Good Morning, Be Careful!

Since 1966, Bill Clark has been the sole owner, operator, and bartender of a one-room dive bar in the town of Fitzgerald, Georgia. For 58 years running, Bill's Place has blossomed into a local institution and community stronghold— the beer's cold, the darts are bent, the jukebox kicks on through the day, and Bill greets every customer with a “Good morning!” and, at every departure, ushers the cautionary “Be careful!” Now, at the age of 93, the happy-as-ever, electric-scooter-bound Bill decides to officially close the bar for good right before the New Year.

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Good Morning, Be Careful! is an ethnographic document of one day in the life of Bill’s Place during that last week of operation. Filmed on Super 8mm, shot asynchronously, and hand-developed in a lager-based solution, the work aims to grasp the customs of rural entrepreneurship after its heyday and to preserve the story of a bar that impacted four generations of Southerners.