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Baltimore County, MD
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smARTS
/ 28 Dec 2018
Baltimore County, MD
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smARTS
/ 28 Dec 2018
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From YouTube:
Baltimore County in Film
Description
Scott Braid and Joe Tropea.
A
(Upbeat music).
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Have you ever watched a film and thought hm, gee, that place looks familiar.
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and how closely do you look at movie credits?
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be honest,?
Do you watch all the way to the end?.
A
Scott braid, program, director for the maryland film festival and documentary film maker, joe tropea, join smarts for a look at made in baltimore, county films and film makers.
good to see you both.
A
good, to be here., it's great to be here.
B
Well, scott, you now head up the maryland.
A
Film festival, one of my favorite events of the year.
thank you., attended by people from all over the place, and I know a lot of baltimore county folks as well.
C
Yeah for sure.
yeah, the festival definitely draws heavily.
C
From the county and from the city and hopefully from the whole region.
A
Right and how do you think--?
What kind of environment does baltimore county.
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Provide for wannabe film makers and established film makers like our other guest here, today.
C
Well, I think one of the things that baltimore county.
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Provides and fosters is that it has such a great diversity of locations and experiences.
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There's so much access to culture in the city and in the county, and you know you can really get--.
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It seems like now, more so than ever,.
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You can have access to--.
C
Schools have film making programs, and you know when we were growing up it.
Maybe wasn't quite as--.
A
No, not at all, yeah.
C
My film school was a video store which were so prevalent when we were growing up.
A
Yeah video stores, huh?- I don't think they exist.
Anymore.
C
But I grew up in perry hall and we had a great local video store that was sort of my film school and got me interested in film.
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But then you know I was able.
C
To take some film classes at baltimore, county community colleges and that sort of.
A
Started me down this path.
good,, okay, so joe, you are one of our esteemed baltimore county, film makers..
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You grew up here as well.
B
I grew up in freeland, also know as the hereford zone.
A
Yes, yeah, I know that one., so you've done a number of films and some that have been very well received..
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Tell us about your latest film.
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My latest film is a history of movie censorship,.
It's called sickies making films and it chronicles the maryland censor board,, which, from 1916 to 1981, had to review.
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Every film shown in a theater here in the state.
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So was the maryland censor board,?
Is it a tough board?
I mean,?
Was it considered conservative compared to--?
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I didn't even know that each state-- does each state have it's own censor, board?
no, but many states did and then many.
B
Cities had them,, it was actually a very confusing system.
B
But yeah maryland had a tough board,.
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A lot of the people that were on the board.
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Were characters which is a nice way of saying.
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They had agendas and were kind of interesting people.
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How did you come up with the title?.
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Sickies making films.
the title was a quote from one of the censors,, a woman named mary avera.
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Had very strong opinions and she did the tv show circuit, she went on carson,.
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She went on dick cavett and she was a quote machine.
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I mean she just dropped quotes and I found some footage of her saying.
"We've got sickies making films" and I thought well that's a better title than I could write.
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So you interview some local people.
B
And some local celebrities?, I interviewed john waters,.
A lot of the story of my documentary is the story of his film making career.
A
Censorship and john waters probably go hand in hand, yeah..
He had some notorious battles with the board.
B
But I interview historians and I look at the censorship from its early days.
B
Which really was as soon as films, started.
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As soon as people started, making movies people wanted to censor them and we look at the various reasons they got: censored., race,, politics,, violence,, obviously, obscenity and sex.
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A lot of thought provoking and very relevant, continually relevant issues.
A
yes.
now,.
What I find interesting, too, is the maryland film festival and the film makers here,.
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A lot of these films are set in the east part of the county in dundalk.
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yeah this year in particular, we saw.
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Two major features that were made in dundalk.
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Which were different but rooted in the same sort of working class, ethos.
C
There was matt porterfield's sollers point which premiered at the san sebastian film festival.
I believe and went on to get distribution with a major national.
B
Distributor and have a theatrical run around the country.
A
I remember reading a lot about that.
C
And then there was a film called--.
C
Oh gosh.
A
[Carolyn], I think, all square.
all square, yeah thank you., which was our closing night film last year.
C
Which was made by a person who is.
C
A hollywood director.
[carolyn] john hyams.
yeah that decided that dundalk was a great location.
C
To set sort of a working class comedy drama.
C
Terrific.
A
So that portends, some good future films.
A
Being made right here in baltimore county by you and by you and your colleagues, I suspect.
C
Yeah I mean we're always looking for great work from baltimore, county,, baltimore city and there's a lot of talent in this area for sure.
A
Terrific,, well, we look forward to seeing your film and your film about the catonsville nine I mean we could go on and on, but we're out of time..
A
Thank you both for being here and thank you for all the good work, you're doing.
C
Thank you.
thanks for having us.
A
Thanks for watching., this is smarts, the baltimore county arts and culture show.