WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — "We're in the apartment, but we go down here to the end [of the timeline] and we’re shooting in the Old-Salem area that has a completely different look and feel to it," said Winston-Salem-based filmmaker, Zack Fox.
Fox has lived in the Triad his whole life and has been making independent films since 2015, and now, he’s trying something a little different.
"I’ve been through breakups, my friends have been through break ups, and I really got thinking about let’s explore the platonic relationship. Because you know you break up with someone your platonic best friend is coming over and having drinks with you and making you feel better", Fox continued.
During the pandemic, Fox wrote an indie web series, aptly called Gin & Platonic. The series focuses on the platonic relationship between two opposite-sex roommates as they deal with the aftermath of one of their breakups.
“My producer, Elizabeth Caddy, and I were having lunch and we were talking about projects and I’m like “well, Here are three episodes of this web series, let’s take a look at this and just let me know what you think”, she read it, and just simply said, "Oh, we’re doing this!", Fox recalled.
This past March, over the span of four days, Fox and Gin & Platonic’s cast and crew filmed the first three episodes across the city of Winston-Salem.
"Winston-Salem is a great place to film, that’s what we really came to realize is that we were able to find apartments, find a location for a restaurant, location for our main lead’s employment, all within three blocks of each other," Fox said.
While Winston-Salem was always going to be a place to film, it wasn’t until filming itself that Fox made the decision to let Winston be Winston.
"When we started filming we weren’t sure if we were actually going to set the story, and we were kind of thinking, might be Atlanta, or maybe even Charlotte, or something, but Winston became such a character as we were filming downtown," Said Fox.
As Fox went through the footage, he pointed out one scene from the pilot episode that highlighted the city's skyline.
“Instead of hiding the buildings, the buildings were giving us these gorgeous reflections, like, right here as you can see, and we were like, “No, let's just set this in Winston," Fox said while editing.
The filmmaker hopes that other productions, both big and small, can keep Winston on their radar.
“I strongly believe that if you are a filmmaker, and you shoot something in our area, that helps me as a filmmaker, you know, shoot my next project. As long as we treat the venues with respect, and we make the town look good it only helps," Fox said.
The first three episodes of Gin & Platonic premiere online on their website on July 7th, 2023 at midnight. The first episode is free for the first two weeks and episodes two and three are $1.99. Fox hopes to make his initial 12 episode idea.