Hugh Hamilton

Adopted and raised by quaker marijuana farmers, Elgin James turned vegan at the age of eleven after seeing an animal slaughtered on the family farm. He ran away from home at 17 and wound up homeless on the streets. He joined a gang in Boston called FSA (two of the letters stand for well, you can guess),  a gang notorious for avoiding alcohol and drugs but also for preying on and stealing from other drug dealing gangs. Somehow he managed to pull himself up from this background and make his way to the Sundance labs to write and direct his first feature film, Little Birds which debuts at this year's Sundance festival.

The New York Times always sends you out with the instruction "to make it look like LA" which I guess means palm trees and sunshine, but Elgin had a minder attached who wouldn't let me leave the vicinity of the cafe...a shame, since we were only a mile or so from the Griffith Observatory which not only has awesome views of LA but which is iconically LA having been featured in movies beyond count. So in and out of the cafe we were.

I became obsessed with his tattoos since they were literary quotes from people such as John Steinbeck and Arthur Rimbaud. I didn't realise the shot where I had him show me the arm tattoos looks very like he's about to be handcuffed. I'm kind of glad they didn't use that one since it must be noted that Elgin pleaded guilty last year to a charge of extortion in relation to his gang activities. He is actually awaiting sentence at this time.

You can read the story at

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/movies/19sundance.html?_r=1&hpw