World premiere screenings, followed by dinner reception and filmmaker discussion session.

• Friday, August 22, 7:pm at Ashe Cultural Center, New Orleans
• Saturday, August 23, 5:pm (previously scheduled 3:pm screening has been changed) at Zeitgeist Multimedia Arts Center, New Orleans

What would New Orleans look like if it were home to the nation’s top urban public school system?

Executive Producer Matt Wisdom and Digital Filmmaker Tim Ryan hope to help convey that vision in a new short Internet documentary about recent successes within New Orleans public charter schools. In addition to an insiders look into what makes public Charter schools successful, the short film addresses the impact current public school reform will have on the future of New Orleans.

Ahhh, we have a place in Central City to do editing! We met up with Lee Stafford @ Zeitgeist / Saturn Silk Screen building (which he owns) and got to move some toilets and air conditioning units to make the space our own. It’s a modest 7 x 12 foot corner that doesn’t quite have walls yet (but the frame of a wall is there!) and we put up a temporary table with the iMac and the external hard drive to call it our editing suite! Yah!

Jeremiah was the first one to christen the suite as he went through some footage for his theme of economic development. Lee also found a disc with many historic pictures from the neighborhood and here are some of them below:

Handelman’s Building before renovations in the 1970s’.

Felicity Street @ Dryades Street at the turn of the century - before paved roads.

A Fish Monger and wife running a store on Dryades Street (date unknown).

Caricia and I are living in New Orleans for most of the summer and we are so excited with the footage and the project in general. Here are some images from various participants:

The Famous Handelman’s Building on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (once called Dryades Street) It is now home to the LANO (Lousianna Non-Profit Organization building).

Trash piles from the destroyed housing projects on Freret Street.

The now defunct Charity Hospital - which is a shell of a building right in downtown New Orleans.

A trumpet player that was sitting in front of a church on Simon Bolivar Blvd. one afternoon, just getting his chops back. He has since called me and told me that he has gotten a band together — hopefully we can get them to do some music for the film.

It is now time for the editing / mentoring process as the participants have broken the project into three main themes: Housing Development, Educational Development, and Economic Development. I have digitized all of the footage I have in hand and have logs for most the tapes as well. There are about 50 different tapes that have been shot and some really exciting stuff to put together. We are supposed to be moving the editing equipment into the Zeitgeist Building on Oretha Castle Haley (OCH) and we’ll see if that happens tomorrow - just waiting to hear back from the owner of the building Lee Stafford, who is part of the business bureau of OCH.

OCH, once called Dryades Street, was the center of black-owned businesses for many years.

This is a picture from 1946 looking down Dryades Street when there was a streetcar that ran along it and thriving businesses that lined it. The group has decided to take an historical look at the neighborhood to get an idea of where it’s been to know where they want it to go.

Video Blog Part 2 from our New Orleans Video Voice Project.

Video Blog part 1 of our first trip to New Orleans.