I Am Not A Filmmaker

After a conversation w/P this morning, the proposition that “I am not a filmmaker” seems even more attractive. The beauty part of choosing video over film is that it works nicely if what you want to do is not spend 99% of your time worrying about how pretty it is, a hole with no bottom if there ever was one. I’m capable of better things. OTOH, the craft element of the craft is making itself manifest to me, and although I may know more than enough about, e.g., editing as it is, I feel strongly that if I continue to learn about it, it will broaden my creative palate. It isn’t so much that I’m going for a “happy medium” here, it’s that my initial impulse to say “Screw the film schoolers, I only care if it’s legible,” has been overridden by the fact that I actually know something about the subject now and want to delay making any pronouncements about the subject, or maybe even defining the subject, until I’ve learned more. So as pathetic as it would be to turn into just another “pretty picture person,” to be informed only by that narrative and no others, it is perhaps a naïve analysis to conclude that “therefore” I am going to have a totally nuts-and-bolts approach to the matter. I think that there are considerations that are present beyond and despite the film nerds’ approach to the matter, a multitude of perspectives on this very promising medium, and I don’t want to make the mistake they have made of boiling it down to the point that no really good corn can grow given what is left. I am informed in my film and video pursuits by a number of valid and rewarding narratives, and to pick one as supreme would be a loss of potential not so much in myself but, worse yet, in what I could create.

Victoria Nipple Count

VICTORIA NIPPLE COUNT (c) 2003 from Pattie Thomas on Vimeo.

One of our first collaborative efforts, the film is based upon the annual Victoria Flower Count -- an event in January when people living in Victoria British Columbia are encouraged to count the flowers blooming in their yards and call in the "count" to a hot line. The total (usually in the millions) is tallied towards the end of January and sent out to all the other provinces in the form of a press release that basically says "too bad you're in the frozen tundra, eh. We are happily in a Mediterranean climate here, eh. Ha-Ha." (Last part meant to be read like Nelson from The Simpsons.) Victoria Nipple Count is one man's quest to show Canadians and the world that it is possible to enjoy a Spring-like day on January 4!

LaVelle and Ginni Visit Victoria

LaVelle and Ginni Visit Victoria (c) 2004 from Pattie Thomas on Vimeo.

Carl clandestinely follows LaVelle and Ginni as they invade Canada looking like innocent seniors on a cruise ship. The plan is to follow, confuse them with site-seeing adventures in Victoria and then see if they will give up any information. But, of course, out-witted by their wiley ways, the duo return to the boat and sail off to Alaska with whatever secrets from Canada they learned. Foiled again.

(This is a souvenir video made of the 2003 visit from Carl's mom-in-law, LaVelle, and her friend, Ginni, who had a few hours in-port while we were living in Victoria. But a home movie would have been tres boring.)

The Carl Wilkerson Fan Club Theme Song

The Carl Wilkerson Fan Club Theme Song from Pattie Thomas on Vimeo.

While in college at University of Chicago in the mid-80s, my husband wrote his own fan club theme song. The guys in his dorm sang the song and recorded it with Carl playing the bass guitar as accompaniment. It is a catchy song and lots of our friends have said it gets stuck in their heads for years to come, but no one seems to be able to remember the lyrics. So in the tradition of Mitch Miller, here's The Carl Wilkerson Fan Club Theme Song Video! (Doing this video was inspired by a request from Danielle P.)

Back to the Future of Vegas

Vegas has to decide if it's going to be just another suburb of Los Angeles or if it's going to return to its role as the Little Resort Town That Could. I've heard the "recession" excuse beaten to death by the locals over the last two years, and it's beginning to sound prettty hollow. If we're going to start repeating economic grand narratives for this most distinctive of local environments, let's try this one on for size instead:

Las Vegas experienced phenomenal economic growth from 1931, when gambling was legalized, until the late 1980's. During this time, they had a near monopoly on gambling in the United States, although the entrance of Atlantic City into the market in the 1970's did put a slight crimp in their action. Since then, the proliferation of casinos and casino-like institutions (which are distinct from casinos in that they offer "games" that appear similar to those offered in casinos but are marked by the store's ability to withhold, at their discretion and without serious accountability in the matter, the money won by players in specific sessions) has cut into Vegas's non-strategy for continued econimic well-being.

The need to diversify in southern Nevada has been talked up for two decades now. It was said as recently as 2007 that the "non-casino" portion of the economy was growing faster than the casino portion. However, in the style of all the non-gamblers of the world, whose intolerance of risk is so pathological that they sit down and cry if they don't win every pot, Vegas experienced one losing period after over seventy years of prosperity and threw a tantrum. The rhetoric over the last two years has been that what has happened here is insurmountable unless we gear all urban and state economic planning to the proliferation of the largest casino corporations and to "attracting business" from California.

What has happened here, in addition to the factors facing all markets nationally, has been a result of overextension, of betting too much of one's stake on a less-than-sure thing. If Vegas were run by competent gamblers (look up "Kelly Criterion" for a short course in what gamblers know that casino management does not understand) instead of by half-smart corporate clowns whose only understanding of business strategy is "Attain corporate sovereignty," the "recession" would not have been half as bad as it has been locally, and the "recovery" might still be in sight. Instead, in a manner similar to "permanent war" as a political tactic on the federal level, it appears "permanent recession" is being installed locally. Some of it is to be substantially engineered, and some of it to be simple rhetoric, a repetition campaign that "reminds" us all of why we "need" the measures being implemented as a "remedy."

I suggest that Vegas still has a long history of solid investment potential, although the execution has been lacking of late, and that the current whiny approach of placing the infrastructure in a position subordinate to placing itself as a vassal to the "financial center" of southern California has to go. This is a "prescription" that is always waiting in the wings, one that is suggested as a cure for all ills as soon as economic life is less than rosy, or in this case, has been "announced" to be so. Well, that may work on people from the other 49 states, but I'd like to think that there is more to Nevada's vision of its own future than submitting to this mechanical claim that attracting the oligopoly to come here from other states is the proper function of any "economic development" initiative. If you're that easily intimidated into giving up the store, you never should have gotten into the gambling business at all, guys, and no real-life situation is ever going to be "secure" enough for you. Do the competent adults who still live here a favor and hand control back to organized crime before matters get out of hand for good.

Free Way

Free Way from Pattie Thomas on Vimeo.

Filmed in 2003, this is from our trip through British Columbia to the Yukon and back. Directing and Producing by Carl Wilkerson and Pattie Thomas. (c)2004

Desert Ridge Development

Notwithstanding the sign in front of its sales office offering to provide accessibility measures upon request, Desert Ridge Development in North Las Vegas is not accessible and does not provide accessibility upon request.