Robert Kinlaw’s entry into filmmaking started as a hobby.
He spent much of his middle school and high school years behind the eyepiece of a video camera making movies with his friends for their own enjoyment.
But this week, Kinlaw’s work behind the camera will reach the masses. The junior UNC-Chapel Hill journalism student’s documentary on the town of White Lake, NC premieres on UNC-TV on Thursday at 10:15 p.m.
Entitled “White Lake: Remembering the Nation’s Safest Beach,” the documentary traces the history of his hometown from the location of a gist mill in the early years when settlers first moved in to a hotbed for professional water skiers in the 1960s.
“There’s a lot of cool history — cool stories — that a lot of people don’t know about,” Kinlaw said. “I thought it would be nice to do a historical documentary that would document the history that had never really been preserved.”
A third-generation resident of White Lake, Kinlaw decided to start the documentary as a junior in high school to craft his filmmaking abilities and attempt to create an all-encompassing history of the beach town’s story before it was too late.
Kinlaw already knew much of the history through conversations with his family who had been visiting or living in the town for nearly a century. His grandfather began visiting the beach as a child in the 1930s, and then his parents spent much of their lives in White Lake experiencing the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The early years, however, were relatively unknown by the 19-year-old.
“The people who know those stories are getting older now,” Kinlaw said. “They have these great memories that need to be preserved.”
His two-and-a-half-year process included nearly 10 hours of interview footage, beginning with James Melvin — a descendant of Ralph Melvin who opened the town’s first public beach in 1901.
“After that I kept on getting interviews,” he said. “I got all of the footage pretty quickly. Shooting the footage was fun — I love that stuff. You get to the editing and I had to motivate myself to do it.”
The biggest challenge, he said, was the tedious editing process that took months. After finishing the interviews, Kinlaw spliced and edited the footage until spring break of his first year at Carolina.
“There’s so much more to it than you think,” he said. “It costs more than you think it’s going to cost. No matter what you think, it’s going to be harder and more complicated than you expected. You have to be ready to adapt to those kinds of things.
“It’s great fun, but you have to be dedicated to finishing it. It will be fun at times, but then there will be times when you’re pulling your hair out saying ‘Where do I go from here?’ But it’s definitely worth it when it’s finished.”
After completing the first edit of the 43-minute documentary, Kinlaw sent it to UNC-TV, which came back with a few more edits before it could be aired on television.
Since its completion, the documentary has been available for sale on his website and has been screened in White Lake with praise. But Thursday will be the first time the documentary will be shown to a wide audience.
When the film airs, Kinlaw will be in White Lake for a viewing party at his parent’s home and plans on packing any many people around his TV as he can.
“I’m super excited,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s actually going to be on TV.”
By Brandon Bieltz, Office of Communications and Public Affairs.
Published June 23, 2015