ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – There is a bit of David Lynch in the short film "Five Cave Witch Doctors," now filming in St. Petersburg.
You'll probably never see it on network TV, unlike the eccentric director's twisted "Twin Peaks," or on the big screen, unlike Lynch's mad "Mulholland Drive."
Still, the producers of "Witch Doctors" say this new movie offers a glimpse of the workings of its auteur's mind, in the same way critics seem to see what makes Lynch tick by analyzing his films.
There's a man born without a bellybutton who desperately wants one. Good witches co-star with a magical drill that can create a bellybutton, but only after they finish cleaning a hot air balloon with the floor polishers that serve as their brooms. Then there's the dinosaur sent by Satan to pester the hags.
"Five Cave Witch Doctors" is the work of writer-star Lawrence Jones Jr., one of more than 30 adult artists with a developmental, physical or emotional disability who are learning to express themselves through art at St. Petersburg's Creative Clay Cultural Arts Center.
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Some create through sculpting, singing and dancing or painting.
Jones uses film. His disability is autism.
The 46-year-old St. Petersburg man has lived on his own since he was 21, supporting himself with a grocery store job. He has trouble verbalizing his thoughts, so conversation for him is short.
When he picks up a paintbrush or pencil, though, he speaks with passion.
"That is our mission," said Charlie Bachmann, director of community arts at Creative Clay, at 1114 Central Ave. "By providing our artists a different way to express themselves, we empower them."
Jones, said Bachmann, has deep thoughts to share.
Take, for instance, the time he exclaimed, "What if God poked out all our eyes?"
After some nudging over the next few days, Jones revealed to Bachmann and others at Creative Clay that he was musing about a world where everyone is born blind.
"He is very meditative and has unique ways of sharing his questions," Bachmann said. "The movie has some of that going on."
Jones began formulating his plot in 2003.
He watched a History Channel documentary about women who cleaned zeppelin airships for Germany during World War I. He remembers that the women were referred to as angels and scrubbed the zeppelins using mechanized floor polishers.
How much of what Jones recalls is true or filtered through his unique perspective is hard to tell, Bachmann said.
Still, he was so taken by the documentary that he began a series of paintings that tell a story loosely based on those women.
It began as a tale about a good angel who cleaned large balloons. Then there were five, and they had turned bad.
Soon they became witches, and one in particular, named Bona, was developed more fully by Jones and given magical healing powers.
In time, Bona became the leader of five witches who were all good, lived in a cave and used their therapeutic powers to relieve personal and environmental illnesses brought to the Earth by Satan.
A year or so ago, Jones approached Bachmann with the idea of bringing his paintings to life through film. Over the subsequent months, Jones assembled the plot directly through storyboards - a stage in moviemaking that usually comes after writing a script.
One reason to skip the script is that the movie, like its maker, has little dialogue. "It is very visual, and it has a Dave Lynch-ian thing," Bachmann said. "There is artistic brilliance to it. It will make you feel something even if you are not sure what the story is."
Jones' parents said they moved to St. Petersburg from Long Island when their son was 7 because the Tampa area offers better programs and schools for people with disabilities.
They pushed for him to live a normal life through education. So they took him on regular trips to the library, where he developed a fascination with stories of space travel and aircraft, real and fictional.
Jones' parents said he would come home with a pile of books and hunch over them for days, reading some more than once and studying schematics on the pages.
He first showed signs of creativity at the age of 8 or 9.
His initial projects were simple model rockets made from soda bottles. Later, he created complicated model zeppelins.
"He would blow up balloons and cover them with papier-mache and then draw on them to look like the real thing, even the smallest details," said his mother Nancy Jones. "Looking back on it, it was amazing work."
Still, it was when Jones began visiting Creative Clay about 15 years ago that people came to realize his talents.
"We had the people who work there telling us that what he could do was unbelievable," said his father, Larry Jones. "They held an art show for him, selling paintings, and five people bought them. I can't tell you how proud we were and still am of him. He is very special."
On occasion, Jones' parents said, they notice one of their son's paintings hanging inside a bank or office building.
In the description, the artist's autism never rates a mention.
"His paintings fall under the category of contemporary folk art," Bachmann said.
The genre describes works similar to art created by indigenous cultures, often for the purpose of storytelling.
"It's popular among art collectors, Bachmann said, "and Lawrence's are a great example of it."
"Five Cave Witches" is the fifth Creative Clay movie produced by Bachmann, who joined Creative Clay four years ago after a career in theater and film.
"When someone says they want to express themselves in a certain way, we have to find a way to make it happen," he said. "So when film was brought up a few years ago, we just jumped right in and got a camera and some lights from Home Depot and got it going."
Scripts are written by one artist.
The casts are always made up of Creative Clay's artists and employees.
The crews are a mix of employees and volunteers from local production companies.
Among the other films produced at Creative Clay is "Armstrong & Beanie," about a man who realizes his lifelong dream of becoming a superhero when he meets aliens who can bestow powers upon humans.
The artist who wrote and starred in that film, Bachmann said, wants to be a super hero, and most of his artwork reflects that dream.
Then there was "Reindeer Girl." In this touching film, Santa Claus and Jesus work together to grant the artists at Creative Clay their wishes.
One, for instance, wanted to be a rock star. Another asked for a romantic relationship.
Bachmann said making a film allowed the artists to live out those dreams. And even though they were scripted, he could tell that each experience left a lasting positive impact.
"It was very telling and expressive of the person featured in each particular chapter," said Tyler Martinolich, program director for St. Petersburg's Sunscreen Film Festival.
The internationally famous festival features Creative Clay productions each year. Martinolich said they earn a showing because of artistic merit.
"You are actually along for the ride," he said. "You enjoy their creativity and gain a lot of respect for them. Because they are not formally educated on how to make a film or tell a story, they are not bound by traditional boundaries. There are no inhibitions with these students. It is free form, right out of their head."
Jones' movie has been the most challenging production for Creative Clay.
Because it takes place in an "Alice in Wonderland" reality, there was no option of simply filming scenes in parks or in Creative Clay's space, as with other productions.
For witches to fly on motorized floor cleaners or Satan to speak with a dinosaur, computer-generated graphics were required.
Those services were donated by Eddie Rey, an audio engineer at St. Petersburg-based production company The Zoo Studios.
Rey also volunteered as the movie's director, cinematographer and editor.
"This is a lot of work," Rey said. "But it is worth it. You should have seen the look on Lawrence's face when I showed him a CG scene I designed with the dinosaur."
Asked whether Rey's scenery looks as he envisioned it, Jones shook his head yes and said, "Exciting. Exactly."
Bachmann hopes to screen the film by November. Creative Clay, as it has for past productions, will rent a local theater for the premiere to give Jones his Hollywood moment.
Sunscreen Film Festival's Martinolich has never missed one.
"It is a special moment," he said. "They see their film 60 feet across and name in lights. That is magical for anyone."