Annandale friends since first grade still collaborate on creative projects
Kyle Rayo and Quinn Wolverton met in the first grade at Columbia Elementary School in Annandale in the late nineties.
They stayed friends throughout their years at Holmes Middle School and Annandale High School and continue to collaborate on creative projects, including podcasts and movies.
An Annandale podcast
Their podcast series “Pinecrest Fellas Podcast,” available on Spotify, features conversations with interesting people from Annandale and beyond. The series was recently renamed “to pay homage to Pinecrest Golf Course where we first met and hung out as kids,” Kyle says.
The first episode features Annandale Photo & Camera owner Egan Del, who talks about his scary escape from Iran as a teenager.
“We started the podcast after we met Egan and learned about his creative backstory, so we decided to interview him,” Quinn says. “We had so much fun, we decided to interview people from around Annandale. We like meeting and talking to people.”
Earlier this month, they recorded an episode with Annandale Today editor Ellie Ashford (That’s me!). To listen, log in to Spotify, open Pinecrest Fellas Podcast, and select Today in Annandale.
A feature film
Kyle and Quinn started making short movies in the fifth grade. “In high school, we would upload short videos to Myspace, then later to Facebook, during the weekend,” Kyle says. “When we got to school on Monday, so many people would say they watched them.”
While they were more interested in creative projects outside of class, there was a lot of pressure at Annandale to excel academically and get into a good college. Kyle went on to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he majored in journalism. Quinn decided to forgo college and focus on making movies.
Quinn just finished his first full-length feature film, called “James,” that he wrote, directed, and filmed. Kyle collaborated on the script and served as a sounding board as the project came together.
“James” is currently on the festival circuit, and Quinn is working on having it get picked up by a distributor.
An emotional story
The story is based on his own experiences. Growing up, Quinn knew he had been adopted, but didn’t know his mother had been corresponding with his birth mother until she handed him a package of letters and cards when he turned 18.
“That was just very difficult for me because I didn’t know that my birth mother wanted anything to do with me,” he says. “I didn’t know they were in contact. It was just very jarring. It was a lot.”
“Doing ‘James’ was very therapeutic, but it was also one of the hardest things ever to relive all of that,” Quinn says. “All those feelings and emotions, I kind of just pushed it down. I haven’t even read all of my mother’s letters until I was writing the film.”
In 2023, he made a short film about one specific scene from that experience. “That got such great feedback and reception, and a lot of people said I should turn it into a full-length film.” He spent the next three years working on it, and now it’s complete.
Related story: Annandale seniors visit Columbia ES, where their education began
The movie was produced by Nova Cat Films, the independent film production company Quinn and Kyle founded in 2020 that is now run by Quinn.
“The name pays homage to the Northern Virginia area and all of our close friends who moved away, but still inspire us creatively,” Kyle says.
Quinn and his producing partner Kevin Baker helped arrange the location shoots for “James” in Colonial Beach and Petersburg. They had about 20 crew members. The actors were all unknowns they found on Backstage.
Filmmaking is Quinn’s regular job. Before spending so much time on “James,” he produced commercial videos and promotional videos for clubs.
Kyle is a copywriter who spent a couple of years working in advertising in New York, and has since returned to Northern Virginia.
“Collaborating on a movie doesn’t feel like work, since we’ve been friends for so long,” Kyle says.
They’re already working on another movie. They have a script, and they’re planning to start shooting in Texas this spring.