Event Venue: The Crescent Theater
Event time (screening): 1pm 2:30pm
Event time (inspection): Sat. Oct. 11th, 1pm 3pm
Total Audience: 40+ Number of people bringing films: 5
Films screened by Gauge: 8mm: 7 (six were small reels 3min one was large 25min)
Super 8: 1 16mm: 2 9.5mm: 0 Video: 0 (did not accept video)
Volunteers: 6 Gideon Kennedy (organizer), Dr. Richard Ward (projection), Catherine Duke (flyer design and contribution of home movies), Charlie Smoke (Mobile Arts Council), Max Morey (theater owner), Albert Robinson (sound),
Special events/screenings: We’re considering a follow-up in one of two ways: A retrospective of a local documentarian, Manning Spottswood, who made 200+ documentaries in, around, and about Mobile, AL for over four decades. As a finale, we screened his 1954 piece, “Azalea Trails of Old Mobile,” a 15minute, 16mm color/sound documentary about the city. We have access to several other of his works. Though technically not home movies, they are now interesting documents of the times in which they were made. We’re also considering showing home movies year-round at the start of feature films shown at the Crescent Theater to highlight the history and unique place of this newly renovated art-house theater.
Press (pre-event and post-event):
- Lagniappe Oct. 7, 2008 (alternative newspaper) “You Ought to be in Pictures”
- Zalea - Oct. 2008 issue (monthly magazine)
- “Declaration of Independents” pg. 34 -36 (print only)
- Mobile Press-Register Oct. 17, 2008
- Comcast PortCity 6 show “In Mobile” Post-event airing TBA
We had several more films than these (kids’ birthday late ’40s, adults playing charades early ’60s, etc.), but the ones listed below both received the best reactions and have the most general interest (especially the last!).”
Mardi Gras Mobile Feb. 22 1966 Conception & St. Francis” contributor: the Duke family Depicts Mardi Gras parades, including floats, and the mystic society the Comic Cowboys, whose satirical signs make jokes about George Wallace, LBJ, and Beatniks. The family’s collection included several Mobile Mardi Gras, but this was one of the better depictions.
“Tobacco 1948” contributor: Janie Daugherty Depicts a tobacco auction in Kentucky in the mid-to-late 1940s. The contributor’s father was a tobacco auctioneer in the winters during that time. The contributor gave a lot of background to the tobacco industry then.
“Trip to Washington 1964” contributor: Janie Daugherty Depicts the Washington DC area in March or April of that year. Flags around all the monuments are at half-mast and the temporary site of the Eternal Flame for President Kennedy is seen, along with fresh wreaths and the guards keeping watch.
“Aug ‘84 Mobile to Atlanta time lapse” contributor: Frank Vogtner Frank Vogtner set his camera on the dash of his car, turned on the time-lapse function and then drove from Mobile to his father’s house near Atlanta. The entire five-hour trip is completed in 3 ½ minutes of screen time. There is a high-speed stop for gas and, upon arrival at his father’s home he slowed down the time lapse and captured the drive up to the garage, where his father briefly pops out to wave. This is then followed by a static shot of kids playing in a pool, presumably at the house.
Untitled Antarctic Exploration 1950s contributor: Melissa Spann The contributor dropped of four longer reels with us, two of which were approximately 30 min each in length, depicting a trip(s?) her father took while serving in the US Navy in the 1950s. He was aboard the naval expeditions to Antarctica, known as the Deep Freeze operations. Seen in the films are the USS Arneb (AKA 56), the USS Glacier (AGB-4), several other ships, helicopters, planes, a tractor sled, penguins (including the men on the ice playing with them), lots of frozen landscapes, men being hazed aboard the ship, on leave in New Zealand, etc. Really incredible stuff. Unfortunately, her father was unable to make the screening, but I intend to follow up with them and see if he is willing to get the films transferred and donated to some archive. The one of the four that we screened for the audience goes through about 20 minutes of various footage in the frozen blues of the landscape (including playing with penguins, the ship cracking through the ice, aerial shots of the ship, etc.) and then ends with a beautiful woman surrounded by vibrant colorful flowers and some various shots of presumably the New Zealand town they docked in after the expedition.