Richard Hyatt: Homegrown filmmaker tells our story

Craig Miller has an eye for film and a heart that makes images on a screen break into song.

For almost a year he traveled Georgia looking for stories, and last week he premiered "We Are Georgia," a series of nine videos that sells our state in ways home folks often overlook.

You'll be impressed by all of them, but around here we'll most appreciate his depiction of the Presidential Pathways.

In two minutes and six seconds, Miller tastefully blends shadows, flames and flowers with the surge of the Chattahoochee, making viewers want to explode down the river on a raft and explore the life of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs and the peanut gospel of Jimmy Carter in Plains.

That he would tell our story so well isn't surprising, for Miller is a product of Hardaway High School who, for a while, came home to hone his skills after graduating from the University of Georgia.

We crossed paths years ago when he produced a memorable TV spot for the Columbus Steeplechase -- a commercial that could tell the story of next weekend's event as effectively as it did 25 years ago.

"I wanted to do a horse opera," Miller said. "I proposed we use people that Columbus would know."

I was one of the performers who put on a rented tuxedo and reported for work in an old horse stable on Macon Road early one morning. With me was newspaper colleague Tim Chitwood, Country's Barbecue founder Jim Morpeth and Columbus Symphony Conductor George Del Gobbo. An uninvited hound dog that was determined to get into show business joined us.

For hours we lip-synched a Gilbert-and-Sullivan type tune that I still hear in my sleep. It was written by composers that Miller remembers only as Danny and Mike.

It was shot on film that produced a classy appearance that video would not deliver. It survives on YouTube, where you still see Del Gobbo tap his baton on the music stand and lead us in one more take.

In 1985, Miller opened his own production firm in Atlanta and has many exciting credits on his resume. At a time when filmmaking is a $6.1 billion industry in Georgia, he chairs the governor's advisory commission on film and music.

"We're still just storytellers," he said, "waiting to grow to the next project."

Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906@knology.net

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 10:36 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Homegrown filmmaker tells our story ."