would you support local stories?
no really, its a serious question.
one of the things that I loved at the university film & video assoc. conference -- was seeing so many films. several of them had been submitted and shown on public television -- a program called Philadelphia Stories.
Cliff's film was shown in the tennesee Film Night at the Nashville Film Festival --
it just seems like there should be more such outlets. That on some level we should have some local voices reverberating in our heads as well as the sort of mainstreamed / hegemonic / normative voices that issue from the coasts inward. From the mythmakers into our daily world.
I loved about American Splendour that it was a story about a guy who was in a place having a life. And his life was what had the possibility of splendour inside of it. Unfortunately there's a Hollywood Subtext in that the third act of that film shows him getting "famous" in the *other* way. In *that* way....
Couldn't we find some ways to develop voices and stories in smaller ways? Would you drive to downtown Canton three or four times a year to see a night of films that were about being Stark Countian? Would you break your firm rule against flipping into the Cable Access Channel if it meant the opportunity for local artists to tell some stories? Even if the quality were uneven and not up to the production standards issueing out forth from the digital streaming of satellites and cable wires?
one of the things that I loved at the university film & video assoc. conference -- was seeing so many films. several of them had been submitted and shown on public television -- a program called Philadelphia Stories.
Cliff's film was shown in the tennesee Film Night at the Nashville Film Festival --
it just seems like there should be more such outlets. That on some level we should have some local voices reverberating in our heads as well as the sort of mainstreamed / hegemonic / normative voices that issue from the coasts inward. From the mythmakers into our daily world.
I loved about American Splendour that it was a story about a guy who was in a place having a life. And his life was what had the possibility of splendour inside of it. Unfortunately there's a Hollywood Subtext in that the third act of that film shows him getting "famous" in the *other* way. In *that* way....
Couldn't we find some ways to develop voices and stories in smaller ways? Would you drive to downtown Canton three or four times a year to see a night of films that were about being Stark Countian? Would you break your firm rule against flipping into the Cable Access Channel if it meant the opportunity for local artists to tell some stories? Even if the quality were uneven and not up to the production standards issueing out forth from the digital streaming of satellites and cable wires?
posted by Redbaerd at 11:15 AM
1 Comments:
Last year, about this time, a group of us produced a local show called the Less Than Amateur Film Festival. I was asked by my sister's friend to help, so I said, "Sure!" thinking I would be making and distributing flyers, selling ticketes, being someone's keygrip. But Terese wanted me to make a movie. OOOOHHHhh. Huh. Well, OK. Me who had never made a movie and didn't have a video camera.
So I did it. I went out and spent more money than I had on a laptop and a digital video camera. I didn't know how to make a movie. What in the world would it be about? My friend Natalie and I eventually made what became known as the wheelbarrow. A totally local story made real through the international idea of BookCrossing.com. I did it because my Grandma was dying. I did it so I could hang on to something I didn't want to lose.
The venue was small, but the space was donated. And it was packed! All those people paid to come and watch the work that we had done on our films, our less than amatuer films. What a great thing! What a thrill! Watching the reaction your work elicits in the audience, well, that was pretty amazing. The topper came when I got to show my movie to the founders of BookCrossing.com in St. Louis this past April. Me observing them watching my movie, seeing them understand how their own blood, sweat & tears had affected another human out there in the world. You couldn't have paid me to take away the joy I felt seeing them comprehend how we do, every day, impact people.
Local stories. They are all of is, we are those stories. People think, perhaps, that they wouldn't support such a thing. But those stories are all of us, every last one.
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