The kitchen is the room of a house where most folks place their ovens.
Many people keep their refrigerators and cupboards there, too.
But in the case of Greensboro filmmaker Harvey Kent Robinson, it's also the place where he will set up four studio lights, two cameras and the white backdrop he uses to make "Harvey's Kitchen," the almost weekly video program he produces for his Web site www.monkeywhale.com.
For this online series of short vignettes, Robinson along with a team of dedicated videographers, audio engineers, photographers and bloggers provide an international stage for musicians, artists and other people of interest, most of whom are from Greensboro and other parts of North Carolina. Then he simply allows them to perform or discuss their lives and the finer points of their art all in front of his camera.
"When I used to tour around all the time as an actor, people used to ask me, 'What's so great about living in Greensboro? What's so great about living in North Carolina?'" Robinson says. "And now I can show them one of these videos and say, 'Hey, this is what's great about North Carolina.'"
A Greensboro resident by choice, Robinson is an expatriate from Derbyshire, England, who moved to the Gate City at age 17. His accent is a unique medley of the ones from his native country and the place he now calls home, a result, he says, of being a former stage actor.
"I toured around with this show called 'This is the Place Where I Live,' which was 100 years of North Carolina poetry, bluegrass, folk and gospel," Robinson says. "We toured a lot, and I played eight Southern characters … and after a few years of doing that, and waking up in one city or the next, it just happened."
Robinson eventually gave up acting to become a filmmaker and majored in film at the UNC School of the Arts. Afterward, he along with girlfriend Carolyn DeBerry and friend Vijay Java formed their production company Monkeywhale, which soon led to the creation of their multimedia Web site.
Robinson said he views his online venture, which was created more than a year ago, as an experiment in new media, with the biggest goal being to push the quality of online video entertainment.
"There was definitely an art and a methodology in terms of the process to get good quality video onto an imperfect medium," Robinson says. "People could be watching some of these videos on their cell phone or it could even be on dial-up."
As per Robinson's intentions, the episodes look and sound great, even on an iPhone. Presented in high contrast black and white, Robinson's video series "Harvey's Kitchen" features local artists at ease, making his audience feel as if they were privy to a one-on-one conversation. Previous guests include Sam Frazier, Laurelyn Dossett and the Tremors.
Viewers from more than 20 countries have watched "Harvey's Kitchen," but Robinson credits that to the artists who appeared on his show.
"I don't know if it's really my work," Robinson says. "I'm just setting up an environment for them to be able to do what it is that they do."
In the long term, Robinson hopes www.monkeywhale.com will enable him to one day make a documentary or narrative feature. He also wants to "Save the Monkeywhale," a mantra recited by each artist at the end of Monkeywhale programs. Only problem is, what is a Monkeywhale? Is it a concept or an actual creature? Or is it just a catchy name for a Web site?
"How do I answer this?" Robinson says, before adding quizzically, "I think that a Monkeywhale is just something that's worth saving."
Joe Scott is a freelance contributor. Contact him at movieshowjoe@gmail.com.
