Meet the Kinards

Danny Kinard runs a knuckleboom, while son Matthew Kinard runs a chainsaw cutting firewood to sell at the family woodshed.

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_150418_1303_mkt.jpgDanny Kinard runs a knuckleboom, while son Matthew Kinard runs a chainsaw cutting firewood to sell at the family woodshed. Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

Danny Kinard cuts timber at private residence.

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_160624_001_mkt.jpgDanny Kinard cuts timber at private residence. Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

Danny Kinard discusses his career working in the wood industry as a logger his entire adult life.

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_160624_003_mkt.jpgDanny Kinard discusses his career working in the wood industry as a logger his entire adult life. Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

Richard Kinard splits wood day to day gearing up to sell it during the winter months.

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_150404_0024_mkt.jpgRichard Kinard splits wood day to day gearing up to sell it during the winter months. Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

Kinard Firewood sits on the top of what is known to locals as Kinard Hill located off of 76 in Little Mountain, SC.

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_150405_0035_mkt.jpgKinard Firewood sits on the top of what is known to locals as Kinard Hill located off of 76 in Little Mountain, SC. Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

Rain or shine, Richard Kinard can be found at his woodshed.

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_150411_0102_mkt.jpgRain or shine, Richard Kinard can be found at his woodshed. Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

Wood: A Family Affair

https://www.newberryobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_Screen-Shot-2016-06-24-at-8.54.29-AM.jpgWood: A Family Affair Courtesy of Michael Tolbert

LITTLE MOUNTAIN — Wood: A Family Affair is a documentary short about the Kinards, a family of three generations of loggers living in Little Mountain. The documentary comes from the creative mind of Newberry County native Michael Tolbert.

“The conflict of it is they have been doing this all their lives. Richard, who is now the patriarch of the family, started working in the logging industry, wood industry, because he grew up in it with his father. His father actually owned an old saw mill in Little Mountain. He ended up quitting school and got a pulpwood truck and started logging pulpwood and its passed on from generation to generation,” Tolbert said. “Now Danny, his oldest son, works as a logger and still does in Newberry County and what the family is facing is there is no one else to continue the business because Danny’s children have gone off to college, one is in the Air Force and another has a master’s from USC and is doing something on his own too. So will this end with them or will it continue.”

The two main individuals in the documentary are Richard and Danny Kinard, and they are narrating it. Richard’s father, the first generation logger, passed away a few years ago.

Tolbert has been working on this documentary short since 2015. He started the project as a class assignment while he was at the University of South Carolina. He said that the film then took a life of its own from there.

“It started out as a video for my mass communications class, and my professor was like, ‘you have a lot of extraordinary friends, but I do not want you to do a story on your friends, go outside of your comfort zone,’” Tolbert said. “So being from the Chapin/Little Mountain area I knew about who the Kinards were. You say Kinard Hill and nine times out of 10 someone living in Newberry County knows who you are talking about.”

One day Tolbert was with his parents and they were discussing different ideas, and the Kinards names were mentioned. The Tolberts just happened to be in Little Mountain, so Tolbert paid the Kinards a visit and talked with them. He said that before he knew it he was filming a documentary on them.

Filming of Wood: A Family Affair took about a eight weeks, and Tolbert spent about a year editing the film and post production. For the most part Tolbert has done all the work on the documentary himself.

“I have reached out and gotten help from others, but it has been me doing the work,” he said. “Beautiful thing about it its my project and no one else did it, all me.”

During the making of the film Tolbert has learned a lot about the logging and wood industry. What he likes to do is tell stories, so when he tells a story he also likes to educate his audience. The documentary does that by touching on not only the benefits of logging, but also the dangers.

“I use paper everyday, obviously paper comes from trees, but how do we get that, what is that process. That is something we lightly touch on in the film,” Tolbert said. “In 2014, according to Time magazine, logging was the number one most dangerous job in America, and again I had no idea.”

The film has already been screened in three places, a rough draft at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2015, and a new cut of it screened at the premiere of Prelude to Infusco. The film recently screened on June 30 at Magic Hour II (an open screen program and variety show) at the Nickelodeon Theater.

“I have submitted it to several other film festivals, but I will not hear back until September/November. The top of my list is the South Carolina Underground Film Festival 2016,” Tolbert said.

Tolbert has also thought about screening the documentary in Little Mountain.

“I have not had a chance to reach out and make those contacts, but I would love to show it in Little Mountain. I know Little Mountain does a movie night,” he said. “I would love to show it here in Newberry, I grew up here, and over the last year, spending so much time in Newberry, it feels like home again.”

If you would like to learn more about Wood: A Family Affair, and keep up to date about upcoming screenings, you can visit kinardlogging.com.