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.  

It is hard to believe but tonight Our Vanishing Past will have its broadcast premiere! Tune in at 9 pm on NJN. If you live outside the NJN viewing area you can watch the show on njn.net when it is streamed live at 9 pm. Follow the link below.

http://www.njn.net/television/webcast/livestreaming.html

The documentary will then be archived on the OVP Video Gallery for later viewing.

When you watch the show, pay attention to the “little house” image that vanishes during the opening title. Tomorrow I will tell you the story of how we found this illustration and its special significance.

Also I invite you to share your thoughts about the show on this blog.

So tonight, get your favorite movie time snack and settle down to watch the people and places that are making history in New Jersey.  

The day of the premiere was a whirlwind. I picked up my two children Victoria and Richard from their respective schools early, so that we could get ready for the premiere of Our Vanishing Past. My son kept asking “Do I have to wear a suit?” While my daughter wanted to know if she could wear heels, even though she was still recovering from a sprained ankle.

At 2:30 we headed into the studio to check out the set-up of the HD equipment. As we watched the documentary play on the big screen I was truly impressed with the quality of “high definition”. The colors and architectural details were so vivid. The buildings seemed to be more true to life. We gave the studio crew a “thumbs up” and went upstairs to my office.

RSVPs were still coming in. Calls confirming the start time, asking for directions and wishing me good luck continued until 3:30. We went to the music library to pick out some background music for the reception. Richard kept selecting hard rock CDs and big orchestral sounds. We finally found something a little mellower. He liked the fact that the library room is sound proof and that it also has production music for things like “nightmares.”

While Victoria and I put on some last minute make-up in the dressing room, Richard sat at my computer and started reading my speech for that evening. When I came back he told me that he had fixed a couple things that were misspelled and had changed HD to high definition because it sounds better. I checked to make sure that was all he had changed and thought the kid’s eleven years old and he’s already editing copy.

At 4:15 we headed downstairs and waited for our guests to arrive. Soon the studio began to fill up. My mother Roni DiSipio and husband Jonathan Walker joined us. I was also happy to see some of the people that were in the program arrive, including Pinelands historian Ted Gordon, architect Michael Calafati and education director Jeffrey Macechak. A photographer captured images of many of our guests, including program content advisors Barbara Haney Irvine, Dorothy Guzzo, Ron Emrich and Howard Green.     

A little after 5 pm, NJN’s executive director Elizabeth Christopherson and board member Tom Bracken welcomed everyone to the premiere. Then the lights were dimmed and the show began.

Audiences create a sense of excitement and energy. It was really interesting to watch the documentary with 200 people in the room. Hearing their reactions surprised me. They chuckled at images of the children’s pie eating contest. Made sounds of surprise during the story on teardowns and Wildwood. Their reactions made me realize that the show was working. They were connecting with it.

When the documentary finished there was a moment of silence and I wondered, “Did they like it?” And then the applause came, that said “Yes we do.”

I much prefer to be behind the scenes so public speaking is always a challenge for me. When it was my turn to make a speech, I silently said a quick prayer, and then headed for the lectern. Somehow I got through it and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. When I said something humorous and the audience laughed it made me feel connected with them. When I mentioned liking Lucy the Elephant I saw nods of agreement around the room. Then I said that I was sorry I had to cut Lucy from the show due to a lack of time. When I told them that Lucy’s story now lives on the NJN/Our Vanishing Past website I saw lots of smiles.

Afterwards at the reception I had the chance to hear many more great stories about historic places. People showed me photographs of their favorite buildings. Told me about preservation battles that they were fighting. And why they liked the show.

If you were there that night please post your thoughts on the premiere. And don’t forget to send us photos by e-mail of your favorite building for the Snap Shot Gallery.

Cheers!

Okay, so it’s not the red carpet type in Hollywood, but it is a Premiere and you are invited! Tuesday, May 6^th at 5 pm at NJN Studios in Trenton. Be there to see Our Vanishing Past in High Definition on the big screen. Just RSVP on line at this website. We already have close to 150 people registered, but the studio holds more than 300 so there is plenty of room.

On our guest list so far we have architects, planners, mayors, members of the New Jersey Historic Trust, Preservation New Jersey, the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office, historical societies, friends groups, volunteers, production team members and now (as Uncle Sam says) we want you. 

Come and join the historic preservation community for an evening of fascinating stories, wonderful people and delicious hors d’oeuvres.

I am really excited about our Snap Shot Project. When I was producing Our Vanishing Past (OVP) I got to meet so many great people when we were taping stories at different locations. People who love history and old buildings.

As I would tell them about some of the places that were going to be in the documentary, nearly every person I spoke with would ask me a common question. “Is (fill-in-the-blank) going to be in the show?”

Sometimes I could answer, Yes! More times than not, the answer was no, sorry. (Let’s face it there are thousands of historic places that could be featured. Getting more than thirty into a one hour show was tough.) 

Then I would ask each person to tell me about their favorite place. I loved to hear their personal story about it. Why it was important. And if it was at risk. That is what gave me the idea to have a photo gallery on the OVP website where people could submit a photo and write a short description of their favorite place.

We really want to hear the stories and see the buildings that matter most to you. It can be a historic site on the national or state register of historic places. Maybe it is your own home that you restored.  A building that has a special memory for you. Or one that you are concerned about because it is at risk. It can even be a building that you have a photo of that is now gone forever.

We can only take photos and responses sent by e-mail. Please send them to me at lwalker@njn.org. We are accepting submissions for the month of May only, in honor of National Preservation Month. We will post the photos in the Snap Shot gallery for everyone to enjoy. Just a couple sentence description please. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

When you see an abandoned house does it make you stop and wonder? I always have that reaction. The more beautiful the house the more it makes me think about who lived there. What were they like? How did they feel when the house was brand new? Why is it empty now?

The first time I tried to save a house I was in elementary school. A friend told me and my brother that the old Donges Mansion was going to be torn down. We decided that it must be because Mrs. Donges couldn’t take care of the house by herself. (She was a nice little old lady.) We thought that if we helped clean it up that we could change people’s minds. (Ahh the innocence of youth.)

No one was home when we arrived to begin work. We decided to start in the carriage house behind the big Victorian mansion and spent the day sweeping and organizing things. Later that afternoon a man saw us cleaning and asked what we were doing. When we told him we were trying to fix the place up so that it wouldn’t be torn down, he was surprised. He said that wasn’t the reason the house was being torn down.

Of course, we didn’t believe him. He called Mrs. Donges, so that she could tell us for herself. She thanked us for trying to help, but said she couldn’t live there anymore and that she had sold the house to a real estate developer and he was going to tear it down to put up three new homes. She said that we could take something from the carriage house for all our hard work.

My brother Ron took a copy of the Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper dated 1899 that he found lying on a desk. On the bike ride home most of the paper disintegrated in the wind.  Only the part held in the palm of his hand survived. He still keeps this tattered piece of paper, because of the memories that it holds of a special place and a childhood adventure.

Ever since those early days I have had an interest in old homes. It intensified when my parents spent a summer looking at “fixer-uppers” with the intention of buying one, working on it and then selling it. It fascinated me to walk through each house. Imagine what it would be like to live there. They finally settled on a Victorian. We worked on it for a year. I cried the day it sold.

In college the first mini-documentary project I worked on featured the village of Smithville in Burlington County. I convinced the other members of my group that this would be a good topic. (Home of the dynamic Mr. Smith who built a woodworking machine factory, a mansion, conservatory, zoo, high wheeled bicycles and a bicycle railway. Smith later ran for Congress and was discovered to be a bigamist.) I still have the script and hope to transform that student project into a television show.

A year later I received a grant from the Burlington County Cultural and Heritage Commission to produce an independent documentary on the village of Whitesbog where the blueberry was first cultivated from the wild. The village was at risk of being torn down. I was one of a small group of people that helped to start the Whitesbog Preservation Trust, a non profit organization dedicated to preserving this historic site. Over the years, raising two small children took me away from my volunteer work there, but the group continues to this day.    

I tell these stories to give you a sense of why it means so much to me to have produced the documentary Our Vanishing Past. I feel like I have been fighting the preservation battle for a long time without even knowing it.

Working on this show has given me the chance to discover how at risk our historic buildings are in America. It has connected me with the historic preservation community, from the grass roots level to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I have interviewed volunteers, architects, mayors, builders, executive directors, teachers and historians who all have interesting stories to tell. They care about the historic character of the places where they live and are working to preserve these buildings. They also identify what we have lost. And why that loss makes it even more important to save what remains.

Throughout the Month of May I will be writing a producer’s blog to take you behind the scenes of the making of this documentary. You will get to discover how the team of associate producers, editors, camera people, graphic artist, music composer and executive producer all contributed to the creation of this show. I hope that you will read along and share your thoughts with me.