I am happy to say that I have started editing the Hall Show Documentary. I know that I have just scratched the surface with uncovering the story behind the 1980s Flint Punk Rock scene, but I also know that I need to start cutting the story together so I can better get a sense for what I have, and what I would like to have to tell this story. I am making new contacts on a regular basis of folks who were part of the scene and have artifacts that will be great pieces within the documentary, photos, stories, flyers, interviews, video.
So that brings me to the editing. Why start now, when everything isn't necessarily in place? Well, I have been kind of keeping this part quiet, but I want to start generating some buzz to help the progress of the whole project along. I am cutting a short teaser doc out of what I currently have - kind of an extended trailer if you will. The plan is to premier the trailer at the 2010 Earp Fest in December. This will be a worldwide premier, and where better to do it than at a reunion of the Hall Show crowd, in honor of Doug Earp! (and others we have lost along the way, of course).
This film is really my gift to the scene, and it isn't possible without the help and support of people who were, and still are, part of the Flint scene. I am always looking for people to interview, and for artifacts to layer into the film. So any support that you, the readers of this site, can offer is totally appreciated. hall.show.documentary (at) gmail (dot com) is a good place to touch base with me.
Making an independent film is really a labor of love, especially when it is being done with out of pocket funding as I am doing right now with the Hall Show Documentary.
As you may know, the Hall Show Documentary is about a snapshot of time in Flint, Michigan history, and it is also a film being produced (currently) in Michigan. There is currently a big push to get films produced here in Michigan, and there is even a state sponsored Film Office. We have looked into getting support from the Film Office, but found that there are mainly tax breaks for productions anticipating $50,000+ budget spending. To make things worse, it costs $100 just to apply for the potential of getting some tax breaks.
The Flint Punk Rock scene started out as a DIY thing with a bunch of really great people all interested in the same thing, good music. That is the spirit I have taken as I conduct interviews, do production planning, and figure out how this whole thing is going to come together. I am currently doing the production with some last gen digital video equipment, a pretty nice audio recorder and still camera, and the confidence that regardless of the deficiencies in my equipment I am telling the story of the Flint Punk Scene, and how it had a positive effect on both the city of Flint as well as a great number of the many participants that performed and attended Hall Shows.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't thing I would turn away angel investors looking to back my production costs, but I am not letting the lack of such funding stop me from discovering and telling this story.
To do any research on the Flint area, this is where you go. So Dorothy and I headed there the other day to do some quick research on what was going on in the Flint area in the early 1980s. We only had a limited time, so we headed to the reference section of the Library and dug through archival books about Flint. Below you will see some of the pictures I snapped, spy style, of some of the big newspaper books about Buick history and Autoworld. While auto workers were being laid off, there were openings for jobs at the amusement park being built to celebrate the Flint auto making history (how funny, huh?).
I also took some shots of the WFBE radio tower behind Flint Central High School. This is the transmitter that fed me and many others with music every week from the Take No Prisoners and Anarchy radio shows. WFBE is now a country music radio station. Back in the day it was a community funded public radio station.
Here are some photos from the walk around the Cultural Center of Flint, enjoy.
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