In March of 2011 I had the pleasure of attending an awesome workshop conducted by the wonderful Ami Vitale at Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. The week-long intensive, and I mean intensive, was focused on Multimedia Story Telling. Ami has traveled the world and her work speaks for itself…superb storytelling through images, video and audio. Aside from being a very sweet person, she is an excellent teacher who shared her knowledge of essentials to multimedia story telling such as scriptwriting, location scouting, video, audio, photography, editing, post production on Final Cut Pro (worth a week-long seminar in and of itself…) and, and, and, and…. in a very condensed time frame.
Here is the result of a very fast week in which we absorbed and processed many “first time” moments. The video was produced in collaboration with my team mate Ms. Edwina Pickles from Sidney, Australia who shot all stills for the piece.
[vimeo width=”550″ height=”385″]http://vimeo.com/21028087[/vimeo]
“There has never been a highway quite like Route 66. It was written about in Grapes of Wrath, sung praises to by Nat King Cole and the inspiration behind the brand name for K-mart’s denim line. Also commonly known as, “America’s Main Street” and “The Mother Road,” this classic route served a purpose other than transportation; it gave America a story.
People are still fascinated by the historic stretch of road that once connected Chicago and Los Angeles. It has been 25 years since Route 66 was decommissioned but the persevering landscape continues to tell its story. The meta-narrative of Route 66 thrives on America’s economic engine. As the first completely paved highway, it was seen as an opportunity for Mom-and-Pop type diners, motels and service stations. In a booming economy the traffic on the highway flowed and local businesses did well. Naturally, the opposite occurred in times of bust until Route 66 was dismissed as America’s Mother Road and simply became just another road.
The sophistication of highway engineering introduced the modern design for interstates. Even though Route 66 underwent constant changes to keep up with safer and larger roads, it was deemed irrelevant in 1985. Since then its local economy survives on the legacy of Route 66 and now refers to it as “Historic”. It is the untouched scenery that preserves its memory and allows people to savor one of America’s greatest stories.”
On my road trip back from New Mexico to Chicago, I shot additional film footage and still photographs in Texas and Oklahoma. I will put this together in an upcoming segment, Route 66 – Part II. Stay tuned and please check back…