Mule Skinner Blues (2001)

Set in Florida's beach community, Mule Skinner Blues chronicles a group of locals who crave self-expression in the midst of their Southern Gothic lifestyles. Chief among the figures is Beanie Andrew, a fifty-something former alcoholic who acts, sings, dances, writes, and lives in a trailer park outside Jacksonville and who finds work as an extra in a music video. He then presents Stephen with a series of home videos displaying his and his friends' talents. Most of them are out-of-work shrimpers, such as Steve Walker, a Vietnam veteran and troubadour; Ricky Lix, an ill-tempered blues guitarist; Miss Jeannie, a country singer who also has a penchant for yodeling; and Annabelle Lea, an art school grad and costume designer who keeps her departed bulldog's dead body in a backyard freezer. After the music video shoot, Stephen returns to Florida to find the group beginning work on an ambitious horror film called "Turnabout Is Fair Play," which has no completed script; still, the team tries to pull together to make the picture. The subject matter is very similar to Chris Smith's award-winning documentary American Movie, which also followed a struggling group of filmmakers through their production of a very low-budget genre piece.