Broadcast Premiere

I watched the documentary’s broadcast premiere last night on both television and my computer. There was a couple second delay between the two, which created an interesting sense of deja vu. This was a very different experience from the NJN premiere, since I was home alone watching the show on two small screens as opposed to seeing it on the big screen with 200 other people.

 

As I looked at the documentary I thought about the process of bringing all these stories together into a one-hour program. I thought about how we as producers start with a concept in our minds that grows into a shared vision that has the potential to reach millions of viewers.  (No wonder I try so hard to be clear and accurate in what I write.)

 

Seeing the documentary on television for the first time is a little like watching your child reach a milestone. You want to continue providing them with guidance, but realize that they don’t need your assistance. They can stand on their own two feet. When I finish a documentary I often have this similar realization. Now the show can stand on its own. It no longer needs my help. It has its own life, so to speak, and through the medium of television it will connect with people I will never know.

 

 

The Disappearing House

In my last blog entry I promised to tell you about the disappearing house in the title/open. The story actually starts in Wyckoff, New Jersey which is a hotbed for teardowns. I interviewed Michael Brienza the co-founder of the Friends of Wyckoff for the show. He gave me some photographs he had taken of the De Pew house before it was torn down. One of the empty rooms had wallpaper with little houses on it. I thought it was interesting and showed the photos to our graphic artist Steve Oleszek and said maybe there is something here that you can use in the open. When I told Steve the name of the house he looked a little surprised. “That’s the name of the town where I grew up,” he said. We both took it as a good sign.

 

Steve is very creative and he had the idea of taking one of the houses on the historic wallpaper and making it vanish to reveal the documentary’s title. He started by capturing the image on a computer animation program called After Effects. He slowly “painted” away parts of the house and painted in the background that would have existed. Steve decided to make this disappearance actually mimic the progression that an abandoned house goes through when it decays in real life. First the shutters and windows are gone. Then the roof and walls, finally there is nothing left but the trees that once surrounded the building.      

 

We liked the little house so much that we decided to use it as an icon for Our Vanishing Past. You will see it on the banner that appears when a person’s name is on screen in the documentary. It is also on the homepage and header for the website, the back cover of the DVD case and the tune-in cards for the show. For us it represents what we are losing from teardowns.

 

Do any of the places in Our Vanishing Past have a special meaning for you? Share your story by writing a comment below.

Did you watch the show at the premiere, on television or on line? Tell us what the experience was like. We want to know more.