It’s been almost five years since Tim Ryan and Matt Wisdom began collecting footage for their documentary tour of New Orleans, The Drive.   Shot immediately post-Katrina, the film profiles people and places marred by the dust and devastation that followed disaster.  As NOVAC gears up for the New Orleans premiere of The Drive this weekend at the New Orleans Museum of Art, we thought it a good idea to hear from former NOVAC Executive Director and filmmaker, Tim Ryan.

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Heather, my wife, and I recorded the voice-over narration for the Lower 9th Ward segment of The Drive from our FEMA trailer.  Formaldehyde really does cause one’s eyes to burn.  We gave up on the trailer after a few weeks and moved into our garden shed.  It was small and cramped with our two dogs but, with a little sprucing up, it was much better than the trailer.  It was home.

Working on The Drive for several months after Katrina not only kept NOVAC alive, but also kept things in perspective.  As bad as things seemed for me personally, 1000′s of others throughout New Orleans were going through much worse.

I remember Matt (Wisdom) calling me in November 2005 to ask if I had seen the extent of the damage.  We talked about the national media coverage of the flooding and the rumbling from around the nation that perhaps New Orleans should not be rebuilt.  Matt suggested we document what things looked like from a local point-of-view and get it out to as many people as possible, including Congress.  We also wanted to archive the people, culture, and spirit that made New Orleans a city worth rebuilding.  We captured our first footage of the Lower 9th Ward the day before Christmas 2005.  Matt was driving and narrating while I tried to hold a steady camera outside the passenger side window. We went back  several times to capture interviews and still photos. Each time I returned I cried.  It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

We uploaded each segment of The Drive to YouTube.  YouTube was still relatively new and we realized the potential to reach a very large audience.  I did a little digging and found Steven Chen’s (co-founder) email at YouTube. I wrote telling him about our story and he agreed to post a short trailer on You Tube’s home page.  For a long time, that first upload was the most viewed “Katrina” related video on YouTube.  The entire project including a series of short NOVAC-funded documentaries by local filmmakers accumulated nearly 2 million views on YouTube.

The score was written by award-winning composer, Gil Talmi, from his studio in New York.  He reached out to us and offered to compose it for free.  The score’s eery beauty helps carry the viewer along a path of seemingly endless devastation.

The Drive is intentionally raw and not overly produced.  It was our best shot at trying to capture a true perspective of our city’s most challenging time.

-Tim Ryan

August 25, 2010

NOVAC will commemorate the Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with a  premier screening of the provocative and highly-viewed Youtube documentary, The Drive on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 6 PM at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The Drive provides a raw visual and narrated tour through four of the most devastated neighborhoods in New Orleans. Filmmaker Matt Wisdom feels that “driving through the remains of New Orleans was a rite of passage and we want to share it as widely as possible.” The documentary contains extensive footage, maps, interviews, digital imagery, and an original musical score by Emmy®-nominated composer, Gil Talmi.

Light hors d’oeuvres and beverages from will be provided by local vendors.

VIEW THE TRAILER:

NOVAC is proud to present a sneek peek at the groundbreaking documentary LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, produced and directed by Luisa Dantas (WalMart: The High Cost of Low Price).

The film is a multi-platform documentary project that tells the stories of a diverse group of people as they struggle to rebuild post-Katrina New Orleans. From the urban planner to the immigrant worker to the public housing resident, the film’s protagonists hail from different walks of life but share a stake in the rebirth of this beloved city. Through their eyes, we experience the dramatic ups and downs of a massive urban reconstruction process.

As the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches on August 29th, 2010 and our eyes and minds remain fixed on the recent tragedy in Haiti and the unprecedented catastrophe of the BP oil spill, LAND OF OPPORTUNITY reveals that the lessons of New Orleans have only become more relevant in the past few years.

The event is free of charge will take place at Warren Easton High School (3019 Canal st) from 5-9 pm on Saturday, August 14. In addition to the film screening, the event will offer performances by Day Labor Theater of Revolution, Stephen Gladney, and New Orleans slam poet, Sunni Patterson as well as a special question and answer session with the filmmakers and protagonists featured in the film. Food and beverage from local vendors will also be available for purchase.

Along with NOVAC, other community partners of the film include: The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, PATOIS: The NOLA International Human Rights Film Festival, and Survivors Village.

“There is so much to learn from New Orleans and the incredibly resilient people here” says Dantas, “and it’s important that people understand that what happens in New Orleans does not stay in New Orleans.  These issues are affecting cities across this country.”  As our tagline says, “Happening to a city near you….”

To learn more about the film and Jolu Productions, please visit their website.

To RSVP visit our Facebook Event Page

In case you haven’t heard yet, on July 28, 2010, the State of Louisiana passed a new law targeting indie and low-budget filmmakers.  Act No. 633 , the Louisiana Filmmakers Grant Fund, will be administered by the State’s office of entertainment industry development, the same agency that administers the motion picture tax credit program.

What could the new bill mean for you?

In short, the new fund will help support low-budget film projects by offering grants that will match up to 50% of the total cost of a film, or $100,000, whichever is less, for films that do not meet the $300,000 minimum spending requirements to participate in the State’s motion picture tax credit program.

Want more info?  Read Micah Haley’s full account at Scene online.

We’re so happy the cap is working! We’ve got our fingers crossed, and the final edit of our oil-spill donation drop-off video couldn’t have come in at a better time.

NOVAC Donation Drive from NOVAC on Vimeo.

Shot on location in Grand Isle by filmmaker and NOVAC member, John Richie
Edited by NOVAC member, Jonathan Jahnke and NOVAC graduate, Ryan Thornburg
Interviews conducted by NOVAC Outreach Director, Danielle Nelson

Do you make podcasts or web video or want to learn how? Join the New Orleans New Media Club, aka The Clyb, at NOVAC on Tuesday, July 20.

Be sure to check out their site and explore the members’ sites linked to on the right side of the page. You’ll find coverage of the local arts scene in Aura “Fedora” Shannon’s Backstage on the Bayou, local tech news at neworleanstech.net, and, well… everything under the sun at Matt & Jack’s Podvast.

Check out some of the great shows being created by local media-makers, and come meet them on the third Tuesday of every month here at NOVAC!

On May 30, 2010, several hundred protesters gathered in Washington Artillery Park, across from Jackson Square in New Orleans, to express frustration with oil giant, British Petroleum (BP) for the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  NOVAC was on-hand to document the event.

Shot and edited by NOVAC graduate, Brandon Savoie with interviews conducted by NOVAC Outreach Director, Danielle Nelson

Following our “Fundamentals of Photography” course, NOVAC student David Robinson took a walk through the Bywater with instructor Zack Delaune (and his Canon Rebel XT). Trying out lessons in exposure, aperture and shutter speed, Robinson produced the following photos. Enjoy.

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The Economy of a Tent City from Travis Fox on Vimeo.

With the rise of independent journalism and decrease in cost of high-level cinematic equipment, many media-makers are blurring the line between ‘filmmaker’ and ‘journalist’. These folks use cinematic techniques — like sweeping emotional music, shallow depth of field, and heavy use of color-correction — to enhance their journalistic storytelling abilities in a practice that has come to be known as ‘cinematic journalism’.

Critics of cinematic journalism call it emotionally manipulative, or say that it loses objectivity and distorts the truth, or say that by making real life look too much like the movies, actually distances us from the very subjects it hopes to bring us nearer.

One site which is hosting a lot of the discussion about the pros and cons of using these techniques is dslrnewsshooter.com. The video above comes from a recent post that calls into question whether this is anything new at all.

What do you think?