Silenced Movies Unbound! Abound!
When it comes to Fests, we're one of the best!
Come to our Jazz Fest … to our Food Fests. To the annual Essence Fest … coming for its 10th straight year July 2 - 4, 2004. Quickly now, you must come do the Voodoo Fest we do to do it so swell, begins Oct.31-Nov 2, 2003
And the Film Fest … Oh! … it, uhh … it came and went.
Didn't you go? … Didn't you know?
Help out there! Save us, somebody! Look, this IS a movie town … Runaway Jury used us quite nicely. That Streetcar movie. I love streetcars. Arthur bleeped to the world that I sleep in one! So many films painted with its unique atmospheric brush by this town … too many to mention. Certainement, Nawlins was voted the number one city in which to have a secret rendezvous. It's so easy to have one here: the French Quarter … its secret hideaways, moaning, sighing, pounding, rhythmic, romantic music, keeps your blood boiling hot all the time. Whoa! Slow down Steverino!Don't GO there … Geez, its hot all of a sudden, excuse please!
Wear a mask if you come during the Mardi Gras, THE greatest Fest of them all, and keep your secret 24/7.
Still and all, don't go playing I Got A Secret with a Film Fest! Spike Jones wasn't suggesting going to a secluded rendezvous, having cocktails for two, at a Film Fest! That'd be too silly for even the great Spike! Remember him? A Californian I believe. God, I loved that show!
Forget about the clowns: where are the Kleig lights? Gotta have Kleig lights to light the way at a Film Fest: like bees to honey drawn. Gimme one, at least! Oh! That's right, silly me, the main venue is a theatre on Canal Street (sounds good so far). But, it's on the 3rd floor of a ritzy shopping center that's closed at sixish. Forget Kleig lights! You'd need Kryptonite to blast through those walls. The THIRD floor?!
C'mon guys, hey, who loves ya? Gotta do a better job promoting yourself. Get weird people like me, uhh, like that group from NOWFF (New Orleans Worst Film Festival). Even Cannes knows that. Hit the streets with them, with flyers in hand … and lagniappe (plus) … they have costumes! Ads on city busses. Even one on the streetcar where I live. Harrahs is just a double away from you. Make a "deal" with them. Get on their package deals. Get a "hacker". Get a "spammer" (none have gone to jail yet, that I know of). Give International, Global-Spanning, World-Wide websites like Scene4 advance notice.
This is the home of the House of the Rising Sun … please wake up!
WAIT! No fin, no fin, prego! Get the hot water and towels. Looks like we're "birthin" something again … something really big.
You have to read this quote from an article in the October 25th issue of The Times-Picayune. It's by Ernest Collins, executive director of arts and entertainment for New Orleans. He says, it's "a dramatic way to show something big is going on … it creates a buzz". What's "it"? Could it be my Kleig lights? Nah, Steverino, not them! It is something else … bigger: NOME has come to town – the New Orleans Media Experience. The brainchild of Randy Winograd, chief operating officer of HSI Production Inc. in Culver City. Winograd said his company … "wanted to launch a festival that would celebrate the creativity involved in producing commercials, feature films and music videos". He must have heard my prayers. Listen up. Plan this next year, OK? Halloween Week (don't need haunted houses, the entire city is). Throw in the Voodoo Fest on the 30th and 31st. Mix in NOME which has an eight day projection run ending Halloween night. Bam! you'll never go home. The Times Picayune article quotes Mr. Collins to say the public will have access to 70% of NOME's activities. Did I mention they're free. It's the visible part of a gathering of 500 entertainment industry professionals formed to strengthen relationships among people in different disciplines. The real grabber is what and where the projections project on to. 16 projectors will light up buildings on Canal Street with screenings of short Films, animated ones, hip-hop concerts, music videos, commercials, and not released yet video games. One projection, most with sound, bounces off Harrahs, the downtown gambling casino. One on the side of hitherto mentioned Canal Place; and other buildings on Canal near the Mississippi River all according to the T/P article. Yeah, Canal Street's been turned in to some grand nursery for this new born baby, baby!
Passers-by, tourists, pedestrians, cyclists, panhandlers, time-share sellers, Canal Street merchants "Everything below wholesale mon, come in and see for yourself", ALL come across it and stop for a look. The expectation is that 15,000 will come in for the fest with an additional 5,000 locals viewing the goings-on. NOME officials have guaranteed the festival will return for at least another two years
It's good to be on the ground floor and good to see a movie fest on the ground, out in public. Not yet a drive-in "feel" … give 'em time. Popcorn and seating next year guys. Just a suggestion. For now, Postal mail boxes, bicycle racks, lean-tos, bus benches and curbs doing just fine.
Go to http://www.neworleansmediaexperience.com/film_other.html and http://www.neworleansmediaexperience.com/registration_tickets.html for an in depth look of movies which will play in movie houses about town.
Parts of the article regarding NOME (New Orleans Media Experience) are attributed to The Times-Picayune Staff Writers: Leslie Williams' her article dated 10/25 titled: Cinema project to light up Canal: spectacle kicking off new multimedia fest.
And Gordon Russell's his article dated 10/26 titled: OFF-THE-WALL Experience: The Crescent City illuminated its ambitions as a cutting-edge media town Saturday when it kicked off the New Orleans Media Experience
©2003 Steve Esquerré
For more commentary and articles by Steve Esquerré, check the Archives.
Steve Esquerré is a writer, playwright
and an inveterate traveler.
He lives on a streetcar in New Orleans.
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