Steven Ross on tour March 4 - 12 with Liberia: A Fragile Peace and Fishers of Dar

Documentary filmmaker Steven Ross will tour the Southern Circuit from March 4th - 12th with his films Liberia: A Fragile Peace and Fishers of Dar.

Liberia: A Fragile Peace explores the civil war between many warring factions with civilians caught in the crossfire and the peace that followed.

Rakumi Arts International writes, “Fishers of Dar is a visually lush documentary without commentary. The film takes the viewer, beginning before dawn, to the pier and the bustling central market, as hundreds of people make their living in this age-old way.”

Earlier this month, we spoke with Steven about these amazing films and his experiences in making them. Download the audio interview with Steven Ross (26.9MB) Mp3 - 28m:46s

For more information on these films and their filmmaker as well as his touring schedule, visit the Southern Circuit website.

Southern Circuit tour day nine - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day nine. Final day of the tour ends in Asheville, North Carolina. The drive up from Orangeburg is relatively painless and when I cross the border from South to North Carolina and stop for lunch I am pleasantly surprised to find the New York Times available at the “quickee-mart.” Arriving at my designated hotel I discover that their wi-fi isn’t functional so I cancel and continue on to a hotel that will allow me to check my school email and begin to address the work issues that I’ve been unable to address this past week.

Screening is at 7pm at the Fine Arts Theater in downtown Asheville so I head over there around 5:30 to check in and see what the facilities are like. Neal R., theater manager/guru, stops his ongoing poker game with the projectionist and says to come back around 6:30 when their showing of The King of Scotland is over. A middle aged couple comes in to purchase tickets to the 7pm screening of The King of Scotland but are informed that it won’t be playing at that time because of a special animation screening. They are disappointed because they are leaving town so Neal points over to me and I introduce myself and invite them to come instead to take advantage of a once in a lifetime chance to see unique and varied animation introduced by the filmmaker. They don’t return.

I wander a bit around downtown Asheville and see a variety of art galleries, restaurants, book/music stores, and young males with hair exploding off of their heads. Returning to the theater I meet with the projectionist and we talk through the evening’s schedule, Neal gives me a curtailed history of the theater (the balcony which is now a second screen was initially set aside for ‘colored’ patrons, the theater as a whole drifted into a porn house in the 70s and 80s, and has now returned as a venue for quality, non-Hollywood fare).

Alison W., head of the local Media Arts Project that is sponsoring the Southern Circuit here, introduces me at 7pm to the audience and away we go. I walk in front of the audience, decline to use the provided microphone (since I can carry my voice when I choose to), and talk about the path I took from undergraduate psychology major to independent animator/teacher. We then work our way through 13 of my films grouped in the categories of drawn, cutout, puppet/object animation, collaborative, and miscellaneous. In between each film I stand up, the house lights come on, and I talk about what they just saw and introduce the next film. When the first film ends the audience applauds (I believe this happened in three of the eight screenings). I ask them to hold their applause and wait until the conclusion (since I feel it will be too much to expect a spontaneous eruption/tepid acknowledgement after each film).

There are a few small glitches in the screening. The projectionist misreads a thumbs-up gesture to the audience when I initially walk out in front as a cue to start the first film even though I have yet to begin my introduction (I stand in front of the rolling film in the dark and gesture towards her and she recovers quickly and stops the film). Being a fast learner I give her a direct and obvious salute when I’m done talking between every other film. When we play “Gabriel Goes for a Walk” the film begins to skip then stops entirely so she has to skip forward eliminating 1/6 of the film (you can’t depend upon DVDs or DV tape in a public arena), and some digital artifacts that appear early on in “Backyard Shadow” make me fear that it will grind to a digital halting death in its position as the final film of the evening. The film recovers, however, and the screening is essentially a technical success.

The audience uses up their saved applause and I answer 10 or 15 questions. No one leaves during the Q & A (always a good sign) and 7 people come up afterwards to purchase a copy of my compilation dvd. Several even request my autograph on the cover and I happily oblige, though I warn them that my signature, although legally valid, is basically unreadable.

All in all a fine end to a worthwhile, interesting, rewarding, and sometimes tiring journey through the south touring with my films. Thanks to the Southern Circuit (SC Arts Commission/Southern Arts Federation) and all of the venues and hosts for their hospitality and efforts. If any future participants wish to contact me for info about the experience (especially your one day off) don’t hesitate to do so. Otherwise I bid you adieu and encourage you to post comments and read earlier blog entries from myself and the other participants.

Now back to real life,

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day eight - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day eight. South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, SC is a traditionally black school with a healthy tradition and many varied majors. Ellen drives me over to show off the school's planetarium/art gallery that she heads. It is undergoing renovations and due to open in two weeks after being closed for a couple of years. The smell of fresh paint and floor sealer roll out of the front door when she opens it. We then head over to the auditorium to set up for my next to last presentation. Mark shows me the projector and sound system and I am taken aback by the size of the single speaker. In an auditorium that seats several hundred people, he points to a small horseshoe shaped object about 8 inches wide and two inches tall that is the 'sound system'. To allay my fears he cranks it up and I’m amazed at how much undistorted sound it pumps out.

We end up with around 40 folks in the audience and as I talk to the students informally ahead of time I am reminded of how polite many young southerners are, “yes sir; excuse me sir, thank you sir. “ We start the show, I run though my now set sequence of 13 films, stand up and talk in between each animation, and then it’s over.

Afterwards Ellen, Helen B. and I meet at a restaurant that I'll call Crabappletrees for some dinner. Ellen asks what soups are available and our waiter (a nuclear engineering freshman at SCSU) informs us that they ran out of soup during their recent dinner rush (the rush is evident from all of the dirty dishes left stacked on half of the tables in the restaurant). They both order a Greek chicken salad with feta cheese and black olives and I order some fish with a lime salsa. I attempt to order a beer but apparently you cannot purchase alcohol on a Sunday in South Carolina.

The waiter returns with our food but informs us that the kitchen has run out of feta cheese, black olives, and lime salsa. We marvel at the timeliness of the sharing of this information. We begin to poke at our food and eat it. Ellen asks for some parmesan cheese since the feta was unavailable. Eventually the waiter returns with a small container of shredded chedder. As we finish our meal Ellen finally receives some shavings of parmesean and shortly thereafter the manager arrives apologetically. We inform her of the issues with the meal and she is shocked because she knows that all of the missing ingredients are actually back in the kitchen cooler. She comps our meal and heads back to the kitchen. We hear three shots ring out and the manager comes out five minutes later with a help wanted sign to place in the window. Just kidding about that last line.

Now back at Ellen’s house I finish typing this at 12:45am but will wait until tomorrow to post it since her internet computer is only accessible by walking through her bedroom and she has been asleep for an hour and a half. Thanks so much for your hospitality, conversation, and for organizing the get together last evening. It’s been a pleasure visiting Orangeburg, South Carolina State University, and your house in particular.

Cheers,

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day seven - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day seven. This is my only day off on the tour, meaning that this is the only day of the tour that I don’t present in the evening. Orangeburg, South Carolina is reached after a drive on back roads up from the coast. Along the way I pass several abandoned buildings along the side of the road and finally stop to investigate one to find that the interior of the concrete block structure is covered with graffiti and empty mud wasp nests.

Arriving in Orangeburg around 5:30pm I am met outside my target house by Ellen Z. who welcomes me into her home. Carol C. is also on the scene, called up for duty from Columbia, SC to help greet the latest filmmaker passing through. I get a tour of her house, choose one of the two spare bedrooms as my own for the next two nights, and then greet Robert G. from the South Carolina State University’s music department who arrives with sausages for the grill. While Ellen and Carol are cutting up vegetable in the kitchen, Robert and I head outside to the grill to begin the meat burning process. As we are sussing out the situation, Steven C. from the visual art department arrives and provides a sarcastic or humourous remark to accompany every action and statement. Because Robert brought the sausages he is elected as the grilling expert, despite his protestations.

Tiring of the burden of being Mr. Chef (and called away to pick up a guest in town who is lost), Robert abandons the grill to Steven and myself. Steven quickly heads inside to check up on his Czech wife, Esther, and I’m left outside to flip burgers and turn sausages. Although I haven’t eaten red meat or fowl for more than 20 years, I think back to my high school days working at Burger King for guidance (I was chosen Employee of the Month at one point). This does absolutely no good since all I did there was toss frozen circles of meat onto a conveyer belt, but I manage not to burn anything by the time Robert returns to bail me out. I also manage not to actually cook anything.

Heading inside I gather some food from the central table then smile and shake hands as a steady stream of people arrive through the evening. Rosemarie D. arrives with her multilingual skills in check. Diann C. shows up from Beaufort, having seen my presentation there the night before. Marvin M. asks me questions to figure out how he will introduce me tomorrow and I talk to Mark D., who will be running the projection system, about what to expect. Eddie M. and Brian W. stride in and we discuss how it can be difficult to introduce a major or a minor as a parttime teacher (dance, in their case). After the SCSU basketball loses in overtime some more folks arrive at the house. Delvina W. describes Prince’s concert in South Carolina with exuberance despite a voice rough from screaming at the b-ball game. Tolu F. makes the rounds and Ingrid talks about the family dynamics around a recurring bible study meeting. Finally, around midnight, master seamstress Teresa and Delvina are the last to leave. Diann has brought in her two dogs from the car and is already asleep in the other spare bedroom. Ellen heads to her master bedroom to sleep and I finally crawl under my covers.

A wonderful mix of people who are outgoing, friendly, and a pleasure to spend time with.

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day six - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day six. Beaufort, South Carolina is a small coastal town between Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina that has an active arts council. One of the ways that they are able to afford to contribute and be a part of the Southern Circuit series is to have the visiting filmmaker present to the local high school population (the school district then kicks in some funding). And thus today’s story begins.

I am met at the Arts Council office by Brian, today’s designated artist babysitter, around 11:15am after my drive down from Columbia. He leads me to Lesley’s house to set me up in her lovely little guesthouse. After I schlep my bags in we quickly head out towards the local high school to make the 1pm presentation schedule. It’s my first time in a car being directed by one of those talking GPS map devices (“Turn right at Spanishmoss Road,” “Turn left in 300 yards at Yokel Blvd,” “You missed your turn, nimrod, now I must recalculate.”). The voice speaking to us from the small box is defined as ‘American English Jill,’ although there are other choices available through the menu such as British female and Canadian French. Southern twang is not an option.

We arrive at the Bluffton School complex shortly before 1pm after stopping to grab a fast sandwich to go at a local stop that turns out to be short one cook and not so fast. Unfortunately the talking GPS device can’t distinguish between Bluffton’s elementary, middle or high school buildings in the extensive complex. The two former are sitting before us when we pull into the complex but our ultimate destination is nowhere to be seen. After several hurried phone calls we manage to connect to someone who is able to steer us around a couple of bends to the high school proper.

It is now a little after 1pm. Previous Southern Circuit presentations at this school have had more than a hundred in attendance so I run in to keep them from waiting and am stopped cold by school security. The contact person I am supposed to meet is not in school today so they eventually locate the designated substitute, print out my hallway pass, and let me charge ahead to see what’s in store.

Entering the auditorium I encounter a cavernous space that can hold 500 people but has around 12 bored teenagers spaced randomly in the first 20 rows. I take my dvd up the long aisle, climb the stairs at the back of the auditorium to the booth sitting one story above the space, and hand it to the middle aged man who will be negotiating the menu and pressing play. Looking around the space quickly I ask,

“Where is your dvd player?”

“We don’t have one.”

“Well how do you play dvds?”

“Through this computer.”

The dvd is placed in the PC computer but it doesn’t have a dvd player. Instead it will be played though Real Player. The computer loads the dvd and the play options appear on the side. The choices are Title 1 through Title 40; no actual film titles or indications of what film or extra each ‘title’ is referencing. We hit play on one or two of the titles and there is no rhyme or reason to the order of the listing.

“Sorry, that’s the best we can do.”

Knowing now that I will now be presenting a random lineup of my work, in which I say “Play the next one” and wait to see what shows up on the screen, I run down the stairs, stride down the aisle, and slow to a walk at the front of the auditorium. Before I begin showing work I introduce myself, ask the students what animation they are interested in, and why they are here. It turns out that there is a pep rally scheduled for this afternoon for the high school basketball team that everyone will be excused to attend. The folks who are here are the ones who are so determined not to be involved in the sports/cheerleading/pep scene that any option is better than the rally.

Fine.

We get through our initial conversation and I shout up to the guy in the booth several hundred yards away to play the first film. He clicks on his button, the cartoon begins to play, and grinds to a halt after 30 seconds. The film is frozen, no sound is emerging, and the man in the booth can’t figure out how to kill the program and start over.

After a hurried conversation with the teacher in charge, we decide to take the whole production up to his classroom to try again since the small amount of students attending can all fit in his space. We arrive in his classroom, he pulls out a portable dvd player to plug into a small monitor, and we place my dvd player into the device. Unfortunately he does not have a remote so there is no way to negotiate the menu to access any of the individual films.

Before I left for the Southern Circuit tour I went to a local electronics store and bought a small portable dvd player with a remote and tested out all of the dvds that I was considering using on the tour. Most of the films are on my compilation dvd but I have one recut film and an addition film that I tend to show. All three worked in the dvd player. Just in case one of the venues’ systems didn’t like any of my dvds we could always plug in my portable player. I had left it back at Lesley’s guest house.

Anyway, to make a long story shorter we played the dvd through a computer in the room, the students circled loosely around the 15” monitor, and I played through several films until they were all dismissed around an hour later. There was no open rebellion and they appeared to be vaguely interested (you can’t look too interested as a happening teenager). Brian and I made our way back to Beaufort where he dropped me off at the guesthouse.

Having spent so much time on the preliminaries I’ll summarize the rest of the evening much more succinctly.

Nice dinner in the evening with the members of the Arts Council of Beaufort County at Panini’s, a restaurant housed in a former bank on the main drag. Good conversation and then a trip over to the classroom being used for the screening (while the school’s auditorium is under renovation). Screening appeared to go well, 2nd largest group of people so far on the tour and they all hung around for the duration and asked questions at the end. After the screening I headed out for conversation and drinks with some of the attendees and the evening ended with a visit to Deanne’s gallery around midnight to see her environs, all of the artists she represents, and a sampling of her own work (particularly like the organic work emerging off of the canvases/boards).

Thanks so much for all of your hospitality. Now it’s time to head to the next location to find an internet connection where I can post this missive.

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day five - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day five. Columbia, South Carolina. Before leaving Clemson I visited David Donar’s graduate animation production class. The class was working on a group project and they may have wished they hadn’t invited me in retrospect. Not because I tore their film apart, I didn’t. They had a solid concept, good modeling and lighting, and the animation moved fairly well. It’s just that they were so far along in their process that the suggestions that I made to add some additional character development and questions about some of the motivation of the actions (why is the little boy stomping on the cereal box that contains the toy that he wants?) would necessitate alterations in timing and animation that they hadn’t planned on. Such is life. Just when you think you’re about done some Yankee comes along and questions you. Ah, but what is a Yankee? I may be living in Philadelphia now but I spent my formative years (2 through 18) in Georgia.

It was good to get involved in a dialogue about a film in process and I hope I was able to offer assistance.

Drove down to Columbia from Clemson and found my temporary housing for the night. A brief exploratory walk around the hotel environs left me with a muddy shoe and a long scratch on the back of my leg. Headed over to the Nickelodeon Theatre and met Andy and Larry in their basement office. Larry was excited about an upcoming meeting he had to attend so Andy was left in charge of babysitting the visiting filmmaker.

After a beer and some tasty crawfish we headed over to the cinema for the screening. The Nickelodeon is a small but friendly theater. They serve alcohol in addition to the standard fare and are looking forward to (given a board of trustees approval) a move to a larger venue with two screens.

Not a large turnout at the screening but the attendees were engaged and actually laughed at films that were supposed to be funny (the Clemson crowd was pretty silent; they may have been smiling but they weren’t emitting humorous noises). Several folks came up afterwards to talk and a few actually purchased copies of my dvd.

Afterwards Andy and I walked over to a local pub to have an additional beverage. Andy pointed out the prominent statue of Strom Thurmond next to the state capitol building where the engraving on the side was changed to alter the number of his children from four to five and to add the name of Essie, the segregationist’s child he fathered with an African American maid that was only revealed after his death.

Fascinating. I knew of the facts but not the statue alteration.

Thanks to Andy and the Nick for their hospitality, and the kind woman who lobbied on my behalf for inclusion in the Southern Circuit tour who handed me additional information and purchased a dvd. I’m sorry that my brain wasn’t able to hang onto your name. Just so you know, it usually takes me a full semester to commit the names of all of my students into long term memory.

Cheers,

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day four - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day four. Clemson, South Carolina. Why is it that the smaller the airport the tighter the security? Leaving Lynchburg I had to place the one piece of luggage I was checking in on a metal table where a security guard opened up the suitcase, poked around for a bit, and then swiped a round piece of cloth/paper around all four sides before depositing it in a machine that would tell him if I was carrying plastic explosives. They were equally as excited by my carry-on bag, also wiping it down and testing for potential nuclear hazardous waste.

No problems getting to Greenville, SC once the plane arrived (all flights in the south seem to need to stop at either Charlotte, NC or Atlanta, GA – Charlotte seems to be this tour’s central distribution point).

Amy picked me up at my hotel at 6 and her partner drove us both over to the lone sushi restaurant in the college mix of tanning salons, pizza joints, and sub shops. We were joined by Clemson colleagues and conversed and ate until 10 minutes before my presentation. Nice folks, all. We scooted over to the venue.

Whoa, look at the all the folks in the audience here. This is the largest crowd yet. Of course this is the largest college so far on the tour, Clemson has 17 thousand students and at least some of them decided not to attend tonight’s basketball game.

Tonight’s presentation appeared to go relatively smoothly. Only a couple of folks walked out during the screening, the student projectionist was able to move through the dvd menu in a timely manner, and Amy did a standup job running the lights to illuminate me as I blathered inbetween each film.

At a local bar afterwards (Nicks, I believe), I found myself talking mostly to David Donar. David is a teacher in the digital production arts MFA program at Clemson. Our immediate connection, however, is that we were both included on a publicly released animation compilation distributed by Manga Entertainment under the title of General Chaos: Uncensored Animation. This was Manga’s attempt to tap into the Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted revenue stream and it didn’t pan out. Neither of our films fall into the fart/sex/mutilate category, yet that is where the company chose to place us.

Tomorrow it looks like I’ll visit David’s class before driving over to Columbia. Thanks, Amy, for your kind hospitality and support before, during and after the screening.

Cheers,

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day three - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day three. Lynchburg, Virginia. Home of Randolf Macon Women’s College and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty College. Luckily I will be presenting at Randolf.

At 11pm in the evening, after my presentation, the snow is falling outside and at least an inch or two continues to settle on the ground. Students have grabbed dining room trays and are heading out to slide down hills around the campus. Despite being a women’s college there seem to be males randomly inserted in the mix – one waiting in the stairwell with a group of ladies holding trays and a mattress ready to head out for downhill excitement, another out front building a snow pyramid with a RMW student.

Soon there will be more males added to the mix. The Trustees voted to make the school coeducational starting in the fall of 2007 and the students aren’t very keen on the idea. Those who came here enrolled in an all women’s college, not a coed school, and remain angry at the trustee’s decision. The new brochures sitting out in the main hall advertising Randolf College for prospective 07 students have the letters MW handwritten on each copy. A direct protest against the upcoming change.

It can be tough to fight against the man.

The day started out tough. I was booked for a 6am flight and so had to wake up at 4:30am to pack and drive to the airport. Don’t know about you, but whenever I have to go to sleep and know that I need to wake up in only 3 or 4 hours sleep is hard to come by. I lay there awaiting the alarm and worrying about missing the upcoming flight and thinking about which films to show at the next presentation and then the alarm sounds and I’m up and moving.

In the rental car I head out. It’s 5am and dark as I start up the engine. Reading the directions trying to get to the airport I dutifully respect the digital printout and drive into an industrial parking lot. Realizing I’m obviously not at an airport and that the plane will leave whether or not I am there I head back on the highway and follow the little airplane signs to the airport. First leg is from Jackson, MS to Charlotte, NC. I lean back in my seat and fade in and out of consciousness as a Muslim and Christian directly behind me talk the whole trip about peace and understanding.

Arriving at Charlotte I discover that they apparently aren’t able to adequately heat their airport (at least the section that shuffles US Airways shuttle flights back and forth). All of the counter attendants and kiosk workers have parkas, gloves, hats and/or other additional clothing on to exist in the space. I’m forced to purchase a hooded sweatshirt saying North Carolina at an airport stand to try and stay warm.

Anyway the plane leaves and I arrive at Lynchburg regional airport, grab a rental vehicle and eventually (insert additional narrative here) arrive at Randolf MW College. Jennifer is a kind and gracious host and the college has provided a comfy guest room for me to take a nap to recover from lost sleep.

4 hours later.

Despite the fact that the sound decides not to play in the projection space and necessitates a move up to an alternate classroom, the women students/faculty in attendance don’t appear bored and we work together to make the evening happen. Eleanor brings several students over from Sweetbriar College and we eat some cookies and drink hot chocolate at a reception afterwards.

Randolf proves to be a kind host. I would talk about the screening itself but it’s midnight and time to hit the sack.

Cheers,

Karl

Southern Circuit tour day two - Karl Staven

Southern Circuit tour day two. Jackson, Mississippi was reached after a five hour drive in a rental car formerly used by a chain smoker. The landscape was relatively flat with a lot of standing water at times on the side of the road and Spanish moss hanging from the random tree. It was as if a swamp wished to break out around me but couldn’t because of too much southern sun.

At the hotel I step out of the shower around 5:10pm, knowing that I need to be ready for a 5:30 meeting with Holly Sypniewski. She is Millsaps College Southern Circuit rep, but not for long. When one has an academic sabbatical coming up one can legitimately jettison all academic responsibilities (and be paid for doing so, as I myself have done). So, emerging dripping from the shower I hear the phone ringing. Strange room, unused phone, no glasses on, but I manage to locate the noise and say hi.

Michelle is downstairs ready to take me over to test the dvd playback.

Michelle? But I thought I was meeting Holly?

She’ll meet us there.

No problem. Be down in five minutes.

Putting on fresh clothes, I empty one of my luggage bags, toss in the dvds I’ll need to use for the show, and throw in a bunch of extra dvds for sale in case anyone actually wants to purchase one (they are for sale for $20 at the venue as opposed to $25 online – postage included). Fully clothed with bag on back I head down to meet Michelle to head over to tonight’s venue.

4 hours later after a tasty crawfish dinner with fried pickles and the presentation itself.

Well that wasn’t too bad, double the amount of folks from the last screening. At this rate I’ll fill a stadium at the last Southern Circuit venue. No dvd glitches this time. (In Montgomery I had films freezing at a certain point and films skipping occasionally. Not the fault of the venue but rather the danger of dv and dvd consumer generated media). Dropped a film from the screening that I showed yesterday (cell 724) to make playback easier. Will drop the Piano Dog deleted scenes section at the next venue because of Michelle’s comment (thanks much, and I hope I spelled your name right). Now I can look forward to a 6am plane departure tomorrow morning to Virginia. One of these blogs I’ll actually talk about the screening itself.

Cheers,

Karl Staven 2/5/07

Southern Circuit Pt 11 begins

Super bowl Sunday is probably not the best time to kickoff the latest leg of the Southern Circuit Tour (although I recall something through the fog of the morning news about the kickoff doing well for somebody in Miami). Nonetheless, the hearty fourteen who showed up exceeded my attendance expectations for the night.

As usual, it seems, for the tour this year, Karl Staven's flight was late, but only by an hour, so we were able to do a soundcheck and get him a bite to eat before the show. An unfortunate effect of doing the Southern Circuit on Sundays is the filmmakers arriving too late in the day for me to give them a tour of Montgomery and also give them some time to relax after what is inevitably a long flight from wherever they are to here. There are no good flights to Montgomery.

We got the show started and didn't have any major glitches. Karl did about an hour and a half of animated shorts from his twenty years, covering a variety of styles. As the whole audience stayed, even the ones who thought the were coming to Shut Up & Sing, we considered the night successful. Karl sold at least one DVD, and everyone was very enthusiastic about the presentation.

One of the regulars sent me an email this morning:
"Okay!
Please tell cartoon guy I admire his work a lot and I think it's good."

High praise indeed.

Karl Staven day 1 Alabama

Southern Circuit tour day one. Montgomery, Alabama was reached from Philly via a plane trip down to Charlotte and then a second leg to Bama. Despite the second leg being delayed by an hour I’m in fine shape to make the initial screening and do so. After calling Martin (the main man at the initial venue) from the hotel that I managed to find, I follow the printed directions on my itinerary and drive around in the dark reading words on the paper as it passes underneath streetlights. Suddenly I see ahead, on my right, on a theatre marquee, “Karl Staven Animation.” I don’t know how many of you out there reading this have come across your name on the marquee of a theatre but it is not a regular experience in my world. Thanks to Martin for having someone actually use one of those long poles to place actual letters in an actual space on a strongly backlit marquee. Too bad I left my camera in my hotel room.

Unfortunately my initial presentation is happening as the Superbowl unfolds. (For those of you who didn’t watch, one football team dominated another). Fortunately there is a small group of folks in Montgomery who not only don’t care about the Superbowl but who are actually interested in watching unknown animation. Then there are also the folks who arrived to see the Dixie Chicks flick but decided to stay anyway rather than drive home without some entertainment (and they didn’t leave during my presentation - how about that).

The Capri is an attractive classic single screen theatre that has managed to survive in our era of multiplexes due to the devotion and knowledge of its director, Martin McCaffery, and the benign nostalgia of the property’s aging owner. When the property owner meets his maker the family will most likely raise up a Rite Aid faster than you can say "maximize profits, baby.” Hopefully Martin will have managed to salvage one or more additional theaters by then.

The initial sound/image check went well (i.e. everything played when inserted in the dvd player). I had purchased a small portable dvd player before I left just in case any of the venues had problems reading some of my home burned dvds but the Capri’s system didn’t exhibit any dislike of my material. At least not until the actual show.

And then the show happened. No problemo (despite some minor technical problems that arose playing my assortment of dvds). Maybe I’ll tell you about it later but tis late now and I hope to post this initial blog before I sleep, perchance to drive in the morrow.

Getting back into the rental car after the screening I turned to find myself blocked in by a man asking me to roll down my window. Turns out he wanted money from me because he was just robbed and he needed to get gas and he had a baby seat in the back and he was a family man and several other things that implied calamity but his gas tank looked pretty full and there was no family to back up his tale of woe so I politely declined to give him money. First time I’ve been approached for money in a car by someone else in a car.

All in all I survived two plane rides (always figure I’m going down in flames at some point), had a nice conversation with a true film supporter (Martin, of course), and made it through my initial performance. Onto the next day.

Cheers,

Karl Staven 2/4/07