Shreveport Magazine Fall 2016

TALKING SHOP: HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL COACHES

Q&A WITH GREGORY KALLENBERG MODERN SHREVEPORT THE MAGIC OF MOVIESAUCE

THE GOOD

FIGHT

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In This Issue 06

The View From The Outside

10

Modern Shreveport

20

The Good Fight

28

The Magic of Moviesauce

36

Talking Shop: High School Football Coaches

42

A Q&A With Gregory Kallenberg

51

Shreveport Magazine Selects

54

Two Artists: Sunny Side Up

61

A Parting Thought from Kemerton Hargrove

PUBLISHERS: Mathew Snyder, Andrew Crawford, Grant Nuckolls

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Ashlee Hightower, Kemerton Hargrove, Josh Clayton, Tim Fletcher, Sara Hebert, Robert Trudeau, Randall Ross

ADVERTISING MANAGER: Michael Walker

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Shannon Palmer, William C. McGrew, Jim Noetzel, Michael McHugh, Kathryn Gaiennie, Casey Habich

LEAD DESIGNER: Zack Fink

DESIGNED BY: Crawford Design Group

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EDITORIAL: editor@shreveportmagazine.com

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THE VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDE WRITTEN BY: ASHLEE HIGHTOWER PHOTGRAPHY BY: MICHAEL MCHUGH

I

f you had told me ten years ago that Shreveport would have an emerging foodie scene, fantastic weekend events for young adults, and a plethora of local shops that carry quality, on-trend fashion, I wouldn’t have believed you. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved the Port City, and most of my close friends can attest to the fact that I advocate for Shreveport as a great place to live and most certainly a great place to raise a family. But in recent years, I’ve noticed Shreveport heading in a different direction, and I love it.

I was born and raised in Shreveport and lived on River Road my entire childhood— there are three different River Roads and I lived on two. After high school, I decided to move away for college and haven’t lived in Shreveport for the past thirteen years.

Although I don’t have a permanent residence there of my own, I’m still fully invested in the Port City. I currently work and live in Washington, DC, but I make it a point to stay in the loop with Shreveport happenings.

Most mornings you can find me reading the Shreveport Times with a cup of coffee, and I’m always catching up on the latest issue of

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FALL 2016

Shreveport Magazine while commuting on the metro for work.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen new life being breathed into the city. One of the first new spots to catch my attention was Rhino Coffee. Being a bit of a local coffee shop fanatic, when I saw that the old Sue Peyton’s bridal shop had been converted, I couldn’t wait to try it out. I was hooked after my first visit back in 2012. It’s now one of my first stops when I come into town.

Rhino is a perfect example of what I love about the new Shreveport: taking something old that used to be such a well-known space and reinvigorating it with a fresh, new concept. I love that this new space has now become a gathering spot for locals, whether it’s to enjoy a cup of joe in one of the many charming nooks of the shop or chat over coffee and homemade scones in one of the many open, communal spaces.

Not only have I noticed hip, new restaurants opening up all across the city like Parish Taceaux and Ki’ Mexico, I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by the number of young professionals who are moving back to Shreveport after college and

graduate school. These are people who are not just looking to call Shreveport home as they begin to start a family and raise children. With exciting weekend events like Derby Day and the Cork Wine Festival, the resurgence of the Highland Jazz & Blues Festival, and a burgeoning creative scene with the hugely successful Moonbot Studios, the young adult demographic that used to stray from the city is now reveling in it.

While there will always be naysayers who don’t like the change and would rather have old Shreveport stay just the way it is, I’m happy to say that I couldn’t be more proud of the change going on in Shreveport right now. I adore the positive energy that is being piped into the city by folks like the duo behind Great Raft Brewing (how good is that Southern Drawl?!) and Grant Nuckolls, the man behind Twisted Root Burger Co., and a contributor to a ton of local happenings.

I enjoy every minute that I spend in Shreveport, and it’s a place that I look forward to being a permanent part of one day in the near future. But for now, I’ll keep spreading the word everywhere I go about the other great city in Louisiana.

ASHLEE’S FAVORITE SHREVEPORT STOPS EATS SHREVEPORT FARMER’S MARKET

RHINO COFFEE

TWISTED ROOT BURGER CO.

GULLO’S FRESH PRODUCE

FRANK’S PIZZA NAPOLETANA

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SHREVEPORT WRITTEN BY RANDALL ROSS PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANNON PALMER

T

o paraphrase the French director Jean Renoir—everybody has their reasons for moving to Shreveport. My wife Molly and I had our reason. We moved here for the architecture.

“Shreveport went through a huge period of growth just after the Second World War and through the late ‘60s,” according to Shreveport native and Moonbot Studios co-founder William Joyce. “There was an established tradition of civic and residential architecture that became a major component of that growth. There are hundreds of extremely fine mid-century modern homes all over the Shreveport area. Jewel after jewel in nearly every part of town. Grand show places to modest ranch starter homes with stunning workmanship and clean, beautiful designs.”

Around these parts when you hear somebody mention a “Wiener House” they are not talking about a place that serves chilidogs. “Wiener House” is the specifically Caddo-centric catchall phrase used to describe Shreveport’s many modern residences. And there are a lot of those residences.

The Wiener brothers—Samuel G. and William B.—are Shreveport’s most famous and prolific modern architects, responsible for many public and private commissions from the 1920s through the 1960s. Their careers and reputations took off after visits to Europe in 1927 and 1931.

“We had to go,” Sam’s widow Marion remembered. “We couldn’t see modern architecture here in America and they weren’t teaching it in the architecture schools.” When they returned, the brothers brought the International Style to Caddo Parish.

International Style buildings are plentiful here, but you have to know what to look for—or rather what “not” to look for. No decorative detailing on or around doors or windows is allowed. Wall surfaces must be smooth and unornamented. Façades must be asymmetric. Roofs are either flat or designed to appear flat. Windows, usually metal casements, should be plentiful and set flush with outer walls.

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The James and Jean R. Muslow House [1955] by Samuel G. Wiener, William B. Wiener, P. Murff O’Neal, Jr., and Jesse O. Morgan, Jr., selected by the editors of Architectural Record as one of the twenty Record Houses of the Year for 1956.

SHREVEPORTMAGAZINE.COM

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THE DECADE OF PROGRESS: 1930-40

Grocer Ed Wile brought the first true supermarket to Shreveport in 1941 with his Big Chain Supermarket in the Broadmoor Shopping Center. It was the first air-conditioned market in Shreveport, and its expansive interior featured progressive amenities such as a lunch counter, a newsstand, a kosher deli, a bakery, butcher shop and cases for

refrigerated and frozen foods. “There is nothing of its type to surpass it anywhere else in the United States, probably nothing in the South to equal it,” enthused the Shreveport Times in April 1941.

The Big Chain lived up to its name, spawning stores on Jewella Road, Hollywood Avenue,

In 1910, Viennese architect Adolf Loos railed against the “crime of ornament,” and the subsequent lack of decoration reflected the early Modernists’ desire to break with the false historicism of the past. No faux Grecian or Doric columns for the International Stylists. If they built a porch that needed structural support they specified a simple unadorned steel column for the heavy lifting. The form of the column matched its function within the buildings’ composition.

“These houses are one of Shreveport’s most underappreciated treasures,” according to Joyce. “In bigger cities these houses are extremely sought after and they are a great selling point for people relocating to Shreveport.”

William Joyce is right about that—we found our Dream House here.

STARTING FROM ZERO Prior to moving to Louisiana, we spent a lot of time and mental energy constructing our imaginary Dream House while slowly outgrowing an

The Muslow House retains all of its original character, both inside and outside

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Southfield Road, Line Avenue and a location in Bossier City, all designed by the Wiener brothers.

The much loved icon whose construction facilitated the widening of Youree Drive was destroyed by fire in March 2003.

800-square-foot duplex near Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. We dreamed of a home big enough to house our home office, with an open floor plan perfect for entertaining, which flowed from the indoors to outside. It would be a home sturdily built on a single level—with maybe a sunken conversation pit in the living room—surrounded by mature shade trees, a fully functional kitchen with lots of cabinets and elbow room, multiple bathrooms, a guest room, and windows—lots of windows. A house that could nurture our dreams and help turn them into realities. The great French architect Le Corbusier said it best when he said “the home should be the treasure chest of living.”

But our treasure chest wasn’t going to be uncovered in Austin.

Our dreams were foiled by the harsh realities of the overheated Central Texas housing market. By the time we started hunting for our Dream House, we had been priced out of town.

A working knowledge of the Shreveport housing market, gleaned from semi-annual visits to Molly’s family, made us believe we could find our Dream House in Caddo Parish. Years ago I marveled at the Broadmoor Big Chain Supermarket on Youree Drive. At the time it was a mattress warehouse, but the heroic styling of the curvaceous brick facade fired up my imagination.

Then I discovered the Samuel G. Wiener house on Longleaf and realized that this is the stuff dreams are made of.

“Houses this cool cost three or four, even ten times as much in Austin, Dallas or Los Angeles.” according to Joyce.

I had toured the Walter Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts and the Ray and Charles Eames House in Santa Monica, both radical expressions of personality manifested through the latest and greatest building arts of the day. It was clear that Modernism had blossomed along the coastlines of America—so what were these International Style buildings and residences doing in Shreveport? I pondered this question on an empty block of Fairfield Avenue, in the shadows of the shuttered Fairfield Building—a beautifully proportioned, and

Courtesy of LSU-Shreveport Archives and Special Collections.

The two most famous International structures in Shreveport now exist only in our collective memory. The Municipal Incinerator, built with PWA funds in 1935, was hailed by historian and critic Lewis Mumford, who stated “This is one of the best examples of the rational use of the ribbon window and the overhanging building…that I have come across—an excellent design, with no vulgar attempts at prettifying a form that needs no additions.” High praise indeed for a building designed to address “a serious menace to health and falling property values caused by the rapidly growing city of Shreveport …” The Incinerator was decommissioned and demolished in 1974.

vacant, International Style office building.

Looking up at the bands of ribbon windows I thought I could make out Shreveport’s high water mark faintly staining the white façade. To me, this was the point when Joyce’s “established tradition of civic and residential architecture” crested and then slowly receded as Interstate 20 cut through downtown, and Youree Drive replaced Fairfield as the main commercial artery.

My inquiries into Shreveport’s Modern tradition led me directly to the early writing of Dr. Karen Kingsley, a Professor of Architecture at Tulane University, who organized the 1984 traveling exhibition “Modernism in Louisiana, A Decade of Progress, 1930 to 1940.” Kingsley’s academic footwork brought the names of Samuel G. and William B. Wiener to my attention. I read about their pioneering efforts to bring the International Style to Shreveport through their Cross Lake weekend house and the Municipal Incinerator—both demolished—and an assortment of residential structures, many of which exist in fairly unaltered states to this day.

Today the Wieners are remembered primarily for their trinity of International Style residences built between 1934 and 1937, all of which are currently ensconced on the National Register of Historic Places. The three white stucco masterpieces—the Wile House [1934], the Flesh House [1936] and the Samuel Wiener House [1937]—are located in Shreveport’s South Highlands neighborhood. The Flesh and Wiener houses have been well maintained and retain much of their original glory.

By 1937 the elder brother, Samuel G. Wiener was prepared to build his masterpiece, a residence for his own family. One of the purest examples of the International Style in the United States, this house was the centerpiece of the Wiener brothers’ Pine Park Subdivision. Wiener served as both client and architect for his own house, reflecting his own aesthetic sensibilities and his mastery of new building materials and technologies. The house was well publicized domestically and abroad and remains essentially unaltered. The Sam Wiener house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, and epitomizes the Modern movement in Shreveport.

Other Wiener structures in the area have survived with varying degrees of alteration and renovation. The Flesh house has been wonderfully restored after decades of passive aggressive remodeling.

The Preston House has been purchased and is undergoing an archival restoration to return it to its original state. The Wile house was updated over the last several years to reflect a more contemporary vision of what modern life should look like.

These multi-story Wiener residences are locally famous to the point where any house built after 1945 without a gabled roof is often simply called a “Wiener House.”

DREAM JOURNALS

Karen Kingsley and Guy W. Carwile have written the definitive history of the Wiener brothers titled The Modernist Architecture of Samuel G. and William B. Wiener: Shreveport, Louisiana, 1920-1960.

While Shreveport will never be mistaken for New Canaan or Palm Springs, its’ progressive architecture has helped define the Ark-La-Tex for nearly a century. References to the Wiener brothers and other local practitioners have been included in many of the major collections of the American Modern Movement published from Tokyo to Paris.

FROM BAUHAUS TO MY HOUSE The German Architect and Bauhaus Founder, Walter Gropius believed “Society needs a good image of itself. That is the job of the architect.” The Wiener brothers took that idea to heart.

The Wieners parlayed the early successes of their residential commissions into a lucrative practice that became the de-facto face of Shreveport after World War II. They designed and built International Style High Schools in Bossier City and Haughton, as well as the new Shreveport Airport Terminal completed in 1952. The original terminal included airline ticket counters, a restaurant, offices and viewing deck and can still be seen at the edge of the airport, now repurposed as the TAC Air Office.

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Building materials—closely rationed during the War years—were once again readily available by 1946, and this surplus led to the great postwar building boom across the country. New subdivisions sprang up across the region, and returning soldiers joined a burgeoning middle class ready to embrace the optimistic future. In 1946, Ray and Charles Eames’ revolutionary line of molded plywood furniture finally erased the line that separated the Modern elite from people who simply wanted to furnish their new homes with stylish and affordable new furniture.

The Wiener brothers hired a pair of those returning soldiers, Jesse Morgan and P. Murff O’Neal, to help meet local demands for housing for living in the modern way. These houses dot the South Highlands and Pierremont Acres neighborhoods, along with fine examples by Lester Haas, B. J. Massey, William and Jonathan Evans, Julian Sokoloski, Theodore Flaxman, and Seymour Van Os. Each of these houses contributed new aesthetic visions and building styles to match the spirit of the age.

In 1955 local businessman James Muslow hired the Wieners to design his family residence in an area “slightly rolling, wooded, strewn with azaleas and other flowering shrubbery. Curved streets have little heavy traffic and are lined with newish houses, broad lawns. The town’s way of life mixes Louisiana traditions with a goodly leavening of some of the bustle of nearby Texas.”

Of the resulting house, the editors of Architectural Record stated “now and then, one happens on a house that seems all-of-a-piece. All things about it seem to fit into a complete, unified whole -grounds, landscaping, furnishings, accessories, and the structure itself. This rarely happens unless there is a close sympathy of understanding between those responsible for the execution of each part.”

The Muslow house still burns with a bright, unaltered brilliance.

The Architectural Record 1956 Record House has stayed in the Muslow family for the last 61 years as an obviously beloved structure that has been meticulously cared for over the years. This house and its stylistically related neighbors provide an entrance point to the rich architectural heritage of Shreveport, Louisiana, allowing a new generation access to clean, well-lit spaces in which to pursue the dreams and directions of the 21st century.

We found our Dream House and relocated to Shreveport in the Fall

MODERN HOUSE CHARACTERISTICS ■■

Roof is flat or only lightly pitched

■■

Structure is oriented on a North/South axis to avoid morning and afternoon sun

■■

Structure is often divided into public and private zones

■■

Glass walls are positioned for maximum privacy

■■

Extraneous decoration is replaced by the expressive forms of the building materials

of 2009. The house we found here checked off every one of the boxes from our Austin wish list—minus the conversation pit —and even added a double-sized lot and a swimming pool as lagniappe.

“These homes are becoming historic—they are super hip now— and they are almost hilariously underpriced here,” Joyce notes.

“I don’t think the real estate agents in town quite understand the potential of this trend. To call it a trend is even an understatement.

These houses have become gold and gold never goes out of style.”

The David J. and Florence Flesh House [1936] by William B. Wiener

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D

onny Jackson stands in a dark room, doling out granola bars and chilled bottled water to the long line of sweaty and mostly shirtless kids. The July heat is inescapable and made worse by the lack of air conditioning in the building. The open refrigerator door leaks orange light and cold air into the room. One by one, the kids thank him. I reach for a handshake. He puts a granola bar in my open hand.

I had heard about a youth boxing program doing good things for inner-city kids, free of charge. Months later I am given the opportunity to write about it.

2550 Midway. My GPS brings me west down Kings Highway, past the hospital, down Mansfield, across the tracks, right on Midway. My destination is a beige cinderblock box with a red square painted on the side: Shreveport Youth Boxing. Est. 5-15-16.

Tim Fitzgerald, Matt Hudnall, Donny, and assistant coaches Charles Smith and Jonathan White are there.

Some grown men are warming up, hitting the three heavy bags hung from squeaking chains. The small room is made up of hot air, a low ceiling, and a red, white and blue boxing ring with ropes and corners.

Upon entering the room you can’t help but notice the unpainted plywood floors, along with the American flag, Muhammad Ali posters, and marker-scrawled inspiration on the walls: Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

Don’t quit! Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.

It takes 34 muscles to frown but only 4 to punch.

Train don’t complain.

Tim has pads on his hands and girls are taking turns throwing punches. He takes a break to show me around the building. There is the workout/ring space, a small room with double-end bags strung from floor to ceiling, a bathroom, an office, and a room with a refrigerator.

Outside, he shows me there is room to grow. “We own the land all the way back to the tracks. Eventually we’re hoping to build a bigger place.”

Donny holds pads in the middle of the ring. A circle of eight African-American boys and one Hispanic boy rotates clockwise around him. A few are under ten years old. One moves in to hit. One TWO. One TWO. C’mon. One TWO. Back to the circle. The next one moves in. One TWO. One TWO. Good job. Rotate. One TWO. Keep your hands up. One TWO. HANDS UP. One TWO. Better. One TWO. Good. One small boy hits hard, really hard, with no technique. His eyes pierce holes through Donny’s pads. A strong beginner. Another boy misses the pad on his cross—Donny encourages. The next boy hits quick, precise—Donny critiques.

Donny tells me “Some parents bring their kids in, saying he has ‘anger management issues’ they hope to

resolve. Boxing itself doesn’t fix that.” Of the YouTube testimonial from the street-kid-turned-Homecoming-King (LaDaryl Poole), he says “A lot of these kids…no one has taken the time.” On why the problems get better when boxing itself does not solve them, he explains “The process itself is constructive: there are errors, you make mistakes. You may not be where you want to be, but that gives a kid something to work toward.”

I ask him about so many of the kids who just show up off the street—those whose parents are not responsible for their participation. “Most of them just walk in. Just want to watch for a day or two and not get involved. But . . . there’s a reason why they’re there.

They don’t just show up.”

For years the program was housed in the same neighborhood, down the street in Coach Ray Paxton’s gym. Donny trained under Paxton beginning in 1996 after playing two seasons at linebacker for the Shreveport Stars. He made it to Nationals in 1997 and 1998, never reaching his goal to fight for the 2000 Olympic team. By 1999, he told Paxton “I want to do what you do. I want to coach kids.”

Donny met Tim Fitzgerald a few years later when Tim brought his son to Paxton’s gym.

Tim is the owner of TFG Financial, an investment and wealth management firm. He boxed in his youth, but had little involvement with the sport until his son expressed interest. His participation in the program increased through the years. He is now at the gym most afternoons helping the other coaches with the sometimes overwhelming number of kids showing up to participate.

Donny is a husband and the father of two teenage girls. He went

YOU MAY NOT BE WHERE YOU WANT TO BE, BUT THAT GIVES A KID SOMETHING TO WORK TOWARD to Green Oaks, played football for Southern Arkansas University, and graduated with a Behavioral Science degree. Over lunch at the Cotton Boll, he tells me “I’m a social worker. For Volunteers of America.” He has been there for almost 17 years, and is now the Program Director for the developmentally disabled population. In that same 17 years, he has coached and mentored countless boys and girls through boxing.

“Coach Paxton talked to the kids all the time, but usually it wasn’t about boxing.” Donny explains the sport as a thinking process.

Before a fighter makes a decision, he has to think it through. He may be able to land a punch, but what are the consequences? Is he losing position? Is he opening himself up to get punched? “We’re teaching life lessons through boxing.”

Boys are sparring in the ring. Donny mans one corner and Charles Smith, a former pro, stands at the other. A mouth guard hits the ground during a rest period and the fighter picks it up, about to put it back in his mouth. “Don’t do that, give it here,” Donny says as he takes the mouth guard from a gloved hand and goes to the bathroom to rinse it off. “You gotta protect yourself first. Don’t do that.”

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This spring, Tim and Donny needed a new location for the program.

Tim found a place and bought it from the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, who in turn donated $5,000 to equip the gym. Tim hired help to outfit it with floors and install the equipment. They created a 501(c) (3) to accept donations and moved into the place in May. Tim told me “Before we moved into here, when the kids didn’t have anywhere to train, Donny would pick them up, right here in this neighborhood, then he’d drive them to the SPAR facility out by the airport. And then bring them home. Every day.”

The kids are not coddled here.

They put on head gear and gloves and they spar. Each coach in his respective corner tells his fighter the truth. He’s bigger than you but he can’t move—make him turn. Boys and teens rotate in and out of the ring according to Donny’s instruction.

You’re stronger but you’re slow—if you move your feet you can get a punch in. Skill and conditioning levels are fully exposed—the big and strong throw hard but tire quickly, the lean go round after round. The boys who have been in the program for months move nimbly and punch straight.

In sparring, technique receives instantaneous feedback.

A fighter is auto-corrected when punched in the gut. One learns to keep his guard up as soon as his opponent takes advantage of an opening. Keep moving or be punished. Loss of concentration is penalized—not by a coach or the referee, but by another kid’s glove. As LaDaryl Poole puts it, “You have to learn how to control

your emotion. If you get hit, the average person gets mad. You can’t be that person. You have to stop. Analyze the situation. Focus.”

One of the boys, Bobby Leonard IV, moves like a pro and his father stands by the ring, beaming.

Bobby, 14, has been training in the gym for eleven months.

Though not big for his age, he is lean and athletic, and he moves well.

His dad (Bobby Sr.) is able to make it to practice one or two days every week in between working two jobs. One of the only parents watching the kids train, he tells me it is heartbreaking to the kids when their parents are not involved. He’s got 4 children and 4 step-children: “Three are at Southern in Baton Rouge, one is on a Navy scholarship, one is in dental assistant school, Bobby’s at Woodlawn and there are two younger ones.” He stresses to Bobby IV, and to all of the children, that education is their number one priority, always.

Bobby IV played football for a while. His dad says “I think he played to make me happy. I played at Fair Park”. He participated in USA Wrestling and did well in competition, but his cousin got him into boxing. “He told me ‘Dad, this is what I want to do.’ We went to donate his football cleats to the Providence House and I said Are You Sure? And he said ‘Yessir.’”

“Bobby is a real good kid. We’ve never had any problems with him. He’s got a 3.7 grade point average, does his chores. We have

YOU’RE STRONGER BUT YOU’RE SLOW—IF YOU MOVE YOUR FEET YOU CAN GET A PUNCH IN.

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a ‘No C’ policy in the house. He never brings home a C.” Bobby boxed 3 one-minute rounds in a tournament on August 6th. He lost by decision. In the last eleven months, his father says “He won his first fight. But then he lost one or two and he would get discouraged.” Is he discouraged about losing this last one? “No, he has a different attitude now. I asked him if he was upset. He told me ‘No, I just need to train harder.’”

Donny tells a boy, not loud enough to embarrass him, “You need a belt for those pants. Don’t come in my gym wearing those shorts again without a belt.”

Grown men, little kids, and teenagers are all here. One guy has gone pro. A few others are in amateur fights. The boys are competing in tournaments and the coaches want to raise money for one in Shreveport. Donny estimates that the club needs to raise $6,000 to host a respectable one.

I am picking Tim’s brain about the program and the good he and Donny are

doing for our community. My thoughts are on the haves and the have-nots in our corner of Louisiana, and the fact that most of the kids drenched from training in the summer heat will walk home from the gym drinking a donated bottle of water and eating a donated granola bar.

I say to Donny, “The stereotype is, you bring a kid to a boxing gym to toughen him up. To make him more confident. To teach the child to stand up for himself. And the stereotype is, most of these kids from this neighborhood are already tough. They can fight. They’re confident and athletic. They don’t need this, right?” Donny laughs. Far from the truth. Not the case at all.

I send Donny a text: I want to talk to the homecoming king. To meet him, search “Ray Paxton” on YouTube and you will find clips titled “Best Boxing Coach Ray Paxton” and “Paxton Boxing JFM.” There is no better advocate for the program. I reached LaDaryl Poole on his lunch break at AT&T, where he works as a floor mentor in the customer care department.

“It was 6th grade - the first time I went

to 6th grade. I had just failed out and there was a school board hearing.” Poole was twelve years old. “This guy walked out with like a five-page printout of all the trouble I had gotten into. Two of the teachers said I was smart, that I was a good kid. But three of them said I was bad, I was a troublemaker. I had just started boxing. The hearing was to see if I could stay in Caddo Parish schools. I was mischievous, a bad little kid.”

Poole moved to California and back by the time he was eight. “We didn’t have any male role model at the house, but my mother and grandmother taught us right from wrong—we were raised in the church.” As the new kids in a bad Shreveport neighborhood, his brother would get jumped by the local boys and LaDaryl would run away. “My brother said, ‘Look. You can’t keep running away.

You need to stay with me and help me fight.’ If you were a sheep, you’d get eaten by the wolves.”

“My grandmother had one of those big Chester Cheetah dolls. And I would practice hitting it all the time. Fighting became fun for me.” He started fighting in the streets and at school. “I was never a bully. I would pick fights with anyone I saw bullying other kids, but I never went looking for trouble. It always found me.”

Had the school board hearing gone the other way, he would have been sent out of Caddo Parish to an alternative school, but he was allowed to stay.

In round two of the 6th grade, he was bounced from Bethune to Broadmoor Middle, then back to J.S. Clark, boxing all the while. He ran track—the 400, the 800, and the 1600 relay as anchor. “I lost one race in 6th grade and none in the 7th grade.” By the 8th grade, he was too old and thus ineligible to run track, but he continued going to Paxton’s boxing gym.

“All these neighborhood guys started going to the gym. I’m watching these guys sparring.

I said ‘I want to do that.’ I kept coming, every day. Pretty soon I was traveling, seeing different states. I started winning. People clapping for me.

It opened up my mind to a whole other world.”

Many of the other neighborhood kids eventually lost interest and quit showing up. “Most of the people I grew up with are in jail – they’re the ones out there shooting at each other. If I wouldn’t have met Ray, if I wouldn’t have gone in that gym . . . it made me the person I could be instead of the person I thought I wanted to be.”

Poole had his sights set on Captain Shreve. “I thought Shreve would be a good opportunity. But when my mom and I went to talk to them about me going there, they told me my behavior record was too bad to accept me. That was all from before I started boxing too. From the time I repeated 6th grade through my Senior year, I never got into any trouble.” Poole went to Fair Park instead.

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Poole’s entire outlook changed: “[Before boxing] My temperament and my attitude toward things—I had no control. It takes that anger inside of you and turns that negative energy into positive energy.”

Poole was Fair Park’s Junior Prom Prince, his senior class President, and Homecoming King. He played Linebacker through high school.

He has one semester left to get a degree from BPCC if he can find the time to take off of work.

“You take a kid, no father, maybe no mother, impoverished, seeking understanding within a world that’s too crazy to understand, and then you push them toward a positive goal. It gets them out of that atmosphere. Some people say boxing is a bad sport. But if you take two guys who don’t know each other and they fight in the street, they might end up shot, in jail, or killed. Take that same situation, let them box, then they shake hands at the end. We’d be on the road, after tournaments, and guys would get their Bibles out and pray together after fighting. It takes war and brings peace.”

After the gym workout, the older boys go for a long run. The younger ones go down the street to the baseball field with Donny and run sprints. Around 7 o’clock the kids are in the ring for pushups, flutter kicks, and crunches on the Coach’s command. The workout

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ends and the fighters form a huddle, all touching hands.

One Two Three TEAM! One Two Three HARD WORK! One Two Three TEAM! One Two Three SBC! Donny tells me there are boxing scholarships for college and that the USA Amateur Boxing Association is scouting locations in the South for an Olympic training facility like the ones up north.

“I want to develop an Olympic level champion.”

Tim tells me “I don’t want this to be about underprivileged kids or disadvantaged kids…this is a youth boxing program.” He means what he says—all kids are welcome at the gym, though most of the boys and girls are from low income homes. Many kids, rich and poor, could benefit from the program. LaDaryl tells me “If I ever have a son, he’s gonna box.”

The kids are here, it is hot and they are sweating. Donny is speaking softly but all the kids are listening. Every child under his watchful eye is privileged to be here. And for being here, for trying, for failing, for sparring, for running, for fighting, they all have the advantage.

For more information on Shreveport Youth Boxing, visit www.justformiles.com

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Est. 1980

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FALL 2016

Written by: Robert Trudeau

The Magic of

Moviesauce

Photos courtesy of: Moviesauce

A wry sense of humor and pacing that avoids hype—that’s the trademark of movies made by Moviesauce.

A Shreveport-based, award-winning media company composed of Evan Falbaum, Kemerton Hargrove and Erica Callais Falbaum, Moviesauce makes commercial videos for clients like Foster Orthodontics and music videos for bands like the Wall Chargers. They also produce online gear reviews (ex. the EasyRig steadicam) and movie reviews (“Ride Home Reviews”). Those series have built an extensive audience for the Moviesauce YouTube channel.

With their diverse client work, they are long form storytellers, making both features (Getting Outer Space, 2011) and shorts (“Clowns and Robbers,” 2013). Moviesauce films feature devilmay-care personalities that are filmed with a high-res, signature look. The stories are quietly wacky explorations of growing up.

Several years spent building an online presence seems to be working for them. The 2015 Moviesauce feature, The Paranormals (88 mins), is moving steadily towards 300,000 views on YouTube. There are some 150 comments by viewers. So far, commenters have mostly found something positive to say about the slow-paced comedy. An example: “Really well made. This is what an indie film should be,” says Kenshin Tomoshima.

Falbaum is the pivotal fellow of Moviesauce. At age 29, he is the founder of Moviesauce and director and writer or co-writer of their work. His disarming smile and low-key manner may seem at odds with his role as the leader. His wife, Erica, at 31 years old, is a producer and actress

“Getting Outer Space”, 2009

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“Making Of”, 2007

for Moviesauce. She is also the founder of the Pet Education Project (ilovepep.com), dedicated to teaching the responsibilities of pet ownership, an education and outreach program that teaches the core responsibilities of pet ownership.

At the other end of the team is droll actor-producer Kemerton Hargrove, also 29 years old. Hargrove and Falbaum are not Laurel and Hardy, but there are amusing parallels with the 1930’s duo. You can see for yourself by watching the Ride Home Reviews on their YouTube channel. In truth, actors such as Danny Lachman, Chris DeGueurce and Mitch Landry have been the foils for the slow-burn roles played by Hargrove. Evan Falbaum is rarely on camera in Moviesauce movies, instead busying himself with directing and camera operation.

“Neither of us technically work in the “film business” or the local “film industry” (i.e. Hollywood Films),” says Falbaum. “We basically run our own video advertising business and make films on our own time.”

Hargrove attended LSU but split to grab experience in producing a reality TV show.

In 2012 his Shreveport classmate Travis Bible was producing a series called Caged. He followed Bible to Los Angeles and worked in film production over the next several years. He was not seduced by the City of the

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Angels. Falbaum attended the University of Alabama Birmingham and got a degree in graphic design.

“My love for British humor, like the series Fawlty Towers, and for dry humor probably comes from their influence,” says Hargrove. His dad, Kem Hargrove, “encouraged me to watch Ricky Gervais’ The Office.

His mom, Gayla Hargrove, recommended Wes Anderson. Both parents recommended the Bill Murray movie in Lost in Translation.

Both filmmakers have been followers of director Wes Anderson. Falbaum liked The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Hargrove liked Bottle Rocket. Satire is a standard spice in the Moviesauce mix.

In truth, this is a partnership with a long backstory. The duo have been classmates since grade school at St Mark’s.

Arriving at Caddo Magnet High School in 2001 they were amidst a gang of tech and video-minded students. Suddenly, ambitious teens were able to spin video tales via software like iMovie and Garage band. By 2002, Evan and classmate Hunter Carter created a light saber duel in their movie, A Life in One Act. The saber blades glowed, with thrusts and parries punctuated by light flashes and sound effects. At the peak of action the teens magically hurled tree branches at each other and threw each

other across the forest. They’d learned wicked teen sorcery.

CMTV (Caddo Magnet Television), the school’s video news class, became a locus for Saturday Night Live-inspired creativity.

“CMTV was really a sketch show,” remembers Ryan Robinson. “Each person on the cast almost represented a different type of player. Kemerton and I were sort of a dynamic duo during my year—a paradigm we established early by a sketch we did about a littering problem the school was having during lunch. The sponsor assigned the littering story and the next day Kemer showed up with two Mexican wrestler masks. I think the concept was that we were two laughably obtuse super-heroes who combated the litter problem by scissor-kicking offenders all over campus. It’s the first thing we edited together and I realized with every hilarious stock soundeffect we added from Garageband that Kemer and I had the exact same ironic sense of humor.”

Adds Robinson, “A number of people who took that class ended up in media and film. Hunter, Evan, Me, Kemer, Travis Bible, Stephanie Wendelin, Jonathan Younger, Wylie Chris Whitesides. They all pursued new media in some form or fashion.”

In Shakespeare: Back in Action, Evan gathered Magnet classmates like Andrew

Crawford and Dylan Nix to make a clever comedy that depended less on special effects and more on timing and storytelling.

Betraying an excess of energy, a CMTV-based gang led by Evan created the Moviesauce Film Festival in 2005. Using Fairfield Studios and LSUS as venues, it left behind its school origins, expanded and had a 3-year run. “That was the first use of the name ‘Moviesauce’, says Kemerton.” After that, it became something of an unofficial umbrella we used to make films under. It wasn’t until 2012 when Evan left Robinson Film Center that Moviesauce became a valid company, rather than a fun calling card, of sorts, and was ‘official’. He ran the company by himself for a year and a half or so, doing freelance work before work began on The Paranormals.

Gregory Kallenberg, creator of the Louisiana Film Prize and a filmmaker says of Kemerton and Evan: “Both Kemerton and Evan have impressed me from the very beginning. Evan’s abilities in his ‘Total Human Experience’ and ‘Clowns and Robbers,’ both Top Twenty LFP movies, really showed major potential. That said, Kemerton has also put his talents out there when he made ‘Con,’ another Film Prize short. I’m looking forward to what comes out of this effort, and I hope it shows the world that Shreveport/Bossier has the potential of being an indie film capital.”

On the Moviesauce platter, Evan has gathered a troupe of actors and producers. Among them is writer and filmmaker Keith Shively, who wrote the first script for The Paranomals. Shively says, “Evan’s biggest strengths are his cinematography style and his intense drive to finish a project. He’s very committed to filmmaking and continuing to take on new personal projects, and I think in the case of filmmaking you pretty much have to have an amazing amount of drive and passion.”

Of the man with the eloquent eyebrows, Shively says, “Kemerton is a naturally funny guy and he puts others around him naturally at ease.

…I HOPE IT SHOWS THE WORLD THAT SHREVEPORT/BOSSIER HAS THE POTENTIAL OF BEING AN INDIE FILM CAPITAL Since Paranormals is a comedy, we wanted someone who could be a bit dead-pan and not come across as though they’re trying too hard to be funny. Also, Danny and Kemerton have been friends a long time, so they have natural chemistry together.”

Danny Lachman, a co-creator of Moviesauce, was the star of Paranormals and was the face of Moviesauce for quite some time.

He is currently flying jets as a United States Air Force pilot. “Evan’s strength and weakness is his stubborn nature —he is relentless in achieving his goals,” says Lachman. “He is incredibly intelligent, compassionate, and fair. I’ve learned so much with him in terms of discovering my own shortcomings and potential—he is one of my biggest cheerleaders. I miss working with him. As most lifetime filmmaker friends are—we have our ups and downs—our relationship is complicated, passionate, and always evolving.”

Landon Miller, sound and music man for many Moviesauce projects, believes, “Evan knows what he wants. But he is flexible with the reality of a scenario. He knows his tools inside and out. But he takes advantage of natural elements and changing conditions to get results. He reminds me of a surfer always looking for the next big wave to rush out to.”

Hunter Carter, Magnet classmate and once a filmmaking partner to Falbaum, is now in the movie industry in LA. He offers, “I don’t think Kemerton realizes how funny he is. Or maybe he does and he just puts on a facade of self-deprecation. Perhaps that’s part of his comedic genius—you can never be sure if you’re in on his joke, or if you are the joke and he’s playing you. He lures you into a false set of expectations and then subverts those expectations in a very Andy Kaufman sort of way.”

“Kemer has an integrity of thought that allows him to remain unpersuaded by the tempting desire to deliver what he thinks the audience wants,” believes Lachman. “As a result, he is a source of inspiration and guidance to new ideas. I believe without Kemer, we wouldn’t be as creative.”

Feature filming has resumed for the Moviesauce team of Falbaum, Falbaum and Hargrove. The long version of Clowns and Robbers was shot over the summer. “A small-town clown and a small-time robber cross paths with a girl on the run and embark on a road-trip to Mexico,” is Falbaum’s elevator pitch. Part of it was shot on a road trip to Corpus Christi. “We’re pushing ourselves to take it beyond our comfort zone of just filming in Shreveport. Making it a little bit of a bigger adventure.”

The first version of “Clowns and Robbers” was a short that won a place at the 2014 Kansas City Film Fest, the 2014 New Orleans

“Clowns & Robbers”, 2016

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WE PLAYED UP OUR OWN FEARS & STRUGGLES IN TRYING TO MAKE OUR BUSINESS & PASSION WORK TOGETHER

“Clowns & Robbers”, 2016

Wizard World Film Festival, and 2013 New Orleans Film Festival. It also was a Louisiana Film Prize Top 20 in 2013. The synopsis for the “dark comedy” was “Marvin hates his job as a birthday clown until a group of incompetent robbers recruit him for their next heist.”

Clowns and Robbers will arrive with widespread anticipation. Filmmaker Chris Lyon says of Evan, he “has been building an online audience with shorts and really funny movie reviews released through the Moviesauce channel on YouTube for some time now, so it makes total sense to release his most recent feature, The Paranormals, through that network. As a filmmaker, you’re always looking for a place where you can connect with an audience that’s in tune with

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your sensibilities and that’s going to carry that message for you—and that’s exactly what he’s been able to achieve with the effort he’s made on that platform. It takes a lot of work to build an audience, and that kind of backbreaking work yields these kind of results. With all of that said, I’m anxiously waiting to see the film he’s working on next—which is based on his La Film Prize short, “Clowns and Robbers.”

You can see more of the group’s work at the colorful, easy to use site, moviesauce. com. There, one might see the touching and witty 2007 feature, Making Of. Also on view at the Moviesauce channel are music videos for country music performer Gillis Silo, rock bands Highway Lions, Shayliff and Seratones and several videos for post-

rock group The Wall Chargers (recommended: “Albatross”). Videos made for the Shreveport Convention and Tourism Bureau on the Krewe of Harambee and Krewe of Barkus & Meow are at the ready. Videos on internationally-known performance artist Nick Cave shot for the Shreveport Regional Arts Council can also be found there.

Falbaum says The Paranormals began as a straight-up comedy but it felt empty. “We had already been modeling aspects of the characters after ourselves, and it clicked with me—ghost hunting isn’t necessarily any more ridiculous of a career path than us trying to become self-made filmmakers. So we dialed in a lot more of ourselves,” he told Robinson Film Center director Alex Kent in an interview for the Shreveport Times last June. “We played up our own fears and struggles in trying to make our business and passion work together.

If you pretend the characters are trying to make a movie instead of hunting for ghosts, it basically becomes an exaggerated autobiography. Plus, just the simple concept of the characters looking for something intangible is a perfect mechanism for a story about someone growing up and trying to find themselves.

That’s all subtext though. It’s still mostly meant to just make you laugh.”

Kallenberg adds, “I’m always impressed when someone is willing to pick up a figurative shovel and do the work to build something.

Evan has always been that guy. Whether it’s a SRAC event that needs to be covered in a unique way or Arthur Mintz’s Swaybox needs a creative cinematographic viewpoint, Evan always seems to be the guy with his hand in the air and willing to volunteer for the job. We are tremendously lucky to have his indie film vim and vigor.”

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W

e live in a part of the country where you don’t need Google Maps to find the local high school football game on Friday nights. Just look for the hazy halo of lights in different pockets of the city and point your vehicle in that direction.

If you end up at venerable Lee Hedges Stadium between Youree and Kings, Memorial Stadium at Bossier High with the sun setting over the river, in between the tall pines of Northwood, or any other high school football showplace, you will be treated to some of the best high school football in the land.

Leading the young men on the field are a bevy of coaches falling all over the experience spectrum—Jason Brotherton is in his first year as a head coach, leading his alma mater at Haughton, while Fair Park’s Mike Greene is in his 23rd year as a head coach.

Recently, we sat down for a roundtable discussion with a solid cross-section of our local coaching landscape. Public and Private.

White and Black. This fraternity is close-knit, which trickles down through their respective staffs, and more importantly, to the young men they lead.

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HAS THE JOB OF “COACHING” CHANGED DURING YOUR TIME? BO MEEKS, AIRLINE (17TH YEAR IN COACHING, 10TH AS A HEAD COACH): “You’ve got to be able to run the ball, no matter what you do. You go to the (Super)Dome (site of all football state championship games) and see how many teams run the football well and stop the run. That’s what it boils down to, regardless of what scheme you do. You’ve got to believe in what scheme you run. The ultimate thing is, how well can you get your kids to perform on Friday nights.

That’s what it boils down to. Do the kids believe in what you do and can you get them to play their best on Friday night.”

JERWIN WILSON, WOODLAWN (12TH YEAR IN COACHING, 4TH AS A HEAD COACH): “I grew up playing against Haynesville and running a similar offense that they run at Byrd. Even though I run the spread offense, I find myself diving back into that playbook and running similar things. You’re just trying to use all 53 and a third (yards—width of a football field), still running the same type of plays, just moving more pieces around.”

STEVEN GETER, LOYOLA (16TH YEAR IN COACHING, 6TH AS A HEAD COACH): “You’ve got to find your identity, get your kids to believe in it. Teach the details every day and have them believe in the details, be good at what you’re doing and let the rest take care of itself. Motivate your kids every day. When they show up, make sure they have some juice. It’s easy on Friday nights, they’re going to be pumped up. Monday through Thursday, it’s eight weeks during the summer, are they showing up every day, giving everything they’ve got at that point in time? It all comes down to the battle up front. Running the football, stopping the run. You’ve got to be able to do it. If not, it’s going to be a long day.”

WHEN YOU HAVE A PLAYER WHO HAS NEEDS THAT AREN’T BEING MET AT HOME, HOW DO YOU HANDLE IT? MIKE GREENE, FAIR PARK (29TH YEAR IN COACHING, 23RD AS A HEAD COACH): “If you’ve built your team how you want, the guys…they’re going to take care of each other. That’s what I found through the years. I’ve got a lot of guys that will come to me and say, ‘Coach. This guy needs this, he’s having trouble with that.’ When you get that family atmosphere, believe it or not, when you watch the news and it appears the world is falling apart…when you get to school, it’s a bunch of kids trying to do the same thing. They’re worried about their little world. They might be mad at each other one day just like a family, but the next they’re coming to us and saying, ‘Coach, he needs some new shoes.’ It’s amazing how it works out.”

JASON BROTHERTON, HAUGHTON (19TH YEAR IN COACHING, 1ST AS A HEAD COACH): “The unique thing for us, these guys have gone to school together forever. Those kids don’t think that way, they’ve been friends since Kindergarten. It doesn’t register to them that, ‘Oh, he has nothing, we have a lot.’ They go to each other’s

houses, parents cook for everyone. If your football team, like Coach Greene said, is built the way you want it to be, then there’s nobody starving on your football team.”

COACH GETER: “Every day you try to plant a seed in their life.

Each day, you teach character, you teach values. Those same things you teach your own kids, every day, you have that platform and have that opportunity…take 15 minutes to just talk to them. Some kids will come to your office and you’ll talk about some serious things going on in their lives, some may not talk to you about anything.

It may be five years after they leave, they’ll come back and tell us, ‘Coach, some of the things you taught me really helped me through this situation,’ and we may not have known they were dealing with a situation at that time.”

JOHN BACHMAN, CALVARY BAPTIST (34TH YEAR IN COACHING, 9TH AS A HEAD COACH): “We all get the message about the kid that’s going through something. We may not be the solution. If I have a kid that I’ve heard has gone through some things in his life, I’ll call him in and ask him, ‘How’s your life?’ Some will open up to you right away. I tell them, I may not be the one you need to talk to but there is someone you need to talk to. You don’t need to carry this by yourself.”

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY COACH MEEKS: “What gets me about fans…to think we would play someone who wasn’t the best player for that position…that’s asinine. You have to have thick skin, especially as big as football is where we are, you know you’re going to get criticized. One of Coach Greene’s (Mike was head coach at Airline prior to Coach Meeks) former players lit me up on a message board last year after a game, ‘I’m the dumbest person that ever lived.’

COACH WILSON: “What I’m still not used to is, AAU basketball is a problem with football. All these kids think they can be LeBron or Steph Curry. The biggest problem isn’t necessarily football, it’s AAU basketball.”

CURTIS EVANS, GREEN OAKS (18TH YEAR IN COACHING, 3RD AS HEAD COACH): “I had a kid miss three or four workouts because he had to play in a basketball tournament.”

COACH BACHMAN: “It’s not just AAU, it’s Showcase baseball as well.”

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BEING A…COACH IS ONE OF THE ONLY WAYS YOU CAN IMPACT A KIDS’ LIFE COACH GREENE: “When did high school become a minor league program for the pro’s?”

MIKE SUGGS, BYRD (31ST YEAR IN COACHING, 20TH AS HEAD COACH): “There’s people out there making money at it. There are coaches quitting the profession because they can make more money giving private lessons at $60/hour. And they don’t have to win or lose a game…and there are parents who think they (private instructors) are the greatest coaches in the world. ‘I pay him $60 bucks an hour to teach little Johnny to hit and he goes up in a game and gets a hit, that guy is over there beating his chest; if he doesn’t (get a hit), it’s the coaches fault. We need to go back to the private coach more…if Johnny gets a couple of hits, it’s great because

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he taught him.’ That private coach is in a no-lose situation” COACH WILSON: “And the private coaches will point out things that we didn’t do right.”

DIFFERENCE IN KIDS TODAY COMPARED TO YESTERYEAR COACH SUGGS: “The cell phone and iPad. Kids don’t talk to each other anymore, they text. Kids don’t listen anymore. They don’t have retention or listening skills.

Nowadays, compared to years ago, how many times do you have to repeat yourself?

Everything is visual to them. I run a drill called, ‘Listening Skills.’ I cannot stand having to repeat myself over and over. We line them up…now it’s a tough drill and we’ve been doing it for years, but it gets their attention on how they’re not focused.”

COACH MEEKS: “The inability to listen, just to focus their eyes. Even when they do that, sometimes they’re not listening.”

COACH BROTHERTON: “They have to be entertained. Classrooms are the same way.

You can’t just stand up there and lecture.

You have to have pictures and video. It’s got to be a production; they have to be entertained.”

COACH MEEKS: “And some old man, standing up there and talking to them isn’t

entertaining at all.”

COACH EVANS: “If I say it once, and say it again and again. Ten minutes later, I’ll ask them to repeat what I said, and they’ll look at me: ‘Huh?’ With me, it’s constant repetition.

Whatever I tell them on Monday, I tell them again on Tuesday.

COACH WILSON: “Talking doesn’t affect these kids. They really want to see it. (Assistant) Coach (Husher) Calhoun talks to the team before I do. At the end of practice, I try to talk to them for less than two minutes—at the end of the day? It’s over with after two minutes.”

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL’S ROLE ON A LARGER SCALE COACH BACHMAN: “Coaches have a tremendous responsibility, probably more so now than any other time in our country, to tell our young men that you ARE our future. I tell our kids all the time. ‘If you want to be black, be black. If you want to be white, be white. You want to be Baptist, be Baptist. You want to be Catholic, be Catholic. At the end of the day you have to decide what you want to be together. If we can do it here (in locker room), why can’t we walk out the door and take it with us out on the field.’”

COACH BROTHERTON: “We probably spend more time with the kids than their parents, especially fathers, because so many of them

there is no dad at home. We have one player whose mom goes to work at 4am. He’s trying to get to workouts, with nobody at home to get him up and get him there. Somebody picks him up and brings him, and then takes him home…that’s the role we all share. There is no father at home to show him right and wrong.

I bring my kids to the office. Our three year old rides his bike around the office. I think it’s important for our players to see what the family is supposed to look like, what we want the family to be. My wife is always up there…kids are there. I’ve continued what Coach (Rodney) Guin instilled in us.”

COACH SUGGS: “Being a parent, how would you want your kids treated. Wait till your kid turns 9 or 10 years old and you go to a ballgame and coach takes him or her out, doesn’t start or doesn’t get to play. That feeling that goes up the back of your neck and that comment you want to make…a little reality sets in when momma and daddy ask you why their son isn’t playing.”

COACH EVANS: “Our baby was born my first year as head coach. One of the things I do with my staff is give them Saturday’s off. Saturday is your family time. Let’s meet on Sunday early so you can spend more time with your family Sunday night. I have a policy at my house that I put into play…or my wife put into play: no football after 9 o’clock. No text messages, no film, no HUDL, no nothing. That’s your family time from 9 until. I turn off the iPad and play with him. Even if we lost on Friday, seeing him pop his head up Saturday morning and be happy to see Daddy, takes the burden of the loss off my back. I leave the loss at school and be happy playing with my kid, focusing on my wife and little one.”

WOULD YOU DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN? COACH MEEKS: “Without a doubt. There’s nothing else I can see myself doing. High School football is the one place where kids who have everything, or don’t have anything, are on the same plane.”

COACH BROTHERTON: “It’s fun. No doubt. I watched my dad do it.

I knew I was going to do it when I was 8 years old, that probably makes me weird. I talk to friends of mine that do other things…what do they want to talk about? What I do. They want to talk about what we do at Haughton…it’s fun.”

COACH GETER: “I love getting up in the morning, going to practice and getting to hang out with these guys. Teach them a little bit about football; teach them a lot about life and have them teach me a lot about life, also. I love it. Nothing I would rather do.”

COACH EVANS: “My degree was actually in business, but I went back for teaching and coaching. It’s one of the biggest impacts we can make on 15-19 year olds’ lives—I saw Tre’Davious (White, senior all-American at LSU, Green Oaks class of 2013 valedictorian) at Mo Claiborne’s camp… to have him say, ‘Thank you, Coach,’ for the way we impacted him at Green Oaks. Being a teacher and coach is one of the only ways you can impact a kids’ life from the first time they step foot on your campus.”

COACH WILSON: “Growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to catch kids who needed help. I really sat down and thought about that

one day…I was just starting college, working at Ruston Parks and Recreation…I don’t know anything about golf, but I’m showing these kids how to play golf; they thought I knew everything. At the end of that day, I realized I wanted to reach kids before they needed a lawyer. Getting to coach has changed my life. I believe it’s a calling and I think that it’s a calling for everybody at this table. The biggest part now is developing these lifelong relationships with kids that leave your program.”

COACH GREENE: “No doubt. Like Jerwin said, it was a calling. The only thing the matter with this country is, there hasn’t been a retired coach run for President yet. That’s what needs to happen, because, you talk about someone who knows how to handle everybody and every situation…that’s what we need to straighten a lot of things out.”

COACH BACHMAN: “As a young man, I did have a head coach speak into my life. He told me basically, I don’t know what you’ll do—but like Geter said—find something you love waking up and doing every day. I was going to be a geologist, because at that time that’s where the money was. Then I thought of me, sitting behind a desk with a tie on. ‘That’s not me. I’m not doing this for the right reason. Who are the guys who influenced my life? Who are the guys I love? I loved my coaches because they were great men.’ So I switched over to education and the rest is history. The simple fact is, that team we put together sees only one color—the color we’re wearing.”

COACH SUGGS: “I don’t get asked this question much anymore, I get asked, ‘When are you gonna’ quit?!’ Of course, I’d do it all over again. If you’ve done it as long as we have, you were meant to be in it. I tell our kids, it’s more important to get up in the morning and enjoy what you’re going to do. Don’t put a price tag on anything.”

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JENNYJOHNSTONINTERIORS.COM

Braced For Victory!

3 1 8 . 74 2 . 9 2 74 • GRAFORTHO.COM BOSSIER CITY • SHREVEPORT • MINDEN

A Q&A WITH

GREGORY KALLENBERG FOUNDER OF THE LOUISIANA FILM PRIZE, FOOD PRIZE, MUSIC PRIZE & STARTUP PRIZE

Shreveport Magazine: Tell me three things people need to know about the Film Prize.

Gregory Kallenberg: I would say, people here in Shreveport need to understand that the Film Prize has become one of the preeminent film competitions in the country. I think they also need to know, maybe as part of number one, that we give fifty thousand dollars. It is actually the world’s largest cash prize given for a short film in the world right now. I would tell you that when I travel around, the film groups now know where Shreveport, Louisiana is and they know what it has to offer. It’s not even about the money, it’s about the people. So there is this weird emanating energy that is coming from Shreveport and getting into the hearts and minds of people outside of us. And last, I would tell people that the Film

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Prize has hopefully brought a wonderfully weird sense of pride because the Film Prize is not only breeding something amazing here, but as these people walk away from the Film Prize, they are walking away with the notion that Shreveport is one of the most amazing places they have ever been. I was on the phone today with people who are coming in from out of town. They are calling to ask where they can get hotel rooms. It’s people who are from Denver, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Atlanta, Georgia.

The Film Prize is a catalyst to make us a really amazing place.

SM: What is unique about the Prize Family voting system?

GK: What is different about our voting system in comparison

to any other film festival voting system is that most voting systems separate out the popular vote and the jury vote. The reason they do that is because they highly regard, in my opinion, a professional jury person. We do bring in a professional jury—they do know a lot.

They do have a certain sensibility that other people do not have. But with us, we have broken down the wall between the filmmaker, the professional jury, and the audience. The Film Prize is everything I love about film festivals, and I have expunged everything I hate. One thing I hate about film festivals is it leeches off a filmmaker. Like come to wherever city. We’ll show your film. We’ll put an audience in front of you. But you have to come here and sort of do you your dance in front of people and the return is zero. What makes the Film Prize so unique is there is a huge return at the end of the day. At the end of the day, we pay you fifty thousand dollars if you come to our city, make a film, and get into our finals. You still have to market yourself. You still have to be the sales guy. But at the end of the day, the direct result in being very successful is a huge payday of fifty thousand dollars. So we have done something that no one else has done as of yet. Somebody is going to figure it out and somebody is going to try to do it on some level. But the fact is, the Film Prize is a hard thing to replicate. At the end of the day, we are doing something so unique here that we should all embrace.

SM: Are all of the films filmed here in Shreveport?

GK: There is a seven parish region where the films are filmed.

SM: Tell us what we need to know about the Music Prize, Start Up Prize, and Food Prize.

GK: Let me begin with the prize I am most proud of: the Start Up Prize. The Start Up Prize has the most potential to change this city, and I’ll tell you why. When you look at the Start Up Prize, it is as much a recruiting mechanism or a connection mechanism to investors as it is anything else. This is only the third year, and you look at our finalists, which we have only had ten up until now, and forty percent of those have received offers of funding from our investor judges. The most exciting thing that came out of year two is the fact that one of the Start Up Prize finalists, a guy named Wayne Nix out of Lafayette, Louisiana who has an awesome invention called the Nix tool found his investor here through EAP. He is now relocating his company from Lafayette, Louisiana to Shreveport. If you look at the analogue of Austin, the home of the two brothers who did Yeti. Take that idea where they have a company and they find a city they love. They not only have now hired around thirty white collar branding and marketing people but they also manufacture in Austin. We see the power of the Start Up Prize in finding the next Yeti. It’s bringing somebody that is going to set up their manufacturing, marketing, and management here. The next thing you know, one hundred people are hired here in Shreveport. What’s even better than that is Wayne Nix going out and sitting on a panel at another entrepreneur conference and saying “I was in Shreveport, Louisiana. I moved there, it’s my home. I love the place.” To me, it has the most potential because it really does move the big levers.

SM: I think it’s very interesting that, as a Shreveporter, all the big investor guys, you kind of, you brought them out of the office. And by that, you made them reachable to a guy that has a new product.

GK: What it has done for all the big quasi-family, office, institutional

money is that it’s brought them into the same room. Because of their kind support and participation, there is significant financial power in the Start Up Prize. When you look at this past year, we had entrepreneurs that came here from San Francisco, Houston, Austin, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Memphis, Tennessee. All of these people came here because there is word out there that this is a place not only where there are awesome resources, but also investors that really want to be a part of their lives.

SM: Ok, so tell us, because I want it to be documented, what do you say to people who look at the Start Up Prize and think Gregory watched Shark Tank one day and thought “Who are the Shreveport Sharks?”.

GK: I hate Shark Tank and I want to be on the record as saying I hate Shark Tank. I think Shark Tank has ruined an entire generation of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs think that they go in front of Marc Cuban and his pals, put out a sexy pitch and the next thing you know, the Dallas Mavericks have all their stuff on, and like they are making millions of dollars. That’s not the way real business works. Startups are hard. And the Start Up Prize process is not an easy process. You are courting an investor. You are getting resources. You are meeting with marketing gurus who are saying, “Your stuff sucks, you need to change it to be successful.” In the end, the investor judges are able to see a progression and evolution of an idea or the way someone

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presents themselves. That is a weird power in the sense that we are giving them that opportunity to change. At the end of the day, when these investors look at this, when they begin to realize these guys have changed, they have bought in to the whole thing, then all of the sudden that investor has a relationship with that entrepreneur and that bond is created. That is really what the magic of the Start Up Prize is all about.

It is really what makes it unique. Our investors are the ones that drive the Start Up Prize. It’s not me, it’s not my staff, it’s not the people who are the resources, it’s not the entrepreneurs, it is the investor judges.

SM: Tell us what we need to know about the Music Prize because there is a big difference this year.

GK: There is a big difference this year. We are grabbing big dice and rolling them on Music Prize. What we are envisioning for Music Prize is that we can continue to build what we are building, which is nurturing emerging artists, the way the Seratones came to us. We are betting on that part being an integral part of Music Prize forever. We are able to put together a music education—where we take a musician and show him it’s not just about playing an instrument; it’s about being a businessperson.

Our people are putting them with Grammy winners. We are putting them with all the people that could give them success. But now what we are doing is we are kicking open the door to the rest of the populous and creating the beginnings of a bonafide music festival. This year, we are introducing band showcases with some of the greatest indie rock bands out there. The goal is to introduce a festival atmosphere where you can see the likes of Polyphone Spree on the big stage at the Revel/ Music Prize MainStage or you can see Beach Slang or K. Flay in a club show. This year, Music Prize is going to be the most awesome “Choose Your Own Adventure” ever!

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SM: Ok, tell us about the Food Prize.

GK: The Food Prize is something, where I should be labeled as the biggest idiot on the planet and not knowing that Louisiana and food simply go together, that’s me. I’m the dumbass who didn’t really realize that this could be our biggest and best part of the prize family. The reason being, last year, we sort of rushed into this idea of jurying in five local chefs. Let them battle it out “Chopped” style. At the moment where we could have blown it out, we forgot to market the thing. We just forgot. With that said, we put our tent in the dustiest darkest corner of the prize festivals, and we said this is the only place we can put it because we have food trucks here, and we have film makers there. Let’s just put it in the worst place and we’ll take really snazzy pictures.

And then when two hundred screaming attendees showed up, we knew we had something. This year, what is so exciting about the Food Prize is, it is going to be a food experience from beginning to end. The interesting thing about the Food Prize is, it is the only thing we can do that is hyper local. We don’t have enough filmmakers to make the Film Prize hyper local. We don’t have enough musicians to make the Music Prize hyper local. And we sure as hell don’t have enough entrepreneurs to make Start Up Prize hyper local. The one thing that I know I can do, or we can do as an office, is we can promote the local food scene in a way that the local food scene gets to participate. Its this idea of these chefs jurying themselves in by a popularity contest or by having dinners for the society of the golden fork. We know that part is going to be kick ass. A part of what I experienced in Austin was a hyper almost violent reaction to supporting the people that are there making food in the space. And we want to celebrate that

both through the Golden Fork, and the “Chopped” style competition.

But the thing we are doing differently this year is something called “Come and Get It”. We are going to do something very unique in that we are bringing in national chefs who are going to be paired with local chefs. We are taking the Jason Brady’s of the world and putting them with the Tom Ramsey’s of the world and let them cook for the crowd.

And also put as much Shreveport-Bossier cuisine as we can into the mix. So this thing will be something where people who are high minded about food, people who are the major influencers to the food culture here are able to come together and enjoy the experience together.

SM: Describe Shreveport in one sentence.

GK: Shreveport is one of the most amazing places with the most potential that unfortunately does not have the ability to recognize its awesomeness.

SM: Describe the Prize Family in one sentence.

GK: I used to be right there with the moaners saying, “Shreveport doesn’t show up.” But after seeing what’s happening with the Film Prize, I can’t say that. After watching people stand in line in the pouring rain to get in a Film Prize screening, I can’t say that. Look at Shreveport Derby Day—you guys definitely can’t say that. But what you have to say is, there is an inability to recognize all the awesomeness that is here. As far as Prize Family, it is the most amazing grouping of people and events; bringing together the most amazing people to do the most amazing things on the planet. And I believe that—I really do.

SM: If you could only name one thing, what would be the coolest thing that has ever happened at the Prize?

GK: Can I say two things? I am a weirdly emotional person. It is easy to tug at my soul, to the good and to the bad. I have a temper, but I have a temperament that truly gets when things are wonderful. One of the most wonderful things I ever saw happen at the Film Prize: It was year three. It is pouring down rain. It is ten in the morning on a Saturday, and we are doing our panels at ArtSpace. All I can think about is trying to justify in my mind that this weather is going to sin the Film Prize. I’m looking through the rain and it is raining so hard that everything is obscure. And I’m looking across the street to this building, the Robinson Film Center. And at ten in the morning there is a group, in a line, outside in the rain waiting to get into a Film Prize

Shreveport is one of the most amazing places with the most potential that unfortunately does not have the ability to recognize its awesomeness.

screening. And that’s when I was like “What is this and how did it happen?” People in Shreveport don’t wait in a line for anything.

And that’s when everything changed for me. That’s when I realized this place has a magic like no other place. It was awe-inspiring.

The other thing that was nuts is still associated with Film Prize.

Last year I come around the corner from the Capri, and there were probably sixty people in line at the voting booth for the Film Prize.

The only thing I can think about is our volunteers have all bugged out. All of our volunteers have left and we are screwed. So I of course grab my wife and my son Tobias. I was like “Get ready, we have to go man the voting booth. Everyone has left us.” In the front are eight people across and they all have their voting ballots in front of them. But the cool part is they open up their programs and they have taken notes on every single film. And all eight of them are not just writing down names. They are seriously thinking that they are giving somebody fifty thousand dollars. That at the end of the day, they are going to change somebody’s life with their vote. Which is insane when you think about it. Again, it is something where they are giving regard to something that is essentially a game, but they are taking the game so seriously. They are understanding their responsibility. And I swear, maybe there is too much Jewish mother in me, but I’m telling you it made me want to break down. It’s one of those things where some people who are giving so much to us of themselves—that is when something is really working.

SM: Your parents and grandparents are very well known community activists and leaders in our community. How has that influenced your choice to come back to Shreveport and the things you do in the community?

GK: If you ask me why I moved back to Shreveport, I mean I love my mom and my dad. But it all kind of started and stopped with my grandmother, Betty Phillips. She was such a bright spirit. Her getting older was something where I wanted to see her while I could see her and be with her while I could be with her. And I have to tell you, my wife was another one. She fell in love with my grandmother. And my grandfather was a great man too. But I think being around the magic she created, in a very microcosmic way. And I think that it is something that carrying that forward—as much as my mom can drive me crazy sometimes, the great thing about my mom is that she has created this DNA thread inside of me that in coming back, which I swore I would never do. Seeing her go at light speed and strong arm everybody out there to support these amazing causes that she is a part of has been a role model for me. I am that rebellious oldest child who is supposed to hate their parents and is supposed to not want to be a part of it. But my mom, and again my dad doesn’t like to be out there, but my dad also—to watch how much they deeply care about this place and they want it to succeed.

As much as they give me a hard time, they also support me. That is incredibly inspirational. I could not have picked a better place to come back to or a better set of parents cheering me on.

SM: How has being a husband and a father influenced what the Prize Family looks like today?

GK: Personally, I will tell you that the Film Prize, Food Prize, Music Prize, and Startup Prize are all incredibly selfish ventures, and I’m hugely thankful to have a wonderful and patient wife Heidi who puts up with the Prize shenanigans. Really, it’s about creating my own fun with a team I really care about. I love a big out of control

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2016 LOUISIANA FILM PRIZE COMPETITION FILMS

APOCALYPSE LATER Directed by Frank Spiro

HE COULD’VE GONE PRO Directed by McGhee Monteith

AMERICAN PRIDE Directed by Tamzin Merchant

COOKIE JAR Directed by Calvin O’Neal

THE FALLEN Directed by Lorna Street Dopson

HANGMAN Directed by J.C. Doler

SID & MARGE HAVE A PROBLEM Directed by Michael Baker

THE MAN FROM MARS Directed by Jonnie Stapleton

MEMOIR Directed by Alexander Jeffrey

MEMORIAL DRIVE Directed by Austin Alward

NATIVE Directed by Travis Champagne & Stephen Kinigopoulos

THE ROOT CELLAR Directed by Kyle Kleinecke

RUTHLESS Directed by Tanesha Morris

THE IMPORTANCE OF SEX EDUCATION Directed by L. Elizabeth Powers

THE 30 YEAR DEAL Directed by Travis Bible

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN HEAVEN & HELL Directed by Andrew Librizzi

THE SPOT Directed by Marta Fabian; Guest Director: Limbert Fabian

THE STAND Directed by Eva Contis

ST. JUDE’S CROSSING Directed by Ido Goldberg

THE VERSES Directed by Jency Griffin Hogan

YA ALBI (MY HEART) Directed by Christine Chen

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doesn’t come up, then it’s a failure. And when oil does come out of the ground, it is awesome. What SXSW did so well was build something incremental. It was holding the reins on itself. And this was the genius of Roland Swenson. Hugh and Brent were so smart and knew they wanted to grow SXSW the right way. It wasn’t like “Oh my God, we have lightening in a bottle!” We preach patience.

We preach the idea that we have to walk this path, not run this path. Just because something is there and has become successful, doesn’t mean you expand it to oblivion and then just watch the thing dissipate. To me, what is important is keeping that core of energy so that the outer layers sort of creep out on you. Like the guy next to me, I can feel his shoulder and I want to be next to that guy for the whole entire ride. As far as the future, I hear even my friends in Austin, they complain about the growth. Like “Oh my God, SXSW is coming in!” That is a problem I would love to have. But I think that also we have to realize in Shreveport, SXSW was a twenty-year process. You have to let this thing hop on its own, grow on its own, and become its own.

party and I think we’re on the way to building that. We are not there yet. But when the confetti cannons go off, I know I’m closer. But beyond that, Heidi and I want to build something awesome so that our kids want to come back here. When I left Shreveport, there was no one in my family telling me to come back. Nobody said there was something for me here. It’s not that I’m knocking my parents. It is that no one thought about the idea of having their family back here. We want you to help build a better city. I will tell you that, with my son Tobias, working with me and my daughter Daisy, who I hear in real time defend Shreveport as a place—that is what it is all about. And one of the things they grab onto more than anything, is they see Film Prize as the exact same thing they saw at SXSW. I used to take my kid around in a wagon at SXSW. We would go hear the bands together.

We would go to the free shows and see great bands like Hold Steady back in the day. Tobias and Daisy are kids who were hipster Austin kids. But what Tobias has done in particular, he has brought that sensibility and has brought that sense of pride. Tobias, a seventeen year old cynic, I have heard him say to friends of his who would complain about Shreveport “Look around you. Have you been down to the Film Prize? Have you hung out at the Music Prize?” Without me saying “this is what you have to say.” If my parents did something like I did, I would have raged against it from the very beginning. But what I want to do is create something that they can be proud of and they want to be a part of when they get older.

SM: How would you compare SXSW to the Prize Family—past, present, and future?

GK: The spirit in Shreveport is not that much different to that of Austin at that time. The want, need, and desire to sort of realize something amazing is really not that different. What’s different is, and again, we are at the beginning of a trajectory, so we have to realize and have the patience that this is going to grow something into something amazing.

One of the things that is different about Shreveport, and I don’t know if it is the oil and gas world that makes people think differently, but here, there is a mentality that you stick a pole in the ground and if oil

SM: Is the Prize Family evolving like you wanted to see? Better? Worse?

GK: I’m Jewish, so I am a natural worrier. I worry about everything.

But I think that worry is good for a group of people like the staff of the Film Prize—Sabrina, Chris, Jana, Maddie in particular. They’re bursting with unending exuberance and boundless energy. And they work their asses off. To me, it is about us focusing and growing at the right pace. You ask if it is growing how I wanted it to grow. It is far exceeding what my expectations ever were. But that is sort of my character too. I want something to outpace what I think it is going to be because it will always surprise and delight me. Having an amazing team like these folks, that’s the key.

SM: Why do the Prize Family events matter to Shreveport— culturally and economically? For someone who has never been down to the event, why should they care?

GK: One, it is the most amazing time anyone will ever have in the country. What Shreveport makes the mistake of doing is comparing itself to the region. What we need to all do, and I speak to you everyone in Shreveport and Bossier, is to create world-class events.

Where, if you are from Los Angeles, Minneapolis, or New York City, you would have a good time too. The thing I am hearing the most is when someone says “Hey! I cannot wait for the Film Prize this year! I have friends coming in from Los Angeles.” Or “Did you hear the McCarty’s are coming back from Denver, Colorado?” Or even, “Hey! I have a group coming in from New York because they love the Film Prize.” To me, that shows everyone else in the country and everyone else here that we are incredibly awesome. And this is just a small part of the other layers we could be, to be the incredible city that, if we try hard enough, we could evolve ourselves to be.

SM: So what’s up with the “Viva la Film Prize!”, tequila, T-Rex, all that?

GK: So it’s all about building tradition and it’s all about building mystery into things. And some of the things are as simple as getting way too excited at a particular moment. “Viva la Film Prize!” came out in weirdly spontaneous. I didn’t even take Spanish, I took French in school! You can call my buddies back in Austin, they will tell you I have always drank tequila. The guy that started ACL Fest, a guy

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named Charlie Jones, we were bartenders together back in the 90s. We had this thing called Tequila Sunrise. Every bartender would show up to my house around 3:00 am and we would drink tequila until sunrise.

We would toast the sun! But we never toasted “Viva la Film Prize!” That was one of those things that sort of just popped up, and again it became infectious. What all these traditions do is they build a collective. People have come up to me at dinner, raised a glass and said “Viva la Film Prize!”. Part of me is wonderfully weirded out by it, but another part of me feels that those traditions are what bind us together. Getting to the spiritual and more emotional side of me, I believe that the only way we build a better city is to build a collective spirit. In Austin, Texas, we built a collective spirit—and they have all done very well for themselves.

SM: The Prize Family has a certain swagger. As an event promoter and an event guy, why is it important for your events to have that swagger and a culture of its own?

GK: It started sort of like a teenage insecurity like “I’m cool, right?!” It was almost more of a thought where if we would say it, people would believe it type of thing. I would get very passionate and emotional about people showing up for the Film Prize. And you have to think, in year one, there were four hundred of us if I counted every volunteer, every filmmaker, and my mom and all her friends. But last year, we had over 3,200 people.

Now the swagger is legitimate in the sense that it is a swagger with everyone there. Anyone who shows up is the coolest person in town. I love getting to indoctrinate a whole new group and tell them what they are missing. I was at a meeting with the Shreveport Bar Association and they asked if anyone knew of the Film Prize. Out of 100 people, only two knew of it. You could tell they were embarrassed. But after getting to talk with them and share about the Prize, the Shreveport Bar Association is going to have an opening party for the Film Prize. These are lawyers that are going to have their own party down there. They are going to blow it out because they believe in this and they want to be a part of it.

SM: What is Shreveport’s biggest strength?

GK: I will tell you what Shreveport’s biggest strength isn’t first. We don’t

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have great beaches and we don’t have mountains. But what we have here, more than anything, and more than any other place we have ever been, we have some of the most kick ass people on the planet. And I am not just saying that. The great thing about Shreveport is if you want to start something here, they will do their best to not let you fail. One of the things that Shreveport will do is that, if you are pure in heart and have good intentions, they will support you. And that makes a huge difference. I am lucky in the sense that I have a family that has been here a long time, but I will also tell you that when I go out and raise money, I have to go far beyond anyone that has ever met me before or knows me, I still find people that totally get it. They want to support it and do whatever they can to lift it up. Not everyone can give money, but at the end of the day, if they could just tell me they are going to support it and show up, and they do show up, that means just as much. It is not the same in places like Austin or Dallas. There is a competitive nature there—and there might be here too at some point. But right now if you are willing to get in there, get your hands dirty, and create something, they will show up and be a part of it.

SM: So where do you see the Film Prize in ten years? What does it look like?

GK: I see a world that is really one of the preeminent festivals when people think of film, music, and food. And as hard as it is to put on, I want them to think of entrepreneurship. I see it as a small part of what Shreveport is, but I see it as a strong vernacular when people talk about what an amazing place this city is. Like, you have to be here for this, because this is an amazing part of an amazing city. The ultimate goal for me and my team is to be part of what makes this city a better city. I can’t fix roads, I can’t run city budgets, but I can create something that people can be a part of and proud of. Then take that thing that they are proud of and emanate that out to other parts of their city. If we can be a small part of that big solution, then we have been successful.

THE

Shreveport Metropolitan Ballet presents

NUTCRACKER Artistic Director Kendra Meiki

Featuring

The Shreveport Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kermit Poling and from

Boston Ballet Anais Chalendard & Patrick Yocum

December 9, 10, & 11 • Riverview Theatre Tickets available at:

shreveportmetroballet.org • 318.221.8500 Photography by Gabe Meiki

Supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency, and administered by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council. Supported in part by a grant from the Shreveport Regional Arts Council with funds from the City of Shreveport.

Shreveport Selects Each season, our publishers sit down and hand-select their favorite events that will be happening in the Shreveport-Bossier City area. These are the Shreveport Selects

Highland Jazz & Blues Fest

September 17th

Louisiana Film Prize

September 30th October 2nd

Red River Revel

October 1-8th

Great Raft Ramble

October 8th

Taste of Shreveport

October 20th

Fiesta on the Farm

October 23rd

Bourbon & Bowties

November 3rd

Les Boutique de Noel

November 17-19th

NOON-5PM AT COLUMBIA PARK AFTERPARTY AT TWISTED ROOT FROM 7-10PM

TIX AT LAFILMPRIZE.COM

TIX AT REDRIVERREVEL.COM

STARTS AT NOON

5:30-9PM AT BOSSIER CITY CIVIC CENTER

4:30-7:30PM AT MAHAFFEY FARMS

5-9PM AT RHINO COFFEE

MORE INFO AT LESBOUTIQUESDENOEL.COM

For more information about these events, check out shreveportmagazine.com

written by: Sara Hebert

Brandon Oldenburg and Ralph Eggleston have many things in common.

They both work as designers and artists for animated films. They both won the Academy Award for best short film. And, most importantly, they both eat breakfast.

Eggleston, a Louisiana native, works at Pixar and contributed his talents to animated films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, WALL•E and most recently, Inside Out with roles ranging from production designer to art director to general artistic problem solver. Oldenburg was featured on the cover of Shreveport Magazine’s first issue, where you can learn about the massive pile of accolades and awards he’s garnered as the co-founder of Moonbot Studios. Oldenburg won his Oscar for The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore in 2012. Eggleston won in 2002 with For The Birds. Both short films were directorial debuts.

This summer, as part of a Moonbot Studios retrospective exhibit, artspace and the Shreveport Regional Arts Council hosted several animation professionals to teach locals the tricks of the trade. Eggleston visited in August and kicked off his time in Shreveport by sharing a meal with Oldenburg at Strawn’s Eat Shop. Shreveport Magazine listened in as the pair discussed growing up, making movies and everything in between.

THREE TV CHANNELS AND FLIPBOOKS BRANDON: When you were growing up, how did you find your inspiration, besides the three TV channels?

those horrible Disney movies that was live action. But, the double feature was with Cinderella and that’s what did it. That’s what flipped the switch.

BRANDON: Was that common to see the live action and animated combo at a cinema?

RALPH: There was something called the Disney summer movie series where they would re-issue films and it would be a film a week. It was good for families to drop their kids off at and be there for a few hours or be there together.

BRANDON: (There’s your OJ, nice and foamy, just like we like it.)

I do remember the live action Disney films, but they were later. It wasn’t like the Davy Crockett things. Return to Witch Mountain—that’s the era I remember clearest—Something Wicked This Way Comes, that stuff.

RALPH: The stuff I grew up in and around in—terms of that kind of movie—it was the Apple Dumpling Gang.

BRANDON: Which, by the way, was the first movie I saw. My parents always said my bottle was stolen by the Apple Dumpling Gang in that theater.

RALPH: Yeah, so that stuff, No Deposit, No Return.

RALPH: We almost had three and a half because there was a UHF channel. I think it might have been out of Lafayette, though. It was PBS. So, I woke up to Bugs Bunny—the pre-1945 ones were the ones syndicated. On Saturday morning, some of the older ones. Like everybody, you got up and watched cartoons. It was on my tenth birthday that my sister took me to see a double feature of Helen Hayes and Derek Nimmo at the apex of their careers: One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing. One of

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BRANDON: Had we been in a boat, we would have passed through Uncertain, TX, which was where Disney owned property that they used for exteriors that included anything swampy. But, even prior to that they shot a silent era Tarzan there.

RALPH: When I saw Cinderella that was it. I was only 10,

but, I knew I wanted to do that. It took me somewhere that no other film had at the time. And, so I started using the library a lot: researching how did they make this, how did they do this. I ruined every book in my parent’s house by turning them into flipbooks. Cut some stuff. Ruined all of my school books. My mom was so mad!

BRANDON: Did you keep any?

RALPH: I think I may have kept one.

BRANDON: It’s funny, when you do flipbooks for the first time—I did it all wrong. I started at the top front and worked my way to the back.

And I’m like, “I can’t see through these so I don’t know what to draw next.”

RALPH: And then, you find out what paper works best and what paper doesn’t work well.

My parent’s bibles were always that thin paper, so they didn’t work well.

BRANDON: Flipbooks? Yeah, in my dad’s office.

But, you know, it was pre-Post it notes, they didn’t have the sticky gum on them; but, they were on top of each other and you would get stacks.

RALPH: Yeah, I would ask my dad and he would bring the same stuff home from work. He would steal—rather maybe, abscond—11x17 Xerox paper and that was my drawing paper. I had an aunt that had a Super 8 camera and I remember that I never saw the footage. Maybe once I did. It didn’t have the single frame capability.

BREAKFAST MOVIE CLUB Over breakfast, Oldenburg and Eggleston compared notes on the movies that inspired them to create animated films.

Here’s a few to add to your watch queue:

BRANDON: Did you use a tripod?

RALPH: I didn’t even know what that was. I was just holding the camera. They were always worried about what an expensive piece of equipment it was. I remember begging and begging and begging my parents for a Super 8 camera and, finally, they did get it for me. I can’t remember the brand but it had single frame capability. Of course, once I got it, the film was expensive. Like buying a car, insurance...oh yeah.

ALIEN

APPLE DUMPLING GANG

BEN-HUR

MARY POPPINS

THE WESTERNER

THE COLLECTOR

BRANDON: Oh yeah, the Bible paper!

RALPH: I was so excited because look at all the pages!

BRANDON: Why aren’t there more books published on Bible paper? It is amazingly thin. I don’t understand how they cut that paper so thin.

RALPH: Did you do the same thing?

BRANDON: So much time and effort. You have to make sure, first off, you have enough lighting so you can see it correctly. And then, a month later you get the film back, half the time it wasn’t lit right. You’d have to start all over. It took so much time!

RALPH: There was no one to teach me and I had to literally figure it all out. The closest thing to

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it was being able to find photography books.

But even still, I had not equated things like a lens of a still camera to lenses of a movie camera. The Super 8 cameras of the time— unless you had really expensive cameras— you couldn’t change the lenses or anything.

FINDING YOUR PEOPLE BRANDON: How did you find out about CalArts?

RALPH: So, I wrote [Disney animator] Glen Keane a letter and he told me about CalArts and that was it: I’m going there.

BRANDON: So, Glen helped you find your path.

RALPH: Well, he didn’t help me. But, he wrote me a letter back.

BRANDON: It was just what you needed though.

BRANDON: But you did it. I would love to see it. You have to show me it.

RALPH: Yeah, right, I had no idea what CalArts was before then. I was a dopey kid; so, I didn’t think of anything like my parents couldn’t afford it. It wasn’t really important.

It was like I have to go there. I’m not going to learn about animation anywhere else, which, actually wasn’t that far from the truth.

RALPH: Oh yes. And, I got a full scholarship. I still had to pay for certain things.

I had never been on a plane before, you know. It was very life changing. For years, I was embarrassed to talk about it. I left home wearing a suit on a plane, like you did then. God bless my mom and dad. When

…THE MOMENT I GOT THERE, I FELT LIKE I WAS HOME. BRANDON: I imagine you were a pretty passionate kid, that once you found what you loved they went, “oh, okay, CalArts is where he needs to be. He loves this. Let’s make it happen.”

RALPH: Oh yeah, they absolutely helped.

BRANDON: How did you afford to go?

RALPH: I had made a decent little short film and a portfolio. I didn’t know what good drawing was; but, I had made a decent short film and that’s what got me in. I actually animated a very short film—it made no sense—

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I got to CalArts, it’s an extremely liberal college. It’s an art school right? I had no idea what that was. But, the moment I got there, I felt like I was home.

BRANDON: Yeah, like this is my world.

There are other people influenced by the same things. It is a weird moment when you find those people. I had the same experience at Ringling [College of Art and Design].

THE SCARIEST PART RALPH: People would ask me sometimes what’s the scariest or the hardest part of a movie you’ve worked on. And, the hardest

part is actually—the scariest part, I should say—is finishing the film and waiting for it to be in theaters. It’s because you can’t change it anymore. And yet, now you are going to be judged on it. You’ve been working on it for five years. Or even, if it’s a short film, the first time you have to screen it for somebody: it’s scary.

BRANDON: We were very fortunate with our first screening of Flying Books to do it here, locally, at the Robinson Film Center. It had an additional minute and a half in it. We needed to present it as the world premiere, and that it was finished. There were several shots in the piece—how do I describe this—that were playblasts that had color tinting in it. To my grandmother’s eye, they appeared finished.

But, a lot of friends were like, “were there a few shots in there that weren’t finished?” Yeah, yeah yeah… let’s not talk about that. But, to be able to have that luxury, to be able to digest it, sit in the audience with them, and say, “yeah, that minute there, we should just lose that.”

That was a luxury.

I assume with screenings you do that with your own team and you go, “let’s be honest with ourselves that doesn’t have to be there.”

Sometimes, it’s because you didn’t have the money or time to render it. That made you be more resourceful; and then, it made it better.

It’s these robot sharks like in Jaws that broke on set but in the end the lack of shark makes the imagination take flight and in the end makes the story better.

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A PARTING THOUGHT Written by Kemerton Hargrove

C

oming off the heels of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, I couldn’t help but feel as if our nation was divided—swayed by political rhetoric, bureaucratic mudslinging, and mindless drivel from all corners of social media.

And yet, just as I began to lose hope, I was reminded of our ability to rally behind a cause—to stand together, regardless of party affiliation, color or creed.

Last week, I moved out of my house. I didn’t go far—a couple of miles, if that—but the support I received from friends, family and even strangers was unlike anything I’d experienced before. So many voices, coming together to say “I know how it feels. Hang in there.” Or “I had to move last year. Nearly killed me. Good luck.” And even the occasional “Do you need help? I have a truck, if you want to borrow it.” I was floored.

The response was overwhelming.

In a time of so much uncertainty, and conflict, to witness so many people banding together to collectively say, “Moving is horrible, there is nothing worse, I would rather just burn my house down than move again” was beyond refreshing. It was a reminder that, regardless of our political differences, we stick together during a crisis—especially if it’s one that’s, like, super annoying.

Sometimes it’s hard to ignore the fervent uproar between opposing factions, each insisting they know what’s best for our nation going forward. Before you begin to doubt the idealistic principles our republic was founded upon or give in to the hysteria, I implore you to look for the good out there, rather than the bad.

For example, a Facebook status detailing one’s flight being delayed is almost always met with universal compassion, regardless of political alignment or geopolitical influence.

“Ugh. A four hour layover?! That’s the worst!”

“You should sue the airline, teach those guys a lesson.”

“We’re praying for you and hope you can find the comfort you seek at the airport Chili’s.”

In fact, while some view Facebook as nothing more than a hotbed of diplomatic discourse, there’s plenty of camaraderie to be found there. I, myself, happen to be a member of my neighborhood’s Facebook group, where neighbors interact daily. The members of this group receive a plethora of information ranging from the elementary (“Which plumber should I use that’s good at his job and doesn’t steal?”) to the profound (“Did anybody else hear a weird bang around 4:30 am last night?”) and back again (“Larry, sorry to hear about your predicament. Unfortunately it’s not for me to say whether or not you’re having a heart attack, as the symptoms vary and I have no medical expertise, but unfortunately you’ll have to redirect the question to the neighborhood group in your area, as you’re technically outside of this one’s jurisdiction.”)

Sure, it’s hard to surf the web and not come across something negative, or even hateful. But keep surfing. For every ten posts calling for martial law or a violent uprising, there’s a post about someone getting a flat tire—prompting unanimous support from all corners of the globe.

Other examples? Power outage. (“It’s been six hours, and we still don’t have electricity. Do they expect us to live like savages?”)

The DMV. (“Stay strong. We’re thinking of you. Can I get you anything? A blanket, or bottle of bourbon?”) Or, the granddaddy of them all…a cat video. (“I just watched this seventeen times in a row and I’m driving. So funny, worth the risk!”

And if the situation’s really dire, and you need a reminder of how harmonious we can be, just mention Comcast.

We might disagree on a lot of things, but not on Comcast.

Never on Comcast.

See you at the polls.

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