2 savor, document diversity

Every time it seems the film might start, a few more people stroll in and a few more chairs are fetched from the back.

Eventually, 60 or so are scattered around the screen at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, tucked alongside bookshelves in makeshift movie-theater style.

The crowd is here to see "The Queen Family: Appalachian Tradition & Back Porch Music," the latest production from Walt Wolfram and Neal Hutcheson, a team at N.C. State University whose 30- to 90-minute documentaries focus on North Carolina dialects and culture. Wolfram is executive producer; Hutcheson is the film's producer and director.

"Everybody knows what an executive producer is, right?" says Wolfram, smiling, during his introduction to the film. "We're not fooling anybody."

He says it is his job to find the money. Hutcheson finds the pictures.

It's a partnership that so far has produced a series of films that are helping preserve the state's heritage while educating audiences about the way Tar Heels speak and live. The documentaries turn what otherwise might be lonely academic exercises into something anyone with a television can experience.

"It's a great way to communicate with the American public," Wolfram says later at his office at N.C. State, where he is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of English. "If you make it interesting enough, people will watch it."

They'll groove with it, too.

Toes tapped and heads bobbed during the half-hour screening of "The Queen Family," as members of one of North Carolina's most revered musical families shared their brand of acoustic mountain music, quite literally from their back porch.

Quail Ridge bookseller Nathan Miller, 27, was so impressed that he took home a DVD after the screening. "It kinda hit home," says Miller, who grew up in Wilkesboro. "Appalachian regional music -- it's very distinct. I think it needs to be remembered."

'Dialect heaven'

It's a pairing that seemed unlikely from the start -- Hutcheson, 36, is a filmmaker who comes across as studious and low-key. Wolfram, 64, is high-energy and says "dude" a lot. His research focuses on dialects.

They met in the late '90s when Hutcheson was working as a freelance video producer. He approached Wolfram at N.C. State.

"I was over here fishing around for work," Hutcheson says. "I basically just stuck my head in the door and introduced myself."

Wolfram, who heads The North Carolina Language and Life Project, had a simple question for Hutcheson that first day:

"Are you good?"

The partnership began slowly, with Hutcheson handling some editing and graphics for a project Wolfram had in the works. Hutcheson's workload increased from there. The two, who now work together full time, have since produced "Indian by Birth: The Lumbee Dialect," "Mountain Talk" and "Voices of North Carolina." Each has been shown statewide on UNC-TV.

Wolfram, a Pennsylvania native, likes to say he "died and came to dialect heaven."

Folks here talk in a wide variety of ways, including the brogue spoken on the Outer Banks -- where high tide is pronounced "hoi toide" -- African-American English in the urban areas and Appalachian mountain talk.

The state's shifting economics and demographics are affecting the dialects as well. "In North Carolina, things are changing fairly radically," Wolfram says.

As they chronicle those changes, the two men bounce ideas off each other throughout the documentary-making process.

Over the years, they have settled into a working relationship that fits their personalities. Hutcheson collects the footage alone and edits alone in a cramped, tiny office at N.C. State. Wolfram, whose bright, well-furnished office befits his status as interim chairman of the English department, is the public face for the projects, working to draw attention and funding to the cause.