WILLIAMSON, WV (WOAY)- P27: The Series is a show that is 20 years in the making and this November they’ll be in West Virginia filming it. The town of Williamson in Mingo County will be the main filming location.
Kent Allen, the executive producer, says the story was always thought to be in a small town in the mountains, so West Virginia was at the top of their list.
“So for the past two years, we spent doing a lot of research on different towns and we came across Williamson, West Virginia,” explained Kent Allen, executive producer/creator. “You know, when you’re writing something, you have in your mind when you’re writing it like how you want it to look or what you envision. Magically, when we visited Williamson, it was like everything in Williamson was exactly what we pictured in our head. You know, you got the hospital up on the hill, you got the town below it, you got a train that runs right through it.”
However, the story is much darker than picturesque background of West Virginia. The series is inspired by true events about abuse surrounding a psychiatric hospital. It brings up the discussion about mental illnesses, drug abuse, homelessness, and the veteran population, all of which our communities and the country face. Allen explains that this story started based on a friend’s experiences, but it grew to much more.
“Once we started this process, as far as like back in 2005, and people found out that we were making a [film and] doing a project like this, a lot of people started to kind of open up about their story that was similar to my buddy’s story to where they were sent to psychiatric hospitals and they were abused there by the staff,” said Allen.
He hopes that this series will affect change in multiple ways systematically and socially. He believes that this will encourage open dialogue and having hard conversations.
“Especially for a story like this. I mean, when you have something that can really affect people in a in a positive, emotional, moving way that and they respond and they may make a life change just off of words on paper and off of a film, then that to me is the up that outweighs every down that I’ve ever had,” said Allen. “And honestly, if we can do that with this film, that’s been a I think that’s going to make up for all the adversity and all the hurdles that we’ve had for 20 years of trying to get this made.”
Allen hopes that this will have a great impact on our communities.
“We’re just hoping that this can be a catalyst for to evoke change in a broken system. Because I think a lot of people in society today, and I truly, truly, 100% feel this, a lot of people are afraid of what they don’t understand,” said Allen. “I feel that if people could have open dialogs about things, about topics that they don’t necessarily think is the most happy go lucky thing. Like sometimes we have to have these hard conversations in order for us to have a true understanding about us as individuals and society as a whole. I just really think sometimes in order to invoke change, you have to have these hard conversations. You have to have real conversations. I really do feel that our series could, you know, open up a dialog, start a dialog with people who struggle with things, people who have, maybe come from broken homes, and who have been through in a domestic situation, and so that that’s what we’re ultimately wanting to get out of this series.”
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Take a look at how Allen hopes this series affects our communites:
