.
What follows in the second installment are shot-by-shot recreations of famous television shows’ openings, but done with Folly as the setting.
“The first two video are meant to be funny, with only the last one a serious attempt to tell prospective employees what it’s really like to work here,” says Gilreath.
First up in the second installment is “Center Street Blues,” a grainy blue-tinted homage to the ‘80s show that launched Steven Bochco’s career. Shaver’s version apes the rolling out of police cruisers down Center with the real theme song playing over the footage.
“I ripped off the real songs … it’s okay if you do it in a goofy nature,” says Shaver on the phone after the release.
Next up was a reimagining of “21 Jumpstreet,” as you guessed it, retitled “21 Centerstreet,” replete with spray-painted opening credits and shots of running cops, though none as good looking as Johnny Depp.
The next homage stars Gilreath in the role that made Michael Chiklis famous from “The Commish,” as an all-too-human cop who has to check all of his pockets before he leaves the house.
The next segment is “Law and Order, Folly Beach DPS,” in which the ubiquitous “dun-dun” sound effect cuts off the action as the camera cuts away abruptly to an outside shot of the Tides, followed by slow motion pans of still photos.
There is even an opening tipping its hat to “The Office,” for some reason, as it isn’t even a cop show. Same theme, same shaky handheld camera shots of the FBDPS office’s interior.
Perhaps the most ridiculous segment is the one that follows, which recasts Folly as New Jersey, with a police officer sitting in as a Tony Soprano replacement smoking a vape pen instead of a cigar while “Woke Up This Morning” grinds in the background.
All that in the first four minutes of the video. Then Shaver and Gilreath sit down and talk about the work done, fight over the pronunciation of Depp’s last night (hint: it’s not “Deep”), and why Shaver didn’t go with all-too-violent “The Shield” Chiklis.
When onscreen Gilreath tells Shaver to go shoot a simple, direct video of “talking to the guys,” with no car chases, shoot-outs, or the like, Shaver immediately covers the evidence room in fake drugs, a triple beam scale and shoots “The Wire” opening scene.
Offscreen, Gilreath says the videos show his and Shaver’s shared dry sense of humor, and affinity for comedians like Larry David.
“It was so much fun that he allowed me to have free reign,” says Shaver, who has since left the department where he worked part-time to throw himself full-time into filmmaking.
“Honestly it only took me three or four days to shoot, and that includes the first video,” which he says shows his and Gilreath’s shared love of dry, sarcastic comedy and … Larry David.
Shaver got his start in filmmaking years ago when he was an Atlanta cop and decided to document the ordeal an officer goes through after shooting a citizen in the line of duty.
That effort became his first documentary, and he’s just finished filming a full-length feature film about a deputy killed in the line of duty 20 years ago.
In the fall, Shaver hopes to be taking his latest project out on the “festival trail,” and raise enough money to fund his next project. Until his big break comes, Shaver will continue to work on a variety of side projects to pay the bills.
The third installment literally just features interviews with firemen and police officers talking up the department.
They mention a sense of family a lot, and how they can advance their careers because it’s so small a department, and how the public supports them, and how nice it is there are no strangers at the office.
But, the third is also well-shot, properly lit, with good audio, and there are interesting angles in Shaver’s two-camera interviews.
If you don’t believe you just read all this, go online to the departments Facebook page and you can watch them all for yourself. Over 4,000 people have “liked” the second installment in its first three weeks.
