BROKEN WINDOWS

Monday, November 17, 2003

Hilarious.

For all of you Yat wannabes (or NOLA visitors who are in need of a dictionary to get by), here it is, a list of common words in the "yatbonics" lexicon brought to you by the Southern Yat Club. A sample:

Ban'ket (n): A sidewalk, correctly spelled 'banquette'. During Mardi Gras, banquettes serve as a measurement tool for sobriety. If you don't trip and fall in the gutter, its time for another beer.

Just today one of my co-workers (who has been giddily telling me about Mardi Gras for months -- he's so excited to introduce a northerner to all the craziness) told me to watch out for the Phunny Phorty Phellows, the Uptown krewe that "officially" opens up Mardi Gras season with their Twelfth Night street car ride. Unofficially, my co-worker told me, Mardi Gras season starts on Holloween: "The debauchery begins that night and goes on to Ash Wednesday. It's just starting to get fun!" He admonished me for not starting on my costume. Seems I should have been working on it since last Ash Wednesday. Bad immigrant yat (yatiens migratoris) I am!

Word to the wise: watch out for those ban'kets, revelers. Trust me on that one. Fa'Sure.

6:20:32 PM |

I just did a google search for "new orleans location manager" to see what I'd find. First up? None other than the ghost house across the street. Our authentic ghost house is the most famous actor in New Orleans, eh?

5:52:43 PM |

Hollywood came to town today to shoot a Nissan commercial in front of the ghost house across the street. They love that house, that authentic New Orleans house. The location manager told me the commercial is about a young hip white couple who've come to NOLA on a road trip in search of the best gumbo (not a bad reason to come down, by the way!). They start at this house where they ask the sharp-dressed man leaning against the gate where to get gumbo. This evening they'll shoot the final shot of the couple coming upon the riverside hole-in-the-wall the sharp-dressed man directed them to. The riverside joint is made-up, too, of course. It's a a house on Race and Religious that they've dressed up to look like a gumbo hut. Here's your authentic New Orleans!

A picture named director.jpg

The crew set up their "video village" on our front lawn (well, our front area of broken up rocks -- there's no grass). The director seemed like those I worked with in LA on commercials, sucking up all day long to the young ad and car execs. He was perfectly artsy. Not so much as to intimidate and not so little as to seem unauthentic. My last job in LA (a decade ago this year...) was a Ford commercial shot in LA and Santa Barbara. The director sucked up to the ad people, the ad people sucked up to the car people. The producer sucked up to the director, and the production manager to the producer, and on and on and on down the line. The only people saved from kissing ass were the gaffers, it seemed. They managed to do their jobs unencumbered.

Perhaps things have changed now that they shoot digital instead of film. Perhaps it was the film processing chemicals.

4:59:06 PM |

The camera crew doing what they do most of the time: waiting.

A picture named faketree.jpg

The creation of reality.

There are no trees with spanish moss hanging down in our neighborhood, so the crew brought some with them. I remember when I worked in the film industry in LA we'd do this sort of thing all the time. We shot a courtroom scene one night (in the middle of the night, when the courts were closed), and since all courtrooms on TV have beautiful windows, though most actual courtrooms do not (including the one we were shooting in), we created a window with duct tape and a light box. It's that search for authenticity again. It would not appear to viewers as a "real" courtroom unless it had windows. The real one wasn't real enough.

Funny how the "authentic" is often made up.

A picture named schoolgirls.jpg

I loved how the neighborhood imposed itself on this fake reality every now and then. Here are two school girls scurrying across the set on their way home from school. They are blurred from running and look like ghosts. Rather appropriate, I suppose. Reality is transformed into something supernatural, extraordinary, by commercials and media. Neighborhoods are re-made to fit our expectations, just as the residents are too. In our search for "authentic" experience, we look to the images made by crews like this one, who create a "reality" far more glamorous and beautiful than the one we actually live in. What a disappointment travel can be when the place we've come to is so different from its film representation.

4:45:49 PM |

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