The Future of the Movie Experience Movie Maker Magazine pg. 2

INDEX
The Future of the Movie Experience
Movie Maker Magazine
pg. 2-5
Mix Master: Marcelo Zarvos
The Independent
pg. 6-8
The Election's Over. Political Sites Aren't.
USA WEEKEND
pg. 9
The Rebirth of Dandyism
USA WEEKEND
pg. 9-10
Making a Difference: Severn Cullis-Suzuki
Alive Magazine
pg. 10-12
Serving Pocahontas
Stage Directions
pg. 13-14
Roar of the Greasepaint
Stage Directions
pg. 15-17
Steins Cracks Comedy Beyond Bar Mitzvah
The Georgia Straight
pg. 17-18
Spirit Club
Entertainment Weekly
pg. 18-19
Survivor: Rosh Hashanah
Forward Newspaper
pg. 19-20
THE FUTURE OF THE MOVIE EXPERIENCE
With the advent of DVD, studios seemingly struck a new goldmine. And with more and
more new technologies and services surfacing in the marketplace and being directed
towards the home entertainment consumer, new streams of revenue are opening up. With
many DVD releases overshadowing the profit margin of the theatrical releases, it seems
as if the theatrical release nowadays serves merely as an “ad” or “trailer” for the DVD.
Will it be long until DVD releases will rule out theatrical as obsolete?
Marvin Levy, spokesman for Steven Spielberg at DreamWorks, insists that theatrical
releases are still “the engine that drives DVD success.” Though he does admit that there
are some films that do better in the subsequent markets such as TV, Pay-Per-View and
DVD, overcoming initial theatrical results. Mainly, though, DVD is a new way to milk
the cow. “Now the DVD revenue added a huge value to the ultimate success and has
allowed films - and budgets - to be made based on this [added] revenue stream," he says.
Levy attributes the increase in DVD and Home Entertainment consumption to the growth
of DVD set ownership as result of their significant drop in cost, which translates into
millions of new customers. The addition of services such as Netflix are also making a
dent in sales. “Of course,” quips Levy, “we've also become a culture of couch potatoes so
that also plays into this."
According to Peter Guber, Chairman of Mandalay and host of Sunday Morning Shootout
on AMC, no matter how successful the DVD market is, theatrical releases will always
serve as the mainstream locomotive for all the ancillaries in a movie: “[The theatrical
release] determines the revenue stream, that comes from the ancillaries that often
determine the level of success of the ancillaries, which depends upon how the network
and studio companies buy it and support it.” A theatrical picture has the locomotive of
forty, or fifty million dollars of promotion and advertising for the theatrical release and it
stays in the awareness of the public. “They've seen the reviews, the trailers, the TV spots,
and the value added of that promotion so when you're starting directly with the direct
DVD there is no celebrity, there is no awareness and you have to start from ground zero
and build it.
“You make a movie for a hundred and fifty million dollars and you spend fifty million
dollars marketing it, it's two hundred million dollars. You make a DVD direct-to video
picture for a million dollars and then you release it. Now you tell me what you would pay
attention to, a two hundred million dollar investment or a million dollar investment? It’s
as simple as that.”
But there are telltale signs that this could be changing, with major studios mounting
marketing campaigns for DVDs with rapidly increasing budgets. Last year, Disney has
spent an estimated $50 million on marketing the “Finding Nemo” DVD.
DVD is now one of the two most important aspects that make the whole distribution
model work. “As a result of that, you have people recognizing the DVD business often
drives the whole revenue stream,” says Guber. “It's so important to the lifeblood of the
business that you’re completely mindful of that when you make the movie.’
The success of the theatrical release is what helps propel the ancillaries such as DVD, or
cable. “Success in that moniker is a critical factor, a very important factor that helps their
markets,” says Guber.
Guber admits that a great deal of revenue nowadays is made after the theatrical release.
But while in the old days you'd be worried about making network television deals, DVD
is now the main focus.
“It's not the DVD that's changing at all. It's the idea that the experience is being imported
into the home. Larger and larger screens and surround sound is giving you a theatrical
experience and you can have your own communal experience.” Complete with guests and
microwave popcorn, of course.
While Guber agrees that certain kinds of films lend themselves more effectively to
communal experiences in large theaters with large dominating screens, many films can
lend themselves perfectly to home viewing. Not quite on a seventeen-inch monitor with a
three-inch speaker, of course, but according to Guber large projection screens with
surround sound are becoming more prevalent and less expensive.
“I'm not sure that the audience gets a tremendous thrill planning to go to a movie,
rounding up 2.8 people the day before, driving 9.7 miles in 4,000 pounds of a vehicle
filled with 100 million year old liquid and waiting in line 22 minutes to buy five dollar
popcorn to sit next to somebody who smells – I'm not sure that's true.”
Larry Meistrich, CEO of the subscription-based DVD delivery service Film Movement,
is a prime example of someone who would much rather view a film at home than in a
noisy theatre. As a single parent of three children under ten, going to a film downtown
Manhattan is a very big task as a consumer. “It's asking me to travel forty minutes each
way, to get a babysitter, find parking…you're asking me to basically spend six hours on a
two hour film.” Not exactly a great fit for Meistrich’s lifestyle.
While as a filmmaker Meistrich prefers to have his movies shown in theatres, on the
consumer side he doesn’t feel that it’s that much better to be worth the amount of effort
needed. Meistrich believes that the film industry does a very poor job of paying attention
to what consumer behavior is and what consumers want. People’s viewing patterns are
changing and the industry is unable to recognize that. “You know, I have a big television,
I have a DVD player, I have the speakers all set up so, you know, it works for me.”
According to statistics for 2003 of the all-world box office revenue versus the overall inhome (television & home video), it was 9 billion to 30 billion. “It's what keeps everybody
in business,” notes Meistrich.
Barry Layne, Director of Home Entertainment for National Lampoon, recalls the recent
release of National Lampoon Presents Storm Days, which was released independently on
a platform basis, doing very modest business. When the same title was release in home
entertainment it drew in dramatically larger profits. The film did less than one hundred
thousand theatrically and brought in around ten million on the home entertainment front.
With success like this, “there are those that would argue theatrical is a precursor to home
entertainment,” remarks Layne, “But I'm not quite so jaded as to believe that yet.” Home
Entertainment is certainly a bigger volume business, admits Layne. “Still, I can't close
my eyes and imagine a 120 million dollar DVD only because without the theatrical
release the awareness of the product is simply not at that level.”
“We have the advantage of being the biggest brand in comedy, so we know that there is
demand for comedy material, both theatrically and in home entertainment,” says Layne,
“And so we know that they can, to use the political term, peacefully co-exist.
“I don't necessarily see one as cannibalistic of the other. I see them as being
complimentary of one another.”
There is no denying, however, that the sort of viewership involved in home
entertainment is significantly different than that required for theatrical: “You don't have
to go with a group of people on somebody else's schedule to watch the motion picture.
You can go by yourself to your living room and watch it alone on your own schedule.
And that is a dramatic difference. It is indicative of most of the media landscape with the
shifting of time and the greater control over what you see and when you see it.”
So will it be long until DVD begins to affect the kinds of movies made? According to
Layne, we could be seeing more experimental films from unknown filmmakers who
don’t otherwise have the demand or clout to get films out in theatres. DVD could serve
as a channel to allow them to introduce themselves to audiences, even if just sold in
dollar stores for a buck.
“The spectrum and the available interest by the audience is so broad that material that
might not have been made previously because it wasn't seen as a theatrical title doesn't
matter as long as it works and it's an appropriate title for your audience,” he says. DVD
is just a more flexible way to get that material to the audience. “When you look at the
diversity of price points and therefore the diversity of retail outlets where you can touch
the consumer… that's a much more dynamic environment than straight theatrical.”
But while Layne believes that there is a voracious appetite in the home entertainment
market, it is also a matter of what type of title is appropriate for a DVD release versus
theatrical.
According to Glen Rigberg of personal management firm Rigberg-Rugolo
Entertainment, family films do especially well on DVD without having to be that
successful in theatres because kids tend to watch them over and over again. “That's why
the Pixar movies do very well,” says Rigberg, “They get released almost immediately so
that [families] can have them in their collection.
“Ones that have become critically acclaimed they'd rather see in the theater, especially
around the holiday time... I think that people rank their movie-going according to how
they feel about the film and what they've heard about the film. There are people that say
I've got to go see that film in the theater, or that's a rental movie, or I'll just wait until it
comes on cable or I'll just wait until it's on free TV or maybe I'll call up on demand and
I'll get it at my house.”
Everyone has different priorities: “For instance there are action buffs that just have to go
see action movies in the theater and then there are other ones that say they’d rather go see
a romantic comedy in the theater.”
For many home viewers, the special features on the DVDs are also a determining factor
that allows them to further explore the films they enjoyed in theatres through interviews,
featurettes and deleted scenes. Rigberg’s film clients welcome the chance to be part of
the DVD’s special features: “They love it because they know they're part of history if
they're able to talk about a film while they're making it.” It also makes certain scenes
easier to cut in the editing suite, knowing that they will survive in some way on the DVD.
In the end though both the DVD market and the theatrical can offer audiences something
unique. While staying at home with a rental may seem like a convenient option, Rigberg
contends that sometimes an outing to a theatre holds more appeal: “[People] go to the
theater to escape, to leave their house, to have an evening, to have a day, to escape from
the real world – If they're in their house, sometimes they can, sometimes they
can't…there are lots of interruptions.” It is especially difficult with screaming children
around.
“I think that there will always be a vent for theatrical releases,” agrees Guber, “But
ultimately there will be a lot of direct to home releases too.
“Whether it'll be DVD, or streamed into the home over the Internet or some kind of pipe
like that, I think that both will exist in a simultaneous world.”
MIX MASTER: MARCELO ZARVOS
Brazilian-born Marcelo Zarvos scores award-winning indies
The Independent Video & Film Monthly, Dec 2004
By Katherine Brodsky
35-year old Marcelo Zarvos is scoring big in the independent film world these days. The
Brazilian-born Zarvos, who has made New York his home for the past 12 years, has
composed music for a handful of independent films, including Tully (2000), Kissing
Jessica Stein (2001), and this year’s The Door in the Floor—all award-winning and
critically acclaimed.
Zarvos discovered his passion for music and film at a young age while growing up in
Brazil. At 13, Zarvos started playing music professionally in local nightclubs, and a year
later joined a band called Tokyo, which was signed to the CBS record label and went on
to enjoy moderate success in Brazil. Zarvos’s experience with Tokyo allowed him to
write his own music for the first time, but unlike most boys his age, he did not dream of
rock stardom. Instead, he had his heart set on instrumental music, and on pursuing a
career in film scoring.
“I think the main attraction [of film scoring] was the possibility of experimenting and
combining a wide variety of musical styles including rock, without the constraints of a 3minute song format or preconceptions about genre,” says Zarvos.
Zarvos came to the United States when he was college age, in hopes of studying film
scoring. When he first arrived, Zarvos found some obvious contrasts between the US and
Brazil—family plays a larger role in Brazil, while in the US work and career tend to take
center stage. Zarvos also immediately recognized the dominant social gap here, whereas
in Brazil, “a larger majority of the country lives in very precarious conditions.’ But today,
having spent nearly half his life here, the US feels like home to Zarvos. Naturally,
though, Brazil remains a very strong source of inspiration in both his music and personal
life.
Zarvos had originally intended to go directly into film composition studies at the wellregarded Berklee School of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, but decided at the last
minute that studying film scoring exclusively at such an early point in his career might
not be the best move. “I just had the feeling that I should be exposed to more types of
music, and really live music more before I focused on film scores,” he recalls.
Instead, Zarvos wound up in California at Cal Arts outside of Los Angeles, where he
studied composition as well as classical music and jazz. During that time he wrote and
performed a combination of classical, jazz, chamber, and Brazilian music with his band
Marcelo Zarvos + Group. The group recorded three albums for MA Recordings—
Dualism, Labyrinths, and Music Journal. In 1998, 10 years after his arrival in the United
States, Zarvos was offered his first opportunity to score a film.
As it happened, a Brazilian director Paulo Machline who had heard Zarvos play at the
Knitting Factory in New York, felt that Zarvos’s style was just right for his short film,
Soccer Story (Uma Historia de Futebol, 1999). That short film became a hit on the
festival circuit and even went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Short
Film in 2001. Not exactly a bad way to start a career in film scoring.
“I was kind of feeling that one way or the other I would wind up doing film music, and
that’s exactly how it happened,” says Zarvos.
After that, things began rather quickly to fall into place for Zarvos. Soon after Soccer
Story, the film’s editor Affonso Gonçalves approached Zarvos with Tully (2000), a small
independent by Hilary Birmingham that he edited, which also went on to win major
accolades and awards at various film festivals. “It was interesting,” remembers Zarvos,
“because [Tully] was a completely independent film and he asked me if I wanted to score
this film, no distribution or nothing.”
Then came Kissing Jessica Stein, the 2001 indie darling already fast approaching cult
classic status. Zarvos composed the score for that film in just ten days. Long nights and
countless shots of espresso later, the film was off to the Los Angeles Film Festival where
it was awarded the Audience Choice Award and picked up for distribution.
Of his scoring process, Zarvos explains, “[The film score] helps convey so much that
goes beyond what’s on the screen—[it’s] really able to capture the sort of invisible
elements that are in the film. [The composer] is one element of a large multimedia
collaboration, and music can be more or less important.”
“I think what music can do is express the world of a character in a way that words cannot.
Great actors can do that with how they look and their body language and all of that—but
with all the things that go beyond words is where music starts and does its best job.”
In terms of working with directors, Zarvos feels the most important thing is that directors
know in a profound sort of way, the story they want to tell. “I don’t think it’s essential
that they tell you in very specific musical terms what needs to be done,” he says. “And I
don’t think it’s even advisable. You can talk a lot about things, but nothing beats being in
the room with the director when they first [hear] something, and you just watch their
reaction and their face and their body language. That can tell you a lot.”
For a pivotal scene from The Door in the Floor where Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) is being
chased by Evelyn Vaughn (Mimi Rogers), Zarvos recalls feeling like director Tod
Williams was directing him more as an actor than as a musician. In instances like this,
Zarvos says, “you’re not a hundred percent sure where you’re going, but the director is
giving you his notes and you kind of just trust.” For that scene, Zarvos scored the music
less to fit the action on screen than to express the way the character was feeling
internally.
“[Bridges played] a total megalomaniac who is very romantic and feels that the whole
world is after him,” Zarvos says. “He deserves every bit of anger from this woman, but
we were playing with what was inside him and not necessarily what was on the screen.
[Fields] just kept saying, ‘bigger, bigger, more, louder.’ Until finally one day he heard the
music and he said, ‘Okay, that’s what I’m talking about.’ It was great. And then I could
take a step back and say, ‘Wow. He was right.’ And I understood the effect he was going
for, but again, it was not necessarily in very musical terms, but more about drama and
texture and just size and scope.”
In Zarvos’s score for Door in the Floor, he succeeds in fashioning a bleak,
melancholy world with slow and heated sounds of piano and strings, reflecting the
characters’ emotional journey in a world that appears to be vanishing.
One thing that Zarvos says he has learned from his experience is that every director is
different. “I’ve been lucky to work with very bright directors and very different ones, and
they all had very unique ways of talking about music,” he says. For example, Zarvos
learned that Michael Burke, whom he worked with on The Mudge Boy (2003), had his
own special way to gauge how well the music worked in a scene. He called it his “gut
test.” Burke would watch a score, listen to the music, and if he had a reaction, would
write the letters “ER” on the sheet of paper. Luckily, Zarvos discovered quickly that
“ER” did not stand for Emergency Room, but rather Emotional Response.
Inspiration, Zarvos says, comes from that collaborative aspect of filmmaking, not just in
terms of partnering with a director, but also the idea that so many different media and art
forms are coming together to create a film. “[Film is] all the art forms: drama, music,
painting, theater, choreography, design,” he says. “So I think it’s the synergy of all of that
that makes it so mesmerizing. Cinema is a very recent art form compared to the other
classic art forms. Music has been around for a long time. I find that there’s a real magic
to it in how it works and why it works together.”
All of Zarvos’s work so far has been on independents. And while he says he’d be happy
to work for a huge Hollywood paycheck (and really, who could blame him), Zarvos
maintains that he is “fully committed to continue working on smaller, more personal,
independent films.” It’s the task of evenly combining music with all those other art forms
mentioned above that is especially mesmerizing for Zarvos. “I really feel that for anyone
involved in filmmaking, everything is a means to an end, and the end is the film,” he
says. “As a film composer, you are a part of something bigger than yourself.”
Marcelo Zarvos started on a journey 17 years ago, from Brazil to the United States, to
pursue his dream of composing film scores—a journey paved with passion and luck and
hard work, a journey of creation that Zarvos calls “magical.”
NOTE: Since this interview was published, Zarvos has done scores for films such as
Hollywoodland, The Good Shepherd, The Air I Breath, You Kill Me and What Just
Happened?.
From USA WEEKEND’s Where on the Web column
THE ELECTION'S OVER. POLITICAL SITES AREN'T.
During the 2004 presidential race, MoveOnPAC.org and MoveOnPlease.org presented
themselves as beacons of light, oracles for misled voters. But that was before Nov. 2.
With Dubya about to be re-inaugurated, does anyone care what these sites have to say?
Guess so. As much as you might think those sites would have expired by now like a
gallon of milk in the back of the fridge, both MoveOnPlease and MoveOnPAC are still
hanging around.
The goal of MoveOnPAC when it launched in 1998 was to influence voters with its antiBush message. Pre-election, it offered videos of former Republicans urging citizens to
vote for John Kerry, plus an ad where the president joked about WMD. In recent weeks it
has posted a report by the People for the American Way Foundation and the NAACP on
alleged GOP voter intimidation and misinformation. The site also devoted funds to
supporting recounts.
MoveOnPlease originated last year as an online "National Lampoon" parody of
MoveOnPAC. Typically, that kind of feature would be a one-shot deal, but the positive
response was so overwhelming, those "Lampoon" pranksters kept building on it.
MoveOnPlease looks just like MoveOnPAC, but every article and section is designed to
satirize it with headlines like "Losing Does Not Mean We've Lost" and "Because of You
There Is No Hope." There's even a trailer for a mock Michael Moore documentary that
purports to tell the true story behind "Fahrenheit 9/11." (Like most "Lampoon" creations,
it's not for kids.) The site now serves as a refuge of sorts for conservative-leaning Web
surfers and liberals with a sense of humor.
Now, if these sites can only keep the nation divided...
THE REBIRTH OF DANDYISM
What has the world come to when men mix their suits with sneakers? When they stir
their martinis (instead of shaking them) and look dumbfounded when asked to quote
Byron? One site, Dandyism.net, seeks to resurrect the “dandy” from “the dust-covered
armoire of history and restore him to his rightful place as society’s leading arbiter
elegantiarum.”
A dandy, however, should under no circumstances be mistaken for a metrosexual, “the
vain and empty-headed shadow of a dandy,” notes the site’s founder and a lifelong
student of dandyism, Christian M. Chensvold. According to Chensvold it’s not enough to
be well-dressed to be a dandy, “Dandyism is mysterious combination of elegance, wit, a
detached, urbane and often ironic view of life and human folly, and a penchant for
creating rules and maxims to live by.” For a dandy, life and the self become art – and
their performance must always remain Oscar-caliber work.
Chensvold founded the site/blog because he believes that it is “time to rescue dandyism
from the clutches of pretentious academics and put it where it belongs: In the hands of
pretentious bloggers.” Contributing writers across cultural hubs of the world including
New York, London, Paris and Hollywood offer wry social commentary and report on
films, books, and art – All from a unique ‘dandyist’ perspective.
So who seeks out this ancient art of dandyism? According to Chensvold, readers of the
blog are split between younger, bohemian types with a taste for vintage elegance and
obscure literature, and older, affluent professionals with an interest in classic tailoring as
well as the arts. “All see themselves as upholding the highest standards of taste in our
quite tasteless age, and all at some point in their lives became acquainted with
dandyism.”
Some dandy greats of the past include Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde, and Charles
Baudelaire. Their modern counterparts include David Bowie, Tom Wolfe, and well,
Andre 3000 – well-dressed philosophers, if you will.
Making a Difference
Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s brightest moment was probably at the Rio Earth Summit, where
the then 12-year-old Severn delivered a powerful speech to the political representatives.
However, her first environmental and social justice work began at an even younger age.
When Severn was just six years old, she gathered a few friends from around the block to
go on a parade carrying signs like “Save the Animals.” While such first attempts were
perhaps frail, by age nine Severn and her friends started the Environmental Children’s
Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other
kids about environmental issues.
“I grew up with this love of nature because my family was always going camping, hiking,
or fishing,” recalls Severn. “But from the dialogue around the table and from seeing it
myself, it was obvious that there was a major problem with the environment.”
“We’d been fishing by the house since I was little and one day we had to stop because we
started catching fish with tumours. Or we’d be driving along the highways in BC and see
the clear-cuts and their consequences.”
Despite her family’s vocal stance on environmental issues, what made Severn passionate
about environmental and social concerns was not pressure from her family. “My parents
never lectured us, but we grew up with lots of good examples,” she says. “Had they told
us what to do, we would likely have rebelled.”
A Budding Environmentalist
With ECO, Severn and her group started little projects like cleaning the beach, raising
funds for worthwhile projects, and distributing a newsletter to other kids about what they
were learning. And, of course, they also had fun.
“After a few years of these little projects we heard of the Rio Earth Summit,” recalls
Severn. “It was going to be about the environment and development, so when we heard
of this huge summit being held to talk about our future, we decided there should be some
people our age there to represent us.”
The Environmental Youth Alliance took ECO under their wings, teaching the determined
kids how to fundraise and write speeches. With great community support, including that
of children’s performer Raffi, who accompanied the children to the conference, funds
were raised for five ECO members to attend the conference.
At the conference they rented a booth and spread their message. On the day the group
was to leave Rio, they were invited to give a speech, filling in for someone who had
dropped out at the last minute. They had an hour to come up with something.
“So we forgot about our plane, got into a car and raced back to the summit, scribbling
notes as we drove, deciding who should speak.” Eventually they combined all of their
speeches into one powerful message, which Severn delivered.
The following year, Severn received the UN Environment Program’s Global 500 Award
at a ceremony in Beijing, China.
Still Making a Difference
Today, Severn still holds the same fundamental beliefs she did when she was 12, but she
no longer has an interest in speaking to politicians. “Real changes come from individuals
like you and me,” she explains, “people standing up for what they believe in and pushing
for change.”
The key to real change,” insists Severn, “is to make people more aware of the
environment and of other people around the world, and understand how much effect [on
the environment] we actually have as North Americans.”
One of these effects is the ubiquitous paper cup–a pet peeve of Severn’s. “We are trained
to waste. There is no real reason for it; it is just something we do.” Other parts of the
world effect the environment in similar ways. “In Japan, for example, five million
chopsticks are thrown away each day,” says Severn. “That’s trees, forests, and
ecosystems being destroyed each day for the sake of convenience.”
Bottling water is another thing that concerns Severn. “To me it represents comodification
of a fundamental human right. By paying for water, we, in North America, are saying to
all those people in the world who cannot afford to buy clean water that you have to have
money to drink water. We should all have good clean water to drink. We’re in the habit
of buying everything, but there are some things that we shouldn’t have to buy. Water is
more expensive than oil now, and that’s a pretty scary reality.”
Now 24, Severn continues to play an active role in the environment, currently working on
her master’s degree at the University of Victoria. She recently finished a fellowship with
Action Canada, a national leadership development program, and a book project on young
Canadians making great things happen in Canada. She hopes the book inspires young
people and shows them that they have more power than they think.
The Skyfish Project, an internet-based think-tank spearheaded by Severn and her friends,
contains a pledge called the Recognition of Responsibility, which can be accessed
through www.skyfishproject.org/ror.html.
Severn’s advice to people of all ages who are concerned about the environment: “One of
the most important things to realize is that no matter what age you are, you can make a
difference. It may sound naïve, but it’s absolutely true. We all make a difference whether
we know it or not, it’s just that we need to decide what kind of a difference we want to
make.”
Severn recalls hearing someone in the Yukon say: “You can change someone’s mind and
they can change it back again, but if you change someone’s heart and can make them
understand, that lasts forever.”
Katherine Brodsky is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist whose work has appeared
in Entertainment Weekly, USA Weekend magazine, MovieMaker magazine, Forward
Newspaper, Stage Directions, and Independent Film & Video magazine.
Source: alive magazine #278
SERVING POCAHONTAS
A rural community builds a new home for a beloved dinner theater
By KATHERINE BRODSKY
The Imperial Dinner Theatre in Pocahontas, Arkansas got its start in 1987, when Andee
Evers, the theater’s current executive director, opened a ballet studio in a friend’s garage.
Since there were just a few small arts organizations in town, Evers’ goal was to stimulate
a market for professional training in the performing arts in her small rural community—
but the interest was already there. As enrollment at her newly dubbed Studio for the Arts
steadily increased, Evers rented a bigger facility and expanded programming to include
drama, visual art and music classes for both children and adults.
Realizing she was on to something, in 1994, Evers decided to try her hand at dinner
theater and purchased the old Imperial movie house in downtown Pocahontas, a building
she renovated in just one year with the help of an army of dedicated volunteers, thanks to
whom the Imperial Dinner Theatre was born.
Since Pocahontas is a town of only 6,000 people, it seemed the odds of survival for a
dinner theater were slim. Still, Evers and her partner, Kelly Grooms, the theater’s artistic
director, kept plugging away, putting on shows until it was evident their gamble had paid
off. “Folks came from miles around and from far away as St. Louis and Little Rock to
enjoy the little gem hidden away in Northeast Arkansas,” recalls Evers. In fact, 48
percent of the theater’s audience now hails from outside Pocahontas.
Though the Imperial soon became one of the town’s most popular attractions, there were
problems. Despite the renovation work, the old movie house was still leaky, lacking in
space and not well suited for full-scale theatrical productions. Eventually, Evers and
Grooms voiced these concerns to the Imperial’s board of trustees.
In 2000, the board responded, launching a campaign to raise money for the construction
of what would end up being a new $2.5 million dollar facility housing both the Imperial
and the Studio for the Arts under one roof. In just six months, they raised more than
$500,000, as well as two acres of donated land. The theater also received thousands of
dollars in state and federal grants.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. During construction of the new building, unexpected
costs arose, requiring the board to come up with a creative way to raise more money—
fast. Their solution was to ask supporters to donate $30,000 in exchange for naming one
of the 12 columns that would support the auditorium. So far, eight of the 12 have been
claimed. “The remaining four will pay off the mortgage and establish an endowment for
our future,” explains Grooms. “When we came up with the crazy idea of building a
dinner theater in the middle of a bean field, we never dreamed we would get the support
that we did,” adds Evers.
But they did, and the new $2.5 million facility opened its doors on December 11 with a
production of The Wizard of Oz. The 18,000-square-foot building houses a dinner theater
that seats 200, a commercial kitchen and the Studio for the Arts, which now enrolls about
200 students. The new Studio for the Arts features two dance studios, a large dance floor,
as well as dressing and music rooms.
Evers says that one of the great things about the building’s architect, Richard Hummiston
of Fort Smith, AK, was that he had never built a theater before. While this might have
been disconcerting for some, Evers says it made it easier for her and Hummiston to work
together, sharing ideas and making suggestions to each other. Grooms also found a
perfect match in Todd Hensley of the Nashville-based Light and Sound, with whom he
worked to design the stage and technical aspects of the building.
By training area actors at the Studio for the Arts, Evers hopes to create a pool of
professionals who can be cast in future Imperial Theatre productions. “It would be nice to
have the luxury of a cattle call audition and have a hundred actors to choose from,” Evers
says. “This is why we established a company, so that we could raise the bar on the quality
[productions] we put on stage by using professionals from the area. That, of course,
means more high caliber performances for Imperial patrons. “We believe in a fair
exchange of goods for money by building a quality product,” says Grooms. “We are a
theater manufacturer.”
Part of that quality product is the treatment audience members receive when they visit the
Imperial for a show. As they walk into the theater’s grand lobby, they are greeted by a
hostess and then escorted to their seats by ushers. The Imperial also spared no expense on
the china, cloth napkins and tablecloths and hammered flatware. Each table has a
gleaming oil lamp that adds to the ambiance.
From humble beginnings, The Imperial Dinner Theatre and Studio for the Arts now
serves six counties in Northeast Arkansas and has become a draw for tourists from other
states, contributing to the overall economic development of this small rural town. “When
people come to the theater, they eat, buy gas, shop and stay in Pocahontas hotels,” says
Evers.
Evers hopes the Imperial will continue helping local artists reach their maximum
potential, and that it will keep thriving long after she and Grooms are gone. “The board
and others have made the offer to name a room or column to honor us in some way,” says
Evers. “We just want the opportunity to build our future and secure the future of the
organization. We’ve already had our dream come true with this building.”
ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT
In the arts world awards are given in almost any category at every opportunity. There
was even talk about introducing the “Best Nonhuman Performance Academy Award”
some years back, but one field has gone largely unnoticed with by far less makeup
competitions swarming for attention than ones, say, for actors.
Gene Flaharty, a highly regarded makeup artist in the theater industry has noticed that
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has acknowledged every category in
theatre except for makeup. So, 5 years ago, he introduced The Mehron Makeup Design
Competitions to the Kennedy Center. College students (full-time undergrads and grads)
in the theatre department are able to submit their designs and compete in regions of the
country, with 8 finalists proceeding to the nationals and presenting their work before a
panel of three judges: One theatrical makeup artist (Flaharty), one Broadway and one
Hollywood makeup artist.
Through the competition students learn how competitive the makeup design industry is
and their presentations follow the format of a portfolio presentation where they show
photos of their work and explain their choices. “Throughout the competitions,” says
Flaharty, “the students have become very, shall we say, ‘competitive,’ and we’ve gotten
some really good students come out of that and some have gone on to become makeup
artists.
“These are college students, and yet their works are very elaborate. There has been
prosthetics, body art… Often things they have never learned before and discovered for
themselves through experimentation. It’s a great learning curve for them to push their
comfort level and these are the people we’re really looking for, those are the people who
are really not afraid to explore and experiment.”
In fact, the judges were so impressed with the 2003 winner, Jason Coleman (University
of North Texas), and his energy and love for theatre and makeup that they actually hired
him.
Dana Nye, President of Ben Nye Makeup, a leading company that creates professional
cosmetics for makeup artists, agrees that these competitions show a display of excellence
in makeup. As a veteran professional makeup artist who has worked on Sitcoms, and
Commercials in Hollywood, she has seen some inspirational student work. “I have
watched the artists creating very interesting designs, and I have seen excellent student
work.” She notes “that skill levels are usually very advanced, and makeup students must
make sure that they have honed their skills before entering competition.” She feels that
the process can be especially positive for improving skills even further as there is an
opportunity to practice makeup skills and receive advice on ways to improve during the
judging process.
For most participants, a nationally recognized award such as the one given by The
Kennedy Center means a hint of prestige on their resumes, contacts and as Flaherty puts
it: “What they get from us is really a kick forward, a step in the right direction.”
But for Katie Ward, the winner of the 2004 Makeup Artist’s Trade Show Fantasy
Competition in Pasadena, California, it was a chance to challenge herself and gain some
confidence in her skills and talents. She was urged to enter by Martha Ruskai, the
Makeup Director at North Carolina School of the Arts where Ward studied. " Student
work can be outstanding, and it provides a very useful opportunity to demonstrate the
skills learned in class and in practical application,” Ruskai says of competitions, “It
provides immediate satisfaction and recognition to the young makeup artist.” Ward has
never entered a competition before, afraid to compete with her skills. “I guess I was never
really confident enough in my skills until probably my senior year when I realized that I
really loved doing this a lot and was going to be doing this for the rest of my life so I
really need to go out and challenge myself,” she recalls. “I put my 100% into this
competition and if I don’t win, I don’t win, can’t say I didn’t try.” So she went in there
and did her best. During the practice rounds her dad would joke, “You’re training for the
Olympics of Makeup.” Her Olympic-like training antics paid off. She won first place.
During the competition, contestants were given a 2-hour time limit to create a character
from Alice in Wonderland. There was no character Ward could choose to do except for
the Queen of Hearts. Signs were pointing Ward in the Queen’s direction. First, Ward
discovered that her model’s name in Latin means Queen of Hearts. “So I said, if that’s
not a sign, I don’t know what is.” Then came sign number two: When she was looking
through the Dec issue of Vogue, a spread of Alice in Wonderland with famous designers
dressed as the characters caught her eye. Katie’s favorite designer John Galliano was
none other than the Queen of Hearts. Sign number two.
So it was no accident that she won, it was fate. “I felt like I was famous,” Ward recalls
her moment of triumph, “Like I just won an Academy Award or something…I really felt
like a star for a day and I’d never take that experience back.” Ward learned that day that
if she sets a goal for herself, there is no reason why she can’t keep it. “I won some
money and some makeup but it was more of a personal achievement than anything else.
“I wanted to create something that was really beautiful, really creative and really
theatrical, while pushing the limit.” And she did.
When it comes to recommending makeup competitions to other students aspiring to work
in the theatrical makeup industry Ward thinks that you should go in there confident in
your skills, feeling like you’ve got nothing to lose. Because then you don’t. You need to
think of it not as a competition but as a challenge for yourself. You’re not out there to
impress anyone other than yourself. “If you go there and have this close-minded attitude
and you close your eyes to the possibilities of people being just as good if not better than
you I’d say no, because there are so many talented people out there – you’ve got to keep
that in mind,” she says.
Since the competition in June, Ward has gained the confidence to make the move to New
York and the very first gig there that she landed was 42nd Street on Broadway through a
friend who encouraged her to apply. One could do worse. Much worse, in fact.
Steins cracks comedy beyond bar mitzvah
The Georgia Straight
Keeping Up With the Steins isn't just a comedy about a bar mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony
of initiating a boy into manhood on his 13th birthday. At the heart of it, it is also a movie
about modern family values. It concerns a man (Entourage's Jeremy Piven) who wants to
give his son (Daryl Sabara, Spy Kids) the best bar mitzvah ever, the kind of bar mitzvah
that he never had. In the process, he loses sight of what his son actually wants.
According to Garry Marshall (the funny actor/director/producer who plays Irwin Fiedler
in the film and is Steins director Scott Marshall's real-life father) this whole phenomenon
is beyond just a fancy bar mitzvah but actually represents a particular modern-day
attitude. “I think that there are a lot of affluent people that instead of helping out others
are helping their families,” he says during a roundtable news conference at the recent
Tribeca Film Festival in Lower Manhattan. “I think it comes from the Europeans
struggling to come over here. My family's from Italy and my great-great-grandfather
made 14 trips on a boat to Brooklyn in order to go back and give the family money,” he
recalls. “As you go through the generations, you think 'Well, I can give my family what I
never had,' and they give them too much.”
The film's young star, Sabara, who celebrated his own bar mitzvah shortly after the film
wrapped, says that he picked up a thing or two about the true meaning of it all while
filming. His own celebration was small, intimate, and simple. “I already had a sense that
it wasn't just about the party,” he says, “After the movie, I didn't have any second
thoughts…I really think that lots of people overdo it and they don't realize it's about
taking responsibility.”
“Richard Benjamin has a really great line in the movie,” Scott Marshall adds. “'Before
you're 13, whatever you do is your parents' fault. After you're 13, it's your fault ‘so don't
do anything stupid!’” For Scott, the film is an opportunity to experience that bar mitzvah
he always wanted but, as a non-Jew, couldn't have. “I was a little jealous of the big
parties and the moment where they get to become a man,” he admits. “This film is like I
finally got to have my bar mitzvah.” He even learned Sabara's Torah portion. So how did
a non-Jew get to direct a movie about the most important ceremony in a Jewish boy's
life? Well, when Scott got the script, he said to the producers that he wasn't Jewish but
that he “married a Jewish girl, so that's close enough”.
His father, Garry, came to the project because nobody else wanted to do the skinnydipping scene. But Daryl Hannah, also in the scene, ultimately sold Marshall senior on it.
“Scott first told me Daryl Hannah was going to do it, that's how he opened up [his sales
pitch]: 'Well, Daryl's very pretty, isn't she?'” Garry's costar, Doris Roberts, jokes: “You
haven't seen that reverse shot - we've found out he isn't Jewish.”
Moral lessons aside, if they could have the bar mitzvah of their dreams, what would it
involve? For Sabara, who loves standup comedy, a bar mitzvah hosted by Conan O'Brien,
Jim Carrey, or Jack Black would be ideal. Scott Marshall would have opted for a Star
Wars theme. On second thought, Scott says jokingly: “Jaws would have been a good bar
mitzvah.
SPIRIT CLUB
Entertainment Weekly (excerpt)
The New DVD club that is a religious experience -- Spiritual Cinema Circle provides
subscribers with ''spiritually-themed'' movies
Where do you go when Hollywood’s promises of fulfillment come up empty? Well,
those experiencing Hollywood-withdrawal-symptoms can head over to the Spiritual Film
Circle (www.spiritualcinemacircle.com), a movie club that delivers exclusive “spiritually
themed” DVDs each month to subscribers looking for a little uplift.
Cofounded by Stephen Simon ( “What Dreams May Come”), the service scours the
festival circuit for feel-good features, docs, and shorts (a current fave is ''Jillian's
Vantage,'' about a date between a blind therapist and an emotionally wounded man). And
after three months, more than 7,000 folks from 52 countries have signed on.
“People are hungry for this sort of entertainment,” says Simon, “It helps people not feel
so alone in the world.”
SURVIVOR: ROSH HASHANAH
A New Reality TV Series Showcases Jewish Life
Reality TV casting call: Jewish families needed, substantially observant and slightly
neurotic, for test of strategy and endurance. There will be no island to get kicked off of
and no cow’s testicles to eat, but you may have to face… the bar mitzvah caterer.
That’s right, folks, someone finally realized what a challenge it is to be Jewish. Word has
just spread that two Canadians — Daniel Leipnik, president of Vibrance Alive
Entertainment Inc., and Johnny Michel, Channel M’s vice president of programming —
have been working on developing “The Mazel Tov Chronicles,” a new 13-part “docureality” television series that will feature one family as they go through a range Jewish
rites — from special affairs, such as weddings and bar mitzvahs, to holiday celebrations
such as Passover, Rosh Hashanah and the weekly Sabbath. One planned episode will
even follow a young Jewish person as he or she travels to Israel through the Birthright
Israel program.
Predictably, given the format of the reality television show — with its focus on the
voyeuristic pleasure of watching “real” people spontaneously react to (and conflict with)
each other — the producers are looking for families with personalities. “If they happen to
be screaming or yelling at each other, even better,” Leipnik said.
That shouldn’t be hard to find in a Jewish family, but the producers do have a pressing
concern: They want a family observant enough, but not too observant. “The challenge is
to find a family that would agree to break the rules that they are trying to observe in order
to educate the public,” Leipnik explained.
Which, aside from the fun aspect of the series, is in fact one the larger goals: Amid the
rise in hate crimes against Jews, with the majority of televised coverage of Jewish
religion and culture focusing on negative aspects such as terrorism, the ongoing Middle
East conflict and the Holocaust, there seemed to be nothing that would speak of the rich,
festive, not to mention neurotic, traditions of the Jewish people. “The religion and culture
is somehow left out,” Michel said. So he and Leipnik, who met while working on a series
about children of Holocaust survivors for Channel M, decided to fill this
underrepresented “niche” with a series that would celebrate Jewish life and traditions.
“I think that’s where the appeal is going to be: It’s a show about real people and a rich
culture that most people have heard about, but don’t really understand what it is,” he said.
“We want this to be a celebration of Jewish life.”
“The Mazel Tov Chronicles” is set to begin filming in September and will be released
for broadcast worldwide in April 2005. The series is expected to air in Canada on
Channel M, and currently the producers are in talks with distributors in Australia and in
the United States.
So you say you wanna be in pictures? Well, if you want to be in this family picture,
contact daniel@vibrancealive.com.