Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 - (Page 20)

www.hnoc.org I’m taking a break from major projects at the moment. Since well before Katrina, Michelle and I have taken on project after project, with no breaks. At the time of Hurricane Katrina, we were in L.A., and to our surprise, we wound up back in New Orleans, shooting nine days in a flooded city along with the Audubon Institute. In L.A. we had been putting the finishing touches on the IMAX film Hurricane on the Bayou. Then Katrina hit, and the piece took a whole new turn. I was re-writing Meryl Streep’s part and simultaneously working on American Creole: New Orleans Reunion. American Creole is a one-year-after-Katrina anniversary film we did for PBS. It chronicles Creole musician Don Vappie’s struggles to keep the New Orleans music scene together. Like Hurricane on the Bayou, the PBS film was in its final stages when Katrina hit, and it was dead, then alive. What’s next? Symposia always, when they work, get people thinking. They raise more questions than they answer. Yes, information is conveyed, but more importantly, it spurs people to go off and research new areas, or to connect two areas of study that did not seem to go together before. There are so many areas ripe for study out there. Bit by bit, we are losing the last generation who grew up before television. With them goes a lot of information and ways of doing things. If you’re not careful, all you’re left with is the stereotype. You will be moderating the next Williams Research Center Symposium. What can a day-long symposium on Acadian culture accomplish? “Bit by bit, we are losing the last generation who grew up before television. With them goes a lot of information and ways of doing things. If you’re not careful, all you’re left with is the stereotype.” —Glen Pitre, filmmaker 20 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2008-09 © CHARLES H. TRAUB AND DOUGLAS BAZ, 1974 Well, I tell you one thing, it’s a lot easier than catching trout! It’s fun. It’s also a lot of work, but worth it all. I spend lots of time on the phone, getting funding for films, doing leg work. We write countless drafts. But it sure is fun, playing dress-up on the set of a movie! When doing a documentary, I get to see things most people would never get to see. I’m the luckiest guy I know, to get to do what I’m doing. [Aside: What’s that? Michelle says something to him, he laughs.] Michelle says I’m the luckiest guy because I’m married to her! She’s right. I’m doubly lucky. Sounds like you love what you do © CHARLES H. TRAUB AND DOUGLAS BAZ, 1974 Assante. With a cast of that caliber, it’s really a dream to work with. We shot the film last April and May, had an L.A. premiere, and will be screening it at the New Orleans Film Festival. On December 2, it will be released as a DVD. Since then, Michelle and I have worked on other projects. Air Racers — which tells the story of the 1932 National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio — is a film we made for the State Museum in Patterson. They asked us to make it to supplement their WedellWilliams Aviation Exhibit. It’s 3-D, with wind that blows with the movie at times so that you feel like you’re flying. It puts you right in the race. http://www.hnoc.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 Contents Friends Editor's Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Prospect.1 New Orleans The Historic New Orleans Collection The Enduring Performance of Michael P. Smith Jazz Notes Louisiana Foodways Birds of a Feather: Windfowl Carvings in Southeast Louisiana Louisiana Association of Museums Louisiana Architecture O. Winston Link in Louisiana The Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Colfax Massacre Louisiana State Museum Unlocking the History of Greek Key Architecture Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

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