Part of downtown Greenwood can get ready for its close-up as a group of filmmakers visit the Delta this week.
Twenty-eight filmmakers from across the nation are coming to Mississippi as part of the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC)'s 2007 New Media Institute. They will create original projects about the Delta in a variety of media, including location footage and interviews.
The trip will include visits to three sites on the Mississippi Blues Commission's Blues Trail: the WGRM studio building on Howard Street, the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale and Hickory Street in Canton.
The exact schedules for production were left up to the filmmakers, but they are to be filming Tuesday and Wednesday and do post-production work Thursday.
Also, on Tuesday, two filmmakers from Ghana will meet with the group at Mississippi Valley State University and show some short films - “kind of a cultural exchange,” said Leslie Fields-Cruz, director of programming for NBPC. Maxine Bowen, a graduate of MVSU and a former NBPC intern, helped facilitate that gathering.
This is the second year for the institute. The first was held in Boston, and people there recommended Mississippi as a good place for this year's event.
Fields-Cruz said she had never been to Jackson before traveling there in March to scout locations. The state's rich African-American heritage made it a good choice, she said.
“What we really want to try to capture is the African influence in the Delta and the blues,” she said. “We've also also opened it up to other cultures.”
For example, those other cultures will be represented in pieces about Latinos and Asians in the Delta. Another theme of the event is the cross-generational nature of blues music and its influence on young people.
‘“In addition, I think we're just trying to support and create media for cultural institutions that are celebrating the music of Mississippi,” Fields-Cruz said.
Fields-Cruz said they also had met with designers of the B.B. King museum in Indianola, which will open Sept. 13, 2008. Allan Hammons, the museum's marketing director, said the collaboration had been in the works for months.
The filmmakers will develop digital content for the museum or the blues trail - two economic-development entities that will have an impact on the Delta, Hammons said. For example, a film could be used as part of an interactive item in the museum.
“It's really kind of an experimental thing, but it intrigued us,” Hammons said.
If the material isn't suitable, the museum doesn't have to use it, but Hammons said that with the talented people involved, it should be of sufficiently high quality.
Steve LaVere, who owns the WGRM building, said Friday that he was surprised he hadn't been contacted about the filming. However, he said the project should have a positive impact if the films reach a significant audience.
“If there's even one well-known filmmaker among the 28 that are making this trip, I think it'll be a good thing for everybody,” he said.
Fields-Cruz said the filmmakers were selected through online applications. She said 36 or 37 submissions were sent in - almost triple the number they had last year. Some of the participants have received money from the consortium before, and others have submitted material to it. Notices also were sent to public television stations to encourage more submissions.
Some of the filmmakers are just starting out, and others have been working for 15 to 20 years but wanted more training in new media, Fields-Cruz said.The films will be in a variety of formats suitable for Web sites, cell phones, podcasts or a combination of those.
They will also discuss ways to take their existing work and retool it for certain cultural, historical or educational purposes in other media.
“Sometimes some people might have some great interviews (and) can use only a portion of it with their documentary, but there might be people out there that want to hear the whole interview,” she said.
The group will do much of its work at Jackson State University and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. MPB will host workshops for the filmmakers and let them use its editing suites.
“They've really made us feel at home,” Fields-Cruz said.
