The Lure of the Cinema
Ramblings & Comments about some Past Projects and
Future PossibilitiesHooray for Hollywood
. . . or so they say, as many young, wannabee artists are attracted to the fame and fortune, both in front of and behind the camera.
The TV show
Fame said as part of the theme song, "I wanna be a Star, I'm gonna live forever. . ." But the lead characters, in the teaching roles, knew better. They were also students, at one time. They were a part of it all, and yet, so much removed from the negative aspects of showbiz, be it Hollywood or Broadway, that they could look at it objectively. It was as if they found out the truth and applied it to their own lives, while attempting to pass it on to their young protégés at the School of the Arts. Of course that was just a TV show, but very well written, at least in the first season or two.
I had a chance to experience a similar environment in my younger days during an opportunity I had to work with an artist who was also a math teacher, (and quite good at that), but his own interests led him to open several places that culminated in a School of the Arts, in Collinwood, for those who know the area of Cleveland, Ohio, or who may be familiar with any of Ralph Delaney's projects in Cleveland. His first
house-of-the-arts was called "Diversity House," with an emphasis on poetry, writing skills, painting, and a place of hope for kids that society had given up on before they were even ready to begin life. Ralph saw hope where others didn't.
One young man from the inner-city who participated at Diversity House had been told by his school principal, in the Clevo Public School System, that he would never graduate and should drop out. He went on to get a Master's degree in English from Boston University on a full scholarship. Ralph didn't give up on people. And, he had the teaching credentials to officially get them the high school credits that were needed.
After Diversity House, people seemed to gravitate toward wherever he was at, with his apartment at Drury Hall on East 86th between Carnegie and Euclid becoming one of several unofficial headquarters for artists, the homeless, and the movers & shakers in the forgotten inner-city.
I worked with Ralph for several years, in the theater-arts area, bringing some of the first Living Theater to Cleveland, in the late sixties. It represented a new style of drama---a play without a script. The actors were real people, teen kids right off the streets, literally in some cases. They told their story on stage by portraying scenes from their everyday life.
We had home scenes, school scenes, drug scenes, a robbery, a party scene, a scene at church, even a scene with the welfare case-worker and unwed teenage Mother
! It was a live, spontaneous drama about the life for these kids. They just brought what they did on the streets to the stage. Every segment of their life became a scene in the play, all done without a formal script. We even involved the audience. When they had a party scene, they went into the audience and got the people to join in the dancing, or, for a staged robbery
!Every performance was a little different because it was all spontaneous without a script---something that, at the time, few had seen in Cleveland. A session for Q & A from the audience often followed the play.
I started off just providing transportation to and from the play rehearsals for the theater group. We wanted to make sure everyone got home safely. I became technical director, as we added a sound & light show to a multi-media performance with multiple projectors and Fx,---difficult to describe
; something that had to be seen.
Later, We shot a 16mm film of a robbery scenario, to show during the play, with the assistance of Hollywood filmmaker Ed Baker.
It was an ever-changing and evolving production. It started off just with dialogue and no props. Then we decided to use slides, sometimes with rear-screen projection if the stage permitted, for background scenes. Other slides, featuring street scenes from the lives' of the cast members, and the use of multiple projectors, were incorporated into song, poetry, and dance. The actors brought in clothes and other props as needed to make the scenes authentic. The first play, which went through several casts, was mostly dialog with some solo singing by Marlene Burton. The multi-media aspects, with myself as tech-director utilized a variety of audio and projection formats, all analog, of course, as digital did not yet exist. I wonder how many people of today's generation have ever seen the uses for an overhead projector with a sound and light show
? Puts some of the digitalized gimmickry for music accompaniment to shame. During a drug withdrawal scene, I would mix oil, water, and food coloring in a glass dish atop an overhead projector. The life-sized droplets of "blood" or other food coloring would appear across an entire wall as the actor "suffered" the drug induced, near-death experience of withdrawal. It was the teen-actor's idea to portray it that way, rather than trying to glorify the use of drugs. Maybe, because of too much personal experience from watching the junkies on the streets.The visual effects combined with the acting were truly something to be seen. Today, digital possibilities abound, but are often limited to a 17 inch wide screen. Perhaps the price of progress
!We went through several casts to form our core groups. We utilized singing, poetry, and acting from the beginning, but the first casts concentrated primarily on spoken dialog with few props. The production by those groups was called
Tell It Like It Is, a popular expression of those times. As music and creative-dance became a part of the drama, with greater emphasis on the multi-media aspect for the production, the play was renamed
Up Front and continued until Ralph Delaney opened the Collinwood Arts Center above a storefront in a neighborhood with a lot of closed stores along a forgotten street, near the intersection known as Five Points.
Ralph is no longer doing his work here on earth, but I am sure that much of his teaching is carried on by many of his students and cast members. I have seen a few members over the years, but it would be great to get together with the entire casts. The time may even be right for a new version of that unscripted, spontaneous production---sort of a
Tell It Like It Is: Where Are They Now? Perhaps with the added stories of their children. Or a version preserved on film or video. I would like to start a new group for that purpose.
As for my own self, I traveled to Israel in search of my own roots and heritage, where I discovered an active, although still developing film industry. For the first time, I realized that filmmaking was not limited to Hollywood, and active film communities exist throughout the world, often offering more opportunities than Hollywood to a new filmmaker.
Upon returning to Cleveland, Ohio, after working in motion pictures in and around Tel-Aviv, Israel, I studied and worked in the video industry for television, although my first interest is motion picture film.
Within a few years after my return to Cleveland, I opened
The Film Institute as a center for film-arts, where I was the only private film-arts-center offering workshop courses in motion picture production within a five hundred mile radius of Cleveland. Of course, part of that area consisted of Lake Erie, (little competition there), but one had to travel to NYC for any film workshops using 16mm equipment outside of a university setting. Others did open, although none within the immediate area, for years. In addition to the film workshops, I did film production work, with educational, commercial, and industrial shorts and documentaries.
I continue to run
The Film Institute, although I am not currently offering workshops. (If anybody has any no-charge studio space, workshops may be offered once again, including digital video and computer applications.) And I am always available if anyone wants to hire a good filmmaker.
I host several online discussion groups for working and aspiring movie-makers.
Perhaps, with enough interest, feature film production could be a possibility next summer
! Are there a hundred people out there, each with thousand dollars to put toward a feature length film
? If not, how much, and how many people
? Are there five hundred such people willing to participate in such a project
? The use of a film-group, for such networking, may make that a distinct possibility. This is not an offer for investment, but merely an inquiry as to whether such interest exists on a serious level
?In the meantime, there will be a film group to promote networking for interested filmmakers. Watch this space for future announcements.
