COMMERCIAL-NEWS | ROBERT TOMLINSON
The crew and extras of the independent film “Postal Greed” pose for a picture at GG’s Cookies during filming of a few scenes in downtown Three Rivers Tuesday. Pictured from left to right are extras Melissa Love, Darlene Morgan and Sara Curry; writer, actor and Three Rivers native Quinten Haley, Regina Mains, Cameron Mains, and producer Devan Mungin.
COMMERCIAL-NEWS | ROBERT TOMLINSON
The main character of “Sticky” (center, played by Quinten Haley) in the upcoming independent film “Postal Greed” interacts with GG’s Cookies owner Regina Mains (left) during a scene for the movie filmed Tuesday. Filming the scene is producer Devan Mungin (right).
By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
THREE RIVERS — For one afternoon this week, downtown Three Rivers became the set for an upcoming movie by a Three Rivers native.
The production team of “Postal Greed,” an independent film written by and starring Quinten Haley, a 2002 Three Rivers High School graduate, spent Tuesday afternoon filming some scenes in downtown Three Rivers for the upcoming film. The scenes were filmed at some local businesses, including GG’s Cookies and Colorful Roots, along with B-roll of downtown.
“Postal Greed” follows the story of a young delivery driver with the nickname of “Sticky,” played by Haley, who got the moniker from his mom because he a penchant for stealing anything and everything ever since he was a kid. However, his thievery catches up to him when he unknowingly steals from a drug kingpin’s package and gets caught up in trouble with him. Eventually in the story, he gets sent to jail, where he has to re-consider his ways and learn his lesson.
Haley, who moved to Georgia and got into the music and entertainment business following high school, said it was great to film parts of the movie back in his hometown of Three Rivers, and was especially excited to give some of the local downtown businesses a cameo.
“Coming from a small town, and to be able to come back to where you come from and having local businesses support what you’re doing is amazing,” Haley said. “I wanted to be able to get some of the local businesses downtown, so we’re putting them in the movie to give awareness to the companies. We’ll have the whole scenery of downtown, make sure we get a good scene of everybody.”
The shoot in downtown Three Rivers was originally scheduled to take place back in mid-March, but due to the snowy weather conditions, it was pushed back to mid-April. Compared to the weather in March, Tuesday’s weather was a night and day difference.
While the production team did successfully acquire permits from both the city and MDOT well ahead of time to barricade the downtown block of Main Street for Tuesday’s shoot, ultimately downtown didn’t get blocked off due in part to the sunny conditions.
“When our cameraman got down here, we were going to leave the cars that were on the street on the street and barricade downtown so we could bring out more equipment, but with the day being nice, and the sun being perfect, we didn’t need to put out the lights and big equipment,” Haley said. “We didn’t have to drag it out, and it ended up being perfect.”
The story of “Postal Greed” came to Haley in a brainstorming session a few years ago, and as luck would have it, his friend, Devan Mungin, one of the directors and cameramen for the film, wanted to make a movie around the same time.
“At the time, my friend said he wanted to film a movie, so we got the production team together, got a couple people, and we started filming. Now, here we are, 95 percent done,” Haley said.
The majority of the movie was filmed in Atlanta at Studio Space Atlanta, as well as at various spots in Columbus, Ga., including Devan OnThe Beat Studios, which is owned by Mungin. Haley said there isn’t a big budget for the film, and filming has gone on for the last couple of years. Once the film is done – Haley said he expects it to be done by the end of this summer – it will be available to stream on the streaming service Tubi.
“We don’t have no big sponsors, no big budget, so it’s been all out of pocket, so that’s why it took so long, but we’re getting it together, and it’s looking amazing. We’re excited,” Haley said.
When it came to the permitting and overall process of setting up a movie shoot downtown, Haley tipped his cap to Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Cameron Mains for his assistance with the project.
“I have to take my hat off to him, he kinda took over for me. He said, anything you need, let me know, and I’ll try my best. He didn’t make any promises, but he was straight upfront with me,” Haley said. “I asked what would be the steps to make this come about, and he told me what I need to do, and we did it. He made it happen.”
Mains said he was happy to assist in the effort and be able to showcase downtown.
“I know it’s things like this that put us on the map a bit more and shine a light on the small businesses down here, so we just kind of coordinated after I got his email,” Mains said. “We have such a unique downtown that it’s really great that we get to highlight that. When you watch the movie, you’re not going to think it’s any downtown, you’ll know it’s Three Rivers, and that’s great.”
Tuesday was the lone day of filming downtown, with the production team shooting scenes in Vandalia on Wednesday. In the future, however, Haley said Three Rivers could be involved in more films he has plans to do, including a baseball-themed story he is looking to start producing next year.
Overall, Haley said filming has gone well between his schedule and Mungin’s schedule, and that he looks forward to the film being out.
“I couldn’t ask for nothing better, it’s been a good experience,” Haley said.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@threeriversnews.com.
dont know if you all said anything about this but there was extras im sure.. would have love to be one
@Dean Allen Shidaker I am Quentins Nefue and if you would like to be in any of our next upcoming films I would be glad to tell him for you.
We’re there other “extras” than pictured in this article? I am sure there would have been more if there was more information distributed. This is difficult to do without a daily newspaper . Sad to say.
@Waneta Truckey There were more extras then what was seen in the pictures provided, But they are spread out through the movie but we could not put all of the pictures of the extras on here because there were to many.