As an ongoing project, we are constantly cleaning, repairing and digitizing the old 16mm film footage here at Ole Miss. In doing that, we try to share bits and pieces of the footage that we discover as we go along. Today’s offering is a hodge-podge of campus scenes from 1976. The footage offers a neat glimpse at an Ole Miss spring 24 years ago! If you see yourself in there, let us know and we’ll get you a copy! If you have questions about film transfer, or anything you’ve seen here, contact me at micah(at)olemiss.edu, or 662-915-3475.
The Kids stay in the picture!
This past Saturday, Micah Ginn and Chris Williams helped out during the Oxford Film Festival’s Kid’s Filmmaking Workshop. The event was hosted by the Boys & Girls Club of Oxford, with many of their members taking part in the production, as well as non-members from the community. The children worked with local filmmakers Nitin and Deepak Mantena, of Celery Studios, in the creation of a short film which will have it’s debut later this summer. Everyone had a great time, and we look forward to doing this again soon!
The workshop was sponsored by OFF, Media & Documentary Projects, YAC, Papa John’s Pizza, The Downtown Oxford Inn, and Rock Star Taxi & Limo.
Harvest Time Again
Here are the final projects from the Southern Studies Documentary Fieldwork class we taught this semester with David Wharton. We are proud of the graduate students and the hard work that went into producing these documentaries.
“Biker’s Preacher”, by Novelette Brown, Jake Fussell, and Amanda Lillard
“A Grit Flick,” by J. Bingo Gunter
“Brown Family Dairy,” by Tyler Keith, Eric Griffis, and Meghan Leonard
“Original Grit Girl,” by Catherine Stout
Blessing of the Fleet
In February, the UM Media & Documentary Projects Center and the Southern Foodways Alliance began work on a year-long project. The result will be a feature-length documentary film “Southern Food: The Movie.” Joe York, who is directing the film, recently returned from a two-week turn along the Gulf Coast where he filmed contestants at the annual FloraBama Insterstate Mullet Toss, oystermen on Apalachicola Bay, and beekeepers in Wewahitchka, Florida, among others.
While Joe was on the coast, the oil spilling from the failed Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico became a matter of grave concern. He decided to stay for another week and interview people along the Gulf from Florida to Louisiana about the oil spill and its impact on their lives.
In the coming weeks we’ll be sharing some of the footage Joe collected, beginning with a short piece shot at the 61st Annual Blessing of the Fleet in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
Documenting Our Backyard
Here is a Jackson Free Press review of “Smokes and Ears” that came out just before the Crossroads Film Festival–where it won the Best Mississippi Film award. This review sums up the Mission of the Media and Documentary Projects Center about as well as anything I could write.
In a Pig’s Ear
By Bret Kenyon
April 14, 2010
“Smokes and Ears,” directed by Joe York of Oxford, is a 26-minute documentary tells the story about the Big Apple Inn on Farish Street, and its speciality sandwich. Also known as “Big John’s,” the small restaurant’s trademarks are two sandwiches: the Smoke, a spicy ground-sausage sandwich about the size of a Krystal’s burger, and the Pig’s Ear sandwich.
Bet you’ll never guess what that’s made from.
I’ll admit that I gagged a little when I first saw a small child devouring a boiled pig’s ear slapped on a bun. But by the end of the film, I was craving one.
Local history begins to bleed into the narrative as the film’s explains the sandwich origins and ingredients. We learn that the Big Apple was a safe house for planning political strategy during the Civil Rights Movement. We discover that the restaurant was built by a young immigrant who started out selling hot tamales on the street corner, and that the price of a Pig’s Ear sandwich has only gone up approximately a penny a year since their introduction (current price: $1.05). While local Butchers gave the pigs’ ears to the restaurant free of charge, the price of ears has gone up due to their current use as a popular dog’s chew toy.
York, on staff at the University of Mississippi Media and Documentary Projects Center, not only shoots and edits the documentary so well that it looks like a History Channel feature, but he manages to use a local delicacy to tell the story of Jackson’s glory days.
The Southern Food Alliance produced the documentary. Dubbed by the Atlantic Monthly as “this country’s most intellectually engaged (and probably most engaging) food society, the SFA attempts to tell a locale’s history by exploring the roots of its unique cuisine.
I wish more films could do what this film does—find a unique device to tell the history of home. The past few decades have been unkind to Farish Street, but the popularity and stream of musical legends that passed through that place made me wish I could have spent a day there in its prime. Who needs a Bourbon Street or a Beale Street when you have something like this?
The film left me inspired to hold out hope that Jackson can one day regain some of what it once had. In the end, it’s not a documentary about some far away place or people you’ll never meet in a lifetime; it’s a documentary about our backyard.
Reference: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/in_a_pigs_ear_041410/
Ole Miss Moments
A collection of still and video moments that capture the spirit of the University of Mississippi. Produced by Karen Tuttle of the Media & Documentary Projects Center.
Sending out the Fleet
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, an Ole Miss alum and former Mississippi Governor, was the featured speaker at the 2010 commencement ceremony. Secretary Mabus challenged the Ole Miss class of 2010 to to always be ready … ready to learn, ready to serve, and ready to give back as they go their separate ways.
Civil War in Film
MDP was at the Overby Center tonight recording Professor Gary Gallagher’s lecture on the Civil War in Hollywood. The presentation, sponsored by the UM Center for Civil War Research, addressed the main interpretations of the Civil War as depicted in motion pictures.
Sarah's got an eye for Ole Miss
Sarah Kellum is a student-worker of ours who’s interest lie in cinematography. Her first solo flight with a video-camera in hand was last week, and here is what she cut together from her first time out with the Canon XL-1. Over the summer, Sarah will be working with our Panasonic HD cameras, as well as trying her hand at 16mm film, so be on the look out for more campus shots from Sarah!
Green Week
Here are a few excerpts from the Keynote Address and Sustainability Leadership Award Ceremony that took place yesterday at Off-Square Books as part of the University’s Green Week celebration. Enjoy!
Post Time
It’s Post Time for the students in the Documentary Projects Class. They have been working hard this semester putting together short films. Here, Jake Fussell and Novelette Brown work on their film featuring Reverend John Wilkins. Check back in a few weeks for the finished films.
Congrats to Joe York
Congratulations to Joe York whose “Smokes and Ears” took home the Ruma Award at the Crossroads Film Festival. The award, designed by artist Wyatt Waters honors the best Mississippi film.
Joe has had quite a run this last month with screenings of films in California, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and upcoming in New Zealand. Joe is also featured this week at the Atlanta Film Festival, where CUD will be screened. Enjoy Joe’s Q and A with the AFF.
Way to go Joe!
NAB Exhibits Day 3 and Closing
Ahhh. That’s the word for today. After a long week of sessions and speakers and cameras and 3D and 3D and 3D, I’ve finally arrived back in Oxford. It was a great week and I tried to learn as much as I could but it’s nice to be back and I’m excited about getting back to work.
The final day of the exhibits for me was definitely not a letdown. I spent the whole day looking through the gargantuan South Exhibit hall that was barely big enough to hold everything in the Post Production category. There were software people everywhere showing off their products and enhancements and drives and storage solutions. You really get to the point at the NAB show that you have to stare at a blank wall for a few minutes just to reset your brain. I was most interested in what other companies were doing for storage solutions. Almost everything we do is tapeless and the need for reliable storage is a must. I definately saw a lot of shocked expressions when I said our primary storage was single hardrives. It was the kind of look you see in movies when you know a character is about to die. At any rate, it was a nice way to wrap up the week and I got a look at some really great software that’s coming out soon.
Some of the product highlights that stuck out to me included this slick super-widescreen monitor.
Check out this virtual camera system that could project 3D graphics onto a card. Not sure what we would this but very cool nonetheless. I also was excited to see this small cyclorama screen. After talking to rep, it really made me think we could achieve a similar look in our own studio. More on that later.
I’ve always wanted a tripod head with the wheel controls for smooth tilts and pans and LOVED the feel of this one from GearNex.
Along the same lines was the remote pan and tilt system from a company named Scorpio. It was smooth as silk and would be a fantastic head on a crane or dolly.
And of course I couldn’t look at film equipment without a stop by Steadicam’s booth. Pictured here is their new prototype rig for the RED One. For some reason, I’ve always been so attracted to steadicams. After trying one out, I’m definately sold. Now if only I could scrape up 20K.
So as I end this week I’m still excited about the opportunity to see the crazy new products in film and television production, and the sessions that I attended were really really helpful. I thinks it’s important to always be learning new things and methods in production and how people tell stories. But again, the most important thing is the story. Everything at NAB is simply a solution to tell better stories but content is king. As I walk past literately hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and software I can almost here the laughter of guys like Oren Peli, the director of Paranormal Activity, who spent $8,000 dollars and a camera from Best-Buy and made a movie that grossed over 100 million. I’m glad I went but I’m glad to be home and I’m really excited to get to work on some of my upcoming projects.
Thanks again for reading and I’ll see you soon!
-Matthew
NAB Exhibits Day 2
Whew. That’s the key word for yesterday at the NAB convention. I spent more time in the exhibit hall speaking to vendors and checking out the new gear. Once again, the big buzz word around here is 3D. I was amazed at how many different groups carried a 3D solution or rig. I was able to check out a few new products trying to get in on the action like a 2D to 3D convertor box from JVC that takes your 2D video and determines the planes within the shot and creates a stereoscopic image. It wasn’t perfect but it looked pretty impressive. I was shocked to see how much production with 3D rigs was already taking place.
Another big hit this year is DSLR. Canon was really touting their different models, and support systems for DSLR cameras could be seen all over the place. I’ve got to admit, I was a little skeptical of DSLR when I first heard that it would be the future of filmmaking last year but you can’t argue with the image. It looks really good!
This new camera from Panasonic was 
interesting as well. It allows the use of interchangeble film lenses with a 4/3″ sensor that’s roughly the same size as a 35mm film camera image. All at around $6,000. Very interesting indeed…
At the end of it all, you really get the point that the most important thing in all of this is the content. It’s not the camera, or the support system, or the lighting, or the sound. These are all tools that are really valuable to the creating of the story but the most important thing is the story. It’ s really the only thing that sets anything apart. I would definatly love to use a lot of these tools to enhance the story but I could shoot with the best camera with the best lens under the best light with the best sound but if my story’s crap than all I’ve got at the end of the day is a pretty piece of crap. And who wants that.
I’ll be spending most of today checking out the Post Production exhibits and sitting in on today’s keynote address with Jeffery Katzenberg from Dreamworks. More tomorrow on the last day. Thanks for reading!
-Matthew
NAB Exhibits Day 1
Wow. The best word to describe yesterday’s opening of the exhibit hall at the 2010 NAB covention. Products from manufacturers all over the world were on full display and man did they come out swinging. One of the obvious connections with at least the camera makers were the 3D solutions. Everybody was touting their new 3D Cameras. In this photo you can see one of the formats that’s gaining popularity. 
3D Solutions offers this rig that inverts one of the cameras looking straight down a glass plane that reflects the lens and inverts it the right way. In other words it creates the conversion of the 2 lenses but allows them to be closer together than they would be side by side for better paralax. Whew! What a mouth full. Panasonic offered to me the easiest solution with a mounted camera lens with dual lenses. Getting my hands on it proved to be similar in controlling our HVX 200.
Another interesting setup for the cameras was the sets that each manufacturer used to show off the image quality. Seen here is the Panasonic’s 3D camera set up.
I was able to attend some incredibly helpful Final Cut Pro sessions. I use this software every day but was blown away with tips and tricks they taught us. Needless to say, I’ve been burning up the notes. I’m heading off now to a similar session on Color Correction so I’ve got to sign off. Things are definately going 3D around here and I can’t wait for Ole Miss to be apart of it.
Matthew
Viva!
Matthew Graves here. I’ll be spending the week at the 2010 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Convention in Las Vegas. This annual meeting brings together content providers, filmmakers, visual FX artists, and more to display the new gear and practices in all things audio/visual. In other words, it’s a filmmaker’s heaven on earth. The exhibits don’t open until tomorrow but the sessions began today and I’m excited to learn as much as I can in the next few days. Some of the sessions I’ve attended today include panels on creative shot design, Render acceleration in After Effects, and Visual FX compositing tips. Later this afternoon, I’m planning on attending sessions on Small Production Lighting, 3D software integration with After Effects, and Media Management in Final Cut. I also listened to a keynote lecture by the Editor of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek who spoke about her workflow in Final Cut. Exciting stuff! I’ll be blogging on the convention all week so check back for daily updates.
Invested in Service
Dr. Daniel Jones was inaugurated as the 16th Chancellor of the University of Mississippi in a ceremony this morning in the beautiful Gertrude C. Ford Center for Performing Arts. We will be posting the entire ceremony soon, but for now, here is newly inaugurated Chancellor Dr. Daniel W. Jones’ investiture speech.
Rock It!
As a part of the week of service leading up to the inauguration of Chancellor Jones, we will be producing a retrospective look at the variety of service projects that are happening on campus. One of the events that happened last night was the “Rock the Bus” where Graduate School members collected school supplies for Mississippi Teacher Corps teachers. In addition, we’ve been following work done by the previous Academic Network piece, the Civil Legal Clinic, the School of Accountancy’s Tax Aid clinic, Computer Science’s grade school computer refurbishment program, and the Intensive English Program’s world mural fundraiser. Check back soon for more info and the finished video.
Pathway to Reconcilation
MDP was at the Overby Center tonight for “Ole Miss and the People of the World: A Symposium on Reconciliation.” The panel, sponored by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, and moderated by Chanellor Dan Jones, looked at ways we can work toward reconciliation with nations we have historically had strained relations with.
Up Close and Personal
I was back in the water today for the profile video I’m producing on the scuba diving class. They let me strap on the gear and stay submerged which was pretty awesome, I’ve got to say. It definitely made a difference in my ability to shoot better footage. This might possibly be the coolest shoot I’ve been on since I’ve been at Ole Miss. It’s definitely the most incredible class lecture I’ve ever shot! Check back soon for the finished video.
-Matthew
CUD goes Down Under!
CUD, a short film by MDP producer/director Joe York about Georgia cattleman Will Harris, is now an official selection of the Reel Earth Film Fetsival in…..NEW ZEALAND! And that’s not all! This weekend CUD will screen at the Going Green Film Festival in Los Angeles, where it is nominated for the Chipotle Food that Matters Prize, and later this month CUD will screen at the Atlanta Film Festival.
Saving Willie Mae's Scotch House airs on Colorado Public Television
Last night “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House”, a film by MDP producer/director Joe York, aired on Colorado Public Television. Click here to read the CPT program listing for the film. To date, the film has aired on public television in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Oregon, Georgia, and some other states we’re forgetting right now. We’re very glad to add Colorado to the growing list of states where “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House” has aired.
Tell Your Ma, Tell your Pa, I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas!
MDP Producer/Director Joe York is just back from a week-long video shoot that took him and graduate assistant Alan Pike all across the great state of Arkansas.
Collecting footage and interviews for the forthcoming SOUTHERN FOOD: The Movie, their travels included stops in Little Rock, Lake Village, Brinkley, DeValls Bluff, Stuttgart and DeWitt, Arkansas. In between shoots, York and Pike also found time to attend the Ozark Foothills Film Festival, where York screened four MDP films to enthusiastic audiences. Check out this article from the Arkansas Times that gives a nice nod to York’s films and also discusses legendary documentary filmmaker Les Blank, who also screened films at the festival. Check back later for pictures from York and Pike’s Arkansas adventures.
Cinemergy
I got to try out our new underwater camera housing today for the upcoming Academic Profile video on the scuba class. Worked like a charm!
-Matthew
Days of Intrigue
The Center for Intelligence and Security Studies recently held their 2nd annual training exercise “The Days of Intrigue”. Over two days, the intelligence analysts-in-training are given a fictitious terrorist plot they must uncover using artificial news and web material. At the end of the exercise, the students brief a visiting policy maker to mimic what analysts actually do in the field. U.S. Representative Travis Childers (D-Miss) was on hand to be briefed. The event was a huge success for the program and I was able to produce some “fake” news content for the exercise. Here are a few stills and an overview video showcasing the work Media and Documentary Projects did to help make the event as authentic as possible. It was a fun project and great opportunity to help train the students who will one day serve this country in intelligence analysis.
-Matthew
The Civil Legal Clinic
The latest Academic Network profile shines the light on the Civil Legal Clinic at the University of Mississippi School of Law. The Civil Legal Clinic helps prepare its students for the actual practice of law by teaching practical skills and substantive law through real life representation of low-income clients under rigorous faculty supervision.
Grisham Reads the Whiskey Speech
For years Soggy Sweat’s Whiskey Speech has been discussed as a particularly fine piece of southern oratory. Judge Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat was John Grisham’s law professor at Ole Miss and a former state legislator. Here Grisham remembers his professor at the Oxford Conference for the Book–this year dedicated to Barry Hannah.
CUT/CHOP/COOK "debuts" at Charleston Food & Wine Festival
On March 6th, MDP & the Southern Foodways Alliance gave folks at the Charleston Food & Wine Festival a sneak peek at their latest short documentary. The film CUT/CHOP/COOK, a profile of pitmaster Rodney Scott of Scott’s Barbecue in Hemingway, South Carolina, was produced and directed by MDP’s Joe York in association with the Union Square Hospitality Group and will officially debut at the 2010 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in New York. We’d like to offer a very special thanks to the good folks at Jim ‘N Nicks Barbecue, who hosted the event which featured the sneak peek. Though we weren’t able to attend the event, the reviews have been amazing. Here’s a great one from Libby Wiersema of SCNow.com:
“The Pee Dee was the unexpected star of the show when the Charleston Wine + Food Festival presented the Pitmaster’s Bourbon & Q Dinner at Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q on March 6.
Sold-out themed dinners were packing dining rooms throughout the historic district and this popular eatery in the heart of King Street was no different. Guests were greeted at the door with sugar-rimmed glasses of bourbon and led to their assigned seats. In less than half-an-hour, every table and booth was brimming with fun-loving foodies. New friendships were struck and laughter abounded as the bourbon flowed and diners nibbled on pickled shrimp, boiled peanuts and pork rinds.
I was seated across from cookbook author Ted Lee, who was dispelling myths about Bobby Flay’s arrogance (apparently Flay is the “nicest, kindest” food personality on the planet, according to Lee) when the first hint that some home flavor was on the menu came parading through the dining room. The front door swung wide, and two brawny men in red T-shirts advertising Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway made their way carefully through the narrow aisles bearing a sizzling hog. All eyes were fixed upon the scene. Mouths gaped. Applause rang out. Then they disappeared into the kitchen.
About that time, platters of Jim ’N Nick’s garlicky pork hot links, pimento cheese and liver mousse with wood-grilled bread were laid before us and we dug in, the meat parade forgotten for the time-being. That was followed by trays of freshly roasted Folly River oysters, tender and sweet. All that shucking called for another round of tasty bourbon cocktails, artfully concocted by two of the evening’s guests, Greg Best of Atlanta’s Holeman and Finch Public House and Julian Van Winkle of Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery in Kentucky.
A rowdiness was pervading the atmosphere by the time the course ended. The decibel levels were stretching the limits, and conversations were being shouted. A bluegrass trio was in full swing — if there’d been room to dance, I’m sure some clogging would have accompanied. I noticed a couple of guys struggling to erect a projector screen in front of the door. They didn’t seriously think they could rein this crowd in long enough to show a film, did they? Oh yes they did. But it wasn’t until the first few frames flickered that things started to quiet down. There on the screen was one of the meat bearers from Hemingway. His name is a familiar one in the Pee Dee — Rodney Scott — and the film was a documentary tribute to the way he does business.
I am not kidding when I say that there was perfect silence in that dining room as we witnessed what I can only describe as Scott’s amazing labor of love. As we watched him harvest wood with a chainsaw, stoke fires and flip hogs on his custom cookers, there was a palpable sense of awe developing amongst us. When Scott applied sauce to the hog using a kitchen mop, the entire audience erupted into mad applause. They were tickled by the down-home testimonials of local Scott’s Bar-B-Que patrons. Scott, who was watching from a corner with us, laughed as well, clearly caught up in the building enthusiasm of his newest fan base.
The film faded to black, and as difficult as it was in the cramped space of the room, the awestruck diners leaped to their feet, roaring and shouting and applauding this Pee Dee pitmaster. Crowds of people — many of whom have never heard of the Pee Dee — moved in to shake this man’s callused hands. They hugged him, pounded his back like old friends, asked for autographs, took photographs. When I asked Scott how it felt to be the star of the show, he beamed and said, “Man, it’s unreal. I never thought I’d be here in Charleston and be part of this festival like this. I just can’t believe it.”
Minutes later, plates of Anson Mills grits topped with heaping portions of Scott’s succulent pig were served. Our empty plates seemed a fitting expression of the love we all felt that night for this local barbecue phenomenon.
CUD goes to Hollywood
CUD, a co-production by MDP & the Southern Foodways Alliance, will screen in Hollywood at the upcoming Going Green Film Festival on April 2&3. One of only thirty films chosen for the festival, CUD is a short documentary film by Joe York which profiles of Georgia cattleman Will Harris. To learn more about the festival, which will take place at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, CA, check out their website at goinggreenfilmfest.com (Click on the word CUD to watch the trailer!)
MDP Films to be featured at Ozark Foothills Film Festival
Earlier this year MDP & our co-producers at the Southern Foodways Alliance were invited by the Ozark Foothills Film Festival to present four films at the festival, which runs from March 26-28 in Batesville, Arkansas. Here’s the write-up in the event from festival director Bob Pest:
“New collaborators also include the UM Media & Documentary Projects Center & the Southern Foodways Alliance, providing the four mouth-watering “foodie” films that make up the “Southern Succulents Food Film Showcase.” Produced by filmmaker Joe York, the movies explore Southern food traditions, from pig ear and smoked sausage sandwiches to North Carolina barbeque.”
To learn more about the festival and to order tickets visit ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org