{"id":1538,"date":"2010-01-12T13:14:20","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T19:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:56:28","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:56:28","slug":"no-veracity-for-twin-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=1538","title":{"rendered":"No VERACITY for Twin Cities?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our humble editor had been wondering whatever happened to Laura Bynum<\/strong>, a local writer who came out of nowhere a few short years ago to found Ugly Girl Productions<\/strong>, a shingle that would create narrative material focusing on women and\/or contemporary issues. According to an April 4, 2006<\/strong> interview with Chuck Koplinski<\/strong> in The Hub<\/strong><\/span> weekly, Bynum completed shooting a black comedy short called UGLY GIRLS<\/strong> and also began pre-production on a sci-fi dystopia parable called VERACITY<\/strong>. Her descriptions implied the latter would be a feature-length project also made in Champaign-Urbana<\/strong>, saying:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely timely and relevant and it\u2019s just a killer story. We have such a brilliant cast and crew available. I have faith it\u2019s going to find a strong market \u2026 We want C-U residents to know what a hotbed of talent there is here [by screening the completed UGLY GIRLS<\/strong> for the public] and, of course, we\u2019d like them to know they can be a part of helping this community \u2018fund\u2019 a small but growing film industry with tickets, with permissions to shoot on locations they might have available, with talents they might be able to bring to the table, and equipment. You\u2019d be surprised the kinds of things we have on our wish list \u2013 it\u2019s not just equipment.\u201d [p.9]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To the best of our knowledge, UGLY GIRLS<\/strong> never wowed the C-U. (In fact, a Google <\/strong>search turns up only one result for \u201cLaura Bynum\u201d and \u201cUGLY GIRLS<\/strong>\u201d \u2013 one of the very first CUBlog<\/strong> entries, which linked to the article cited above.) VERACITY <\/strong>obviously failed to follow suit. Given Melissa Merli<\/strong>\u2019s update<\/a> which ran in The News-Gazette<\/strong><\/span> over the weekend, we can probably strike this VERACITY <\/strong>from C-U Blogfidential<\/strong>\u2019s watchful eye as Bynum has since been occupied with a move to Virginia<\/strong>, the passing of her beloved grandmother, a bout with breast cancer (which she beat, thank goodness) and success attained through different avenues with her original story.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That certainly doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t give props where props are due when Bynum reads from the novel<\/em> Veracity<\/span> <\/strong>tonight, Tuesday, January 12, 7 p.m.<\/strong>, at Borders <\/strong>bookstore, 802 W. Town Center Blvd., Champaign, IL<\/strong>. Seems that a little publisher called Simon & Schuster<\/strong><\/a> released hardback and eBook editions of Veracity<\/span> through a little division called Pocket Books<\/strong> last Tuesday, January 5<\/strong>, the result of good fortune bestowed upon the author after entering her manuscript (primarily written at the caf\u00e9 of this Borders) in a contest at a Hawaii <\/strong>writers\u2019 conference. Apparently, time and opportunity changes things; Koplinski\u2019s earlier article never mentions distinctly a prose version of the story, although it\u2019s reasonable to think that Bynum developed it simultaneously with a movie script.<\/p>\n

At her current Web site<\/a>, Bynum discusses her interests in writing and critical thinking (starting with reactions to 9\/11<\/strong> and the Patriot Act<\/strong>) as well as the themes and storyline of Veracity<\/span>, which involves an underground movement resisting an oppressive \u201cnew order\u201d government controlling its citizens through electronic implants. Comparisons to The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/span>, The Children of Men<\/span><\/strong>, and (naturally) Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/strong><\/span> abound on-line and, considering how all those cautionary tomes successfully survived the transition to feature films, is it any surprise that Bynum has a \u201cbooks to film agent\u201d shopping the property around? We wish the author the best of luck and hope her work winds up with savvy filmmakers who will do the material justice.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, consideration would be made to film a prospective VERACITY <\/strong>feature in the Midwest, since the book\u2019s resistance group is headquartered there and Springfield <\/strong>native Bynum apparently had close-to-home locations in mind when writing the novel, according to the Merli article. With our luck, budget and studio politics will dictate shooting in Toronto <\/strong>or Louisiana <\/strong>or Missouri<\/strong>, oh my. Then again, Steven Soderbergh<\/strong> brought THE INFORMANT!<\/strong> right back to where his own story began, so we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Springfield native and former Mahomet\/C-U resident Laura Bynum returns to the area to read from her just-published first novel, Veracity (Pocket Books\/Simon & Schuster) at 7 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, January 12, 2010, at Borders bookstore in north Champaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,15,348,13],"tags":[349,350,351,352],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alums-done-good","category-media-coverage","category-ones-that-got-away","category-public-events","tag-laura-bynum","tag-ugly-girl-productions","tag-ugly-girls","tag-veracity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}