You asked for it: DVD pre-orders are now available!
Grab one for yourself and send another to your favorite LaPortean: the Director’s Edition DVD out this fall. Please help us spread the word and share the film with loved ones near and far. Thank you so much for helping to support the project! Click the photo below to bring you to the DVD store…
Thanks to LP for an amazing week! Tomorrow Indy!
Thank you all so much for the kind words and support! We had an amazing few days in LP, and we’re looking forward to the Indy Film Fest tomorrow and on the 22nd.
For those wondering about DVDs, we made tiny “limited edition” batch to share with those at the LP premiere. We’ll have just a few more tomorrow at the Indy screening, but then the first edition is SOLD OUT. We’ll be making more DVDs in the upcoming weeks and will soon set up a pre-order system to make sure you can get a copy for yourself and loved ones across the country. Check back for more info shortly, and hope to see you in Indy! And YES! We will be setting up more screenings in more cities… looking forward to bringing the film to your town, too.
“LaPorte, Indiana” to premiere… in LaPorte, Indiana!
Please join us for the world premiere of LaPorte, Indiana! We’re thrilled to announce three very special screenings on Wednesday July 14th (invite-only for friends and family of the film) and Thursday July 15th at the LaPorte Cinema. Mark it on your calendar! 7:30 show is sold out, and we’ve just added a 9:30pm show by popular demand! Get your tickets at B&J’s American Cafe, located at 607 Lincolnway in downtown LP. Can’t wait to see you later this week.
Space or No Space?
Here’s a sneak peak from the upcoming film – think of it as a little holiday gift. Tell us how you spell it!
Congrats on the Emmy, Joe!
We’re thrilled to announce that Joe Beshenkovsky won an Emmy for his editing work on the This American Life tv show. Here’s a photo of LaPorte, Indiana’s director/editor hanging with his hardware for Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming. Congrats, Joe!
If you’re interested in watching the winning “John Smith” episode or any of the TAL shows, you can see them on a super-limited edition DVD set that’s available here.
And Now… The Trailer!
We’re psyched to share a sneak peek of our upcoming LaPorte, Indiana doc film. Let us know what you think! And please help us spread the word- pass it along!
Help Us Raise $7500 $12,000 by August 21st!
From the inception of the film, we wanted this to be a community-based project. To date, we’ve bankrolled the filming out of our own wallets, and from the good will and donations from generous friends and strangers. We’ve decided to join with the good folks at Kickstarter to try to raise an initial $7500 $12,000 to help defray production costs. We know the micro-financing model will help the film stay in loving hands as we finish up the editing and post-production phases. And beyond this, we want you to be part of the project! We’ll keep you posted with updates and keep you posted every step along the way. Every dollar donated will go towards the completion of this film and to help get it out to festivals in 2010. Any amount- large or small- helps towards sharing these stories.
Beyond this, we offer a ton of great rewards- from original Frank Pease photos to signed books to caricatures and songs written especially for you – maybe you have a sweetheart with an upcoming birthday? We’ve got all sorts of things that could not only impress- but also help support our project. Thanks so much for your generosity, we really appreciate it.
Director of Photography, Jeremy Gould
We’re thrilled to be working with our esteemed DP, Jeremy Gould. Here’s Jeremy shooting from the overpass in downtown LP.
First Shoot
Just returned from seventeen days in LaPorte. We’ll be updating the site shortly with more production stills and stories from our time in town. Two more shoots to go… we have a feeling this film is going to be something special. Here, we followed some local high school seniors over to the New Buffalo Beach on the shores of Lake Michigan two days before their graduation.
About the Film
One afternoon not long ago, after lunch at a small Midwestern diner, I stumbled onto a forgotten archive. In the back of the B & J’s American Cafe were box upon box of studio portraits of the townspeople of LaPorte, Indiana—over 18,000 in total.
Taken over three decades by local photographer Frank Pease, the photos marked many important milestones—a sailor in uniform, a graduate in cap and gown, a couple newly-engaged—while others made modest attempts at posterity. Though in subsequent decades, conventional portrait studios have fallen out of favor to snapshots and iPhone pics, Frank Peases’ archive collects many of the significan moments and events that define all of our lives. I instantly fell in love with these photographs and soon compiled many of them into the book “LaPorte, Indiana.”
The feature documentary film, LaPorte, Indiana will bring these Frank Pease photographs to life, sharing the vivid stories which create this tight-knit American community.
Emmy-nominated editor and first-time Director, Joe Beshenkovsky, was equally taken by these photos and understood that the story of an entire town rested in those twenty-two boxes. We soon travelled to Indiana in search of these personalities, to learn how their lives unfolded forty years after their portrait was snapped.
After multiple trips and shoots, we’re thrilled with the stories we’ve uncovered. We’ve already shot sit-down interviews with fifteen characters from the Frank Pease photos, and have tagged along with young LaPorteans as they graduate from high school, get married and decide where they will settle down in town, or set off elsewhere to raise their kids.
Falling somewhere between The Straight Story, Errol Morris’ films, and the Up Series, LaPorte, Indiana will help shed some light on how communities help shape their citizens and how and why people make the decision to stay in the town where they were raised, or how they decide to find their way elsewhere.
