“Hello Louisiana”
by Monty Brown
To purchase a copy of "Hello Louisiana," go to Floyd's Record Shop.
Marsha and I began shooting “Hello Louisiana” in more halcyon days, in the times before the tempests assaulted our already eroding coastline, in the summer of ‘05. In fact, the seeds of this film were sown decades ago when we first became enthralled with the rich culture of our home state. It’s been a long lasting labor of love.
Some of our filming predates our acquisition of a 3-chip digital camera. Back in the late ‘90’s we were doing projects for ourselves and the Louisiana Folklife Center with our old High-8 camera; we took footage of Cajun Mardi Gras and Egg Pocking in Avoyelles Parish, transferred it to digital, and inserted it in our new film.
Our first project after we bought the digital camera, before we started filming either France or Britain, was in South Louisiana documenting some of the disc jockeys who produce the uniquely Louisiana Cajun French music programs.
More seeds were planted in the classrooms of Louisiana. Marsha and I have been performing a program for middle school Louisiana History students, making them aware of the rich musical heritage of their state. In that program, we take the students from north to south, to the places where jazz, cajun and zydeco music originated, and where blues, country and gospel music flowered. The film roughly follows this format.
We began assembling our “musical romp” around Louisiana a couple of years ago. Filming in your own back yard has its advantages: you can film in all seasons over a considerable length of time, if you wish. But then again, it’s sometimes hard to know when to stop. For a while, after we’d “finished,” we still kept looking at the end result as a work in progress, but after getting lots of positive feedback from many people within the state — people whose opinions we value — we’ve decided that it is, indeed, finished.
We are finding that there is a great deal of interest in Louisiana wherever we go. People want to know about our hurricane experiences, but we have little firsthand knowledge. Hurricane Katrina hit in the southeast corner of the state and then proceeded to sweep around to the east, to Mississippi and Alabama. Our weather in the northwest corner was sunny and calm throughout.
Rita was a different story. It made landfall along the coast shared by Texas and Louisiana and proceeded due north up the state line, which brought the eye right over us. However, we are a considerable distance inland, and, as everybody knows, hurricanes tend to lose their ferocity over land. We had power outages and downed trees, more like a violent late summer storm.
Holly Beach, one of our film locations on the Gulf Coast, was apparently wiped out. The Beach is known ironically as the “Cajun Riviera;” the good news is that the Beach has been flattened by hurricanes before and it always rebuilds its wooden beach houses elevated on piles. No fancy hotels, condos or casinos here.
During the last couple of seasons, presenting our travel films coast to coast, we have discovered that audiences like to see — people. Inasmuch as digital video has made the filming of people much easier, we try to insert people in amongst the scenery, the flowers, the children, the sheep, the Volkswagen, and the pictures of Marsha in ethnic garb. And audiences seem to like a little humor, too.
In “Hello Louisiana” we feature accordion makers, Boudin (Cajun sausage) eating, a chef’s bread pudding recipe, hunting alligators (with a camera), and local historians, along with a large dose of Louisiana music and cultural history. And it seems to be attracting statewide attention. It makes us realize it was a good choice of subject.
Who knows? Maybe here in Louisiana, we’ll once again hear those famous encouraging words, “You’re doing a good job, Brownie!”
This article first appeared in the Travel Adventure Magazine.
