'Cold Soldiers'

The challenges of making a feature film on a modest budget are well-known. And they are all the more exacting when cast and crew are doing a shoot piecemeal, in their spare time.

But with the espionage thriller "Cold Soldiers," a yearlong production nearing completion here, writer-director Nick Smith has a secret weapon: the experience and professionalism of his team. Apart from cast members R.W. Smith ("Army Wives"), Trevor Erickson ("All for Liberty"), Sandra VanNatta ("The Notebook," "Leatherheads"), Jimmy Hager ("Walker Payne") and Michael Easler ("Rich in Love"), Smith assembled a crew as tested as he is.

"Independent filmmaking is the ultimate test of how efficient you can be," said Erickson, a former Marine who doubles as co-producer and fight coordinator. "In the Corps, the smallest of the armed forces, we had a saying: We've done our job so long with so little we can do anything with nothing. It's the same thing with this movie. Every person you talk to on this set has something they can bring to it, some contribution that adds a lot of value to the whole film. It's also amazing what cooperation we've gotten on the locations Nick's secured, usually just by asking. We're trying our best to make it look like a big budget film."

Well-known in the local arts community, Smith, one-time director of The Film School Scotland, is a BBC-trained filmmaker who has crewed on a range of features, including "The Road to Glory," "The House of Mirth" and "The Little Vampire." The director specialized in documentary filmmaking before arriving in Charleston in 2003. This is his first project in partnership with Erickson under the production banner of Clandestine Films.

Sustaining scene continuity with so many interludes between shooting days was solved by the digital cameras utilized, ones with which more risks may be taken than with a $200,000 35mm gear and with greater flexibility. But that's only part of the equation.

"The glidecam has saved our life in terms of having the footage in sequence," said Smith, also a published novelist, teacher and book critic. "I just worry about the continuity for the actors getting back into character and remembering what they did (and how they looked) a month ago."

The plotline: The Kershaw Institute is a rehabilitation center for highly trained spies and soldiers who've cracked in the field. The goal is to fix what's broken without eroding the inmates' finely honed edge. Enter John Dance (R.W. Smith), a psychologist hired to assay the mental stability of hair-trigger patients who could turn on him at any moment, not least Max Taylor (Erickson), the honcho among the patients and something of an escape artist.

Instead, the patients turn on the review board that is assessing the institute's future. On that board is Dance's spouse, Rebecca (VanNatta), who could be the next target in a series of killings, and it's up to Dance to uncover which of his patients are involved. Little does he know.

A movie described as a meld of "The Bourne Identity" and "The Dirty Dozen" might be expected to have its share of stunts. And it does. Credit, in part, Erickson's 20 years of martial-arts experience. Just don't expect million-dollar mayhem.

"What we have is more like hand-to-hand combat and sword fights," said R.W. Smith, best known as an actor and company manager with Pure Theatre. "It's been one of the fun things we've done. Neither my character nor I am used to combat, so it's not hard to play surprised.

"But what I really like about this psychologist character are the different tactics he had to use because of the different problems each patient presents. As a psychologist, you want to solve whatever problem it was that caused them to break, but the idea is to get those soldiers back out (in the fray) and not quell the instinct that has made them a covert ops fighting force."

For all the action sequences, it's an actor's piece as well. Rounding out the cast are John Brennan, Charlie Thiel, Bettina Beard, Nat Jones, Tom Lucas, Jon Ballard, Chirie Dautel, Christopher Gay, Daniel Jones and Janine McCabe.

"Because it's an ensemble cast, the actors all have a chance to do their thing, but there's a balance between that and the action," said the director, who notes that the film will be submitted to film festivals and movie theaters for prospective distribution upon completion.

"We feel like we see the light at the end of the tunnel, which is very exciting."

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.