Cover Story

By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

Change the clapperboard, it’s time for take two.

Last fall’s incarnation of the semi-annual Arts! Alive festival was an affair destined for stardom. The theme was “Lights, Camera, Interaction!” and its aim was to stress the mediums of film and television and draw attendees into the worlds they witnessed chiefly as viewers.

Everything was set to move as smoothly as a tracking shot when outside elements derailed the plans. Midtown’s annual Greek Fest had changed dates and coincided with Arts! Alive, sapping some of the downtown event’s drawing power. Additionally, an unusual cold snap dropped temperatures into the 40s on that evening, the equivalent of sub-zero climes to Mobilians. Festival organizers made adjustments and brought heaters to the various outdoor venues employed, but it was to little effect. Attendance plummeted.

So in true fashion to the theme, they’re giving it another shot.

Accommodations have been made in the beginning of this fifth year of the festival. The date has been moved into late October from early November to take advantage of daylight savings time.

Things will gear up as “magic hour” begins to fade at 5 p.m. and will continue for five hours.

As noted last fall, the theme is the brainchild of Main Street Mobile’s Chris Barraza. Barraza told Lagniappe last year that inspiration was available.

“Well, the Crescent Theater was a big part of it. And I saw that pocket park on Dauphin that meets the side of the Saenger Theater,” she said, “and thought how great it would be to set up an outdoor theater on that massive wall in there, kind of like ‘flicks-on-bricks’ events in other towns.”

Festival organizer David Calametti thinks it could also provide a nudge in the right direction.

“You know, you hear all this talk about how we should have a film festival in Mobile,” he said last autumn. “Maybe this will get things moving in that direction, toward something like Birmingham’s Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival.”

For her part, Barraza is taking a definite hands-on approach as she coordinates a staging area that will pull attendees into scarcely seen production techniques.

“We’re running a Foley stage,” Barraza said. “Foley” is a process by which sound effects are added to films in post-production. “We’re going to have some film clips there,” she explained. “Some will have sound, some won’t and we’ll get attendees to help us add the needed sounds.”

The technical aspects of the project will be handled by a lauded expert: Barraza’s husband who has been nominated for an Emmy award in conjunction with his work at a local television station.

As in last year’s offering, Cathedral Square will be highlighted by dramatic lighting displays and live music will be offered as well.

Vendors booths will line the streets as usual.

New exhibits will be on display at Chesser Gallery, Cathedral Square Gallery, Skinny Gallery at the Mobile Arts Council offices and Space 301 Off Centre on Joachim Street.

Joe Jefferson Players will sponsor a readers’ theatre stage where attendees will be encouraged to “get into the act” with readings from selected theatrical works.

Other less touted aspects of broadcasting are covered as well with two local production companies combining forces to produce a game show pilot. Tom Stout of Full Resolution Design teams with Chris Meztista of MAGIC to stage “Pass the Duck” a trivia-based contest pitting entrants against each other for prizes.

“We originally wanted to do it at the beach,” Stout said, “but we think this is going to work just as well. We’ll be using about 20 or so people. We’ll have an announcer, a set, a 10-person crew, everything. Even a kind of ‘bonus time’ round you can earn.”

“It’s going to be a three-camera set-up,” Meztista said. “We’re planning on taking what we film out to Las Vegas for a convention to sell it into syndication.”

Meztista said there might be a short screening process for contestants, but nothing too rigorous.

Previous versions of the fall festival have focused on Conti Street with booths running the length of the downtown thoroughfare, but this year brings a change to the layout.

“You know originally we wanted to implement Conti because we were following the suggestion of a master plan for downtown,” Barraza said. “The plan called for kind of remaking Conti into an arts district, but the way things have worked out, you know there just isn’t the room for venues there.”

The activities will orbit Cathedral Square while stretching one block east to Joachim and, in a change, northward toward St. Francis Street.

“We’ve just decided to change to go with the natural flow of things,” Barraza said.

A screen in Cathedral Square will highlight entries to a unique event, a film scramble whereby teams receive instructions on themes handed out a week before the festival. The teams are also instructed to include one random object of the moderator’s choosing in their short films and they have 48 hours to complete the work.

The newly begun Mobile Film Group has proven instrumental in to the proceeding and the groups’s Margaret Broach has taken a lead in developing this contest of wits and quick execution.

“The response this year has been awesome,” Broach said. “There was a lot of interest and we got eight teams registered. We have three teams from local high schools: one from Bryant High School, one from Murphy and another from Satsuma. The four other teams I would have to categorize as the ‘college and beyond’ teams: Tony West, Trey Lane, Trevor Elmore and Stupid Mop Productions.”

“Last year only four teams registered,” Broach said. “Out of that four, only two teams finished. We’ll see what happens this year.”

The new Arts! Alive territory to the north of the square features both outdoor and indoor venues. In the parking lot behind the Mobile Arts Council offices University of South Alabama instructors Tony Wright and Jeremy Colbert will be conducting an iron pour, an event that aroused interest when it was conducted by a Birmingham group two years ago. Attendees are invited to participate.

Across Claiborne Street from the pour will unfold perhaps the most intriguing film events of the night. The Scottish Rites Temple will host screenings of a pair of films, one with a particularly local subject and the other an old classic with a novel new twist.

The first work is “Eugene Walter: The Last of the Bohemians,” a documentary exploring the life and reputation of Mobile’s most notorious renaissance man. The award-winning filmmaker, Bob Clem, is a former fellow of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute as well as a graduate of NYU Film School and Harvard Law School. In 1991 he founded Radio Action Theater and has produced radio dramas featuring distinguished actors such as Eli Wallach, Ossie Davis, Hope Davis, David Strathairn and Jeffery Wright.

The subject of his film grew up in Mobile and established himself as a precocious personality and aficionado of artistic endeavor who lived a life of abandon before heading for post-war Europe and delving into its artistic background. He won awards for his writing, helped found the Paris Literary Review, hobnobbed with Federico Fellini and his compatriots and floated through the cultural mélange of those days.

Walter returned to the Port City in the late1970s but didn’t find the renown he envisioned. His flamboyance, namedropping and fiscally irresponsible lifestyle drew criticism and idolatry alike, as some proclaimed his genius while others decried him a delusional parasite. According to the trailer of Clem’s film, his work attempts to capture all of these perspectives.

The film was underwritten by a host of local and state charitable foundations and trusts and makes a rich companion to Clem’s previous works on Alabama’s historic and literary figures.

Clem will be on hand for the premiere that begins at 7 p.m.

The film will also be shown in Bernheim Hall at the Ben May Public Library the following afternoon at 2 p.m.

The closing Arts! Alive event at The Temple is a screening of Fritz Lang’s silent movie marvel “Metropolis” with a score from Mobile band The Western Lands. Lang created the science fiction classic in 1927 as the most expensive film of its time and its dystopian tale, special effects and art direction were revolutionary for its time.

The idea for the event falls on the shoulders of the band.

“Well, (Western Lands drummer) Mike Lane expressed an interest in the idea and they asked me to help,” Gideon Kennedy said. Local filmmaker Kennedy is an organizer for the event and has previewed the band’s work.

“They’re really talented,” Kennedy said, “and show a great range of expression in their work, pulling off everything from ‘heavy’ to ‘romantic’ right when it’s needed.”

The Western Lands spent over three months arranging the score for the two-hour film that begins at 9 p.m. Further information on the band can be found in this issue’s music section.

Kennedy gained his own fame with his sardonic documentary on the Wallace-Nixon rivalry “Dick-George,Tenn-Tom” that premiered at last fall’s Arts! Alive. The movie has since gone on to fame outside of Mobile. It made the Southern Circuit Independent Film Tour as an opening act in eight cities and is featured in the Short Circuit Tour appearing in 18 cities around the region. The work was selected for screening at film festivals in Memphis, Hot Springs, Ark., Atlanta and in Birmingham where it gathered an Alabama Citation of Excellence award.

Kennedy’s film can be viewed at www.dickgeorgetenntom.com.

His next project is a mysterious thriller named “Clandestine” that entails espionage and a strained father-son relationship. A trailer for the work can also be seen at the same Web address.

No shoot would be complete without a wrap party and Kennedy said plans for a post-event shindig will take the band to The Blind Mule, just north of the Temple on Claiborne.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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