Vlog #2: Nick and Hilarie and Southern Gothic Part 1

watch here!

[scan of graveyard, until Nick and Hilarie are seen on steps]
Hilarie Burton: Oh, hi guys! If you are wondering who the creepy kids, dressed in black, hanging out in the cemetery were in high school, they grew up to be us. It’s Hilarie, and Nick, hanging out.
Nicholas Gray: This isn’t the Oscars…
HB: No, you look fantastic, Nick!
NG: Thank you.
HB: Oh, you’re so welcome. So, we’ve been getting a lot of traffic on our blog website and we want to thank some of the people that are really driving it. We really appreciate everyone’s support. This is something that is near and dear to us. So we have Emma and Sue in the UK, you guys have been awesome. Titania in sunny Spain. We have Missa, in Montreal. Kimbaroo, that’s Nick personal favorite, in Belgium.
NG: Mhmm. Kimbaroo.
HB: Kimbaroo! Podcaster Denise. The YouTube girls Portia and Amber. Geoh and his white piano blogging on the Scratchpad. I like my piano so much better than regular pianos. That’s classy! Megan and Mary, the Minnesota Shamrock Princess. And there can only be one Twitter King, the Pfeiffer. Also, we want to thank Alicia and the Second Life Team for doing a bunch of work for us. Everybody’s been really awesome. We are excited to have everybody along with us. So, one of the questions we got on our blog was where did we get the name Southern Gothic Productions. And Kelly and I got to talking when we first started, and we were like oh, what are we gonna name this company? And I’m a huge literature dork, and southern gothic literature is my personal favorite. Kelly is a fan of it as well, and it really kinda tied into the stories that we wanted to tell. What do you think the definition of southern gothic lit is, Nick?
NG: Well, southern gothic literature I think is, well, it’s a take on gothic literature, refined to the American South, and it uses a lot of morally ambiguous figures…
HB: I love moral ambiguity.
NG: … characters. And sometimes it brings in some supernatural elements to drive the plot. But, even if it’s not supernatural, it usually is at least a bit… weird.
HB: Yeah, it’s really quirky. I think the characters in southern gothic literature are so well rounded and so layered. You know, you have your ‘grotesques’, is what they call them, which are the people that are so extreme in whatever they are. Whether it’s like the bible thumper, or, like in a lot of southern gothic literature, the super racist, or like…
NG: Because right before this a lot of people that were writing southern literature, were using the main stereotypes that are incorporated, like the southern debutante. And in southern gothic literature, you’re not really gonna find the debutante unless she is…
HB: A whore with the heart of gold! And who doesn’t love one of those, right?! [laughs] So, that’s kind of the driving force behind the stories we like to tell, you know. We are very character oriented, and Nick’s writing is very southern gothic to me, you know, you really understand how to take a loathsome person and really draw a full picture of them so they can become redeemable and interesting, and lovable to hate! You’re really good at that.
NG: Hmm, villains.
HB: Villians. I love villains.
NG: [looking at stack of books] Well some of these writers are my favorites, so that’s probably where it comes from…
HB: Yeah, we brought some books for you guys. Cause we’re always doing our homework. We are always looking for new short stories, or just new things to inspire us. So, some of my personal favorites… [to Nick] that’s kinda how we became friends cause we had a lot of the same favorites.. are like Carson McCuller’s. [holds up book] This is the book that made her the most famous, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. She was a really young, southern woman, who, you know, put out a book and nobody could believe that she put out such a textured, really controversial book, at like, what, 21 years old? She was really young… [reading back of book] Let’s see..
NG: [Nick points to book] 23.
HB: 23. I apologize. So yeah, Carson McCuller’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. My personal favorite is ‘Ballad of Sad Café.’ I really like that one that she wrote. Have you read McCuller’s?
NG: Yeah, I read this. That’s all I’ve read.
HB: She’s great! She’s fantastic.