***************************THE GOAL IS SIMPLE. I WANT TO MAKE FILMS ABOUT NEW ORLEANS. I SOLD MY CAR TO MOVE TO L.A. TO CHASE A DREAM THAT ONE DAY SOMEONE WILL GIVE ME THE NOD AND I CAN MAKE FILMS ABOUT WHERE I CAME FROM... WHERE MY FAMILY GOES BACK GENERATIONS. I AM NATIVE. I AM NEW ORLEANS. STAY TUNED. I CHASED MY DREAMS TO SUNDANCE 2008 WHERE AN UNLIKELY CAST OF CHARACTERS, FROM SIMEON RICE TO GEORGE ROMERO HAD A HAND IN MAKING MY TRIP A SUCCESS.************************** ************************* ************************ "IT'S ONLY AFTER WE'VE LOST EVERYTHING THAT WE'RE FREE TO DO ANYTHING." -Tyler Durden *************************** ************************** **************************"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." -Cecil Beaton ********************** ********************** ********************** THIS IS MY THANK YOU TO YOU NEW ORLEANS __________________________________________ Words cannot express the sense of gratitude I have to offer up to the world and especially to New Orleans for all that she has given me. Without New Orleans, Without Hurricane Katrina, I would not be the person I am today. When Katrina happened I thought I was going to lose my beloved city forever. I'm going to cherish New Orleans for every moment that it's here and savor the sweet jazz culture. I'm going to spread it. I'm going to show people around the world what New Orleans is all about. I'm going to carry my Fleur De Lis and trumpet my Orleans from the treetops of skyscrapers of faraway cities. I'm going to tell them about our second line parades, about our bounce music, about our love, about our food, about our every thing. One day I hope to be able to make feature films about my city to show the world what my home is all about. You need to see the Big Chief. You need to know how to JOCK A MO FE NA NE! You need to know the spirit, the heart, the soul, the brass, the SATCHMO in you. New Orleans is love. You need to know we don't say "N'awlins" and that we say "NOLA". Make Levees. Not War! So here I am, trying to spread that NOLA holding my tiger rag, swaying and swinging, trying to shed a little light on the world. LOVE is the cure for all things. ************************ ************************ ************************ MY MANTRA was given to me by an old friend named "POPS" ************************************** ************************************** "The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by I see friends shaking hands.....sayin.. how do you do Theyre really sayin......i love you. I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow Theyll learn much more.....than Ill never know And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world" --Louis Armstrong *************************************** *************************************** ***************************************"Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation." -Salvador Dali Reach me on Aim @ CBISBEEZIE Catch me on Youtube @ Youtube.com/indiefilmnola My website is launching soon at www.christophercbrown.com ********************** ********************** ********************** ********************** ***************************** ****************************Dear Artists, people, friends, and anyone who's ever met me... my mission is to infect everyone around me with positive energy. To motivate. To inspire. To light the path. The light of which I speak stems from helping people, bestowing loving acts that do not benefit you... Help someone today. Help someone tomorrow. Inspire an awakening in someone. Give someone their hope back. Do it every single day. That's the answer. That's the truth (ruth). Have a dream, and share in it with others, let them share in it with you. Every action you commit has a reaction that spans the globe. We're all in this together. We're all human beings, and members of the HUMAN RACE. Are you capable of letting go of the petty dividing factors? I love all of you, and I hope that when you wake up tomorrow, you see the world as I see it, with an affinity and love for all people. ******* ***********************************************
*********************************************** *********************************************** I WANT TO MAKE A BIOPIC FILM ABOUT DR. JOHN *********************************************** ****************************** "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Gandhi ****************************** "So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." -Christopher Reeve******* ****R*E*S*O*U*R*C*E*S****for******ACTORS/FILMMAKERS**** ****To all my New York Filmmakers**** check out Tom Lassu's New York City Film Synergy Group..... go here: http://filmind.meetup.com/261/ **** **** To ALL MY LOCAL NEW ORLEANS and LOUISIANA FILMMAKERS AND ACTORS, SCROLL DOWN FOR RESOURCES in NEW ORLEANS, including **email lists** and websites to check frequently for updates **** ****Nouvelle-orleans ! !!! Fier pour Nager .. la maison ! !!!! ***** ¡Nueva Orleans! !!! ¡Orgulloso Nadar en casa! !!!! ***** New Orleans!!! Stolz, nach hause zu schwimmen! ***** New Orleans! !!! Orgoglioso per Nuotare la Casa! !!!! ***** New Orleans! !!! Trots om Huis Te Zwemmen! !!!! ***** Novo Orleans! !!! Orgulhoso Nadar para casa! !!!! ***** ********************************* ******************************** "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." -Buddha ***************************************A*B*O*U*T****M*E***** ***My name is Christopher. I make films and organize the New Orleans Filmmakers. I love New Orleans, I love film, and I love people. I love to meet people who have ambition and goals and dreams. Follow your dreams and I can assure you there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm a writer-director, a poet, but foremost, I'm a New Orleanian. I enjoy doing charity work and helping others and I enjoy empowering people. I love being a part of rebuilding New Orleans by helping to build a film community here. I hold art and emotion sacred. Dream big and make it happen, because any thing is possible if your heart is in the right place. I believe that now, 2 years after Katrina, our grieving is beginning to fade and our hope is beginning to resurrect. The time of storm has passed and now is the time for healing, it's time for us to dream together...it is time for a renaissance.******************************** ******************************** ***I*N*F*L*U*E*N*C*E*D**** B*Y*****N*e*w* O*r*l*e*a*n*s*.... ****M*U*S*I*C********* (was never formally taught to me) Early on, I was strongly influenced by Wild Wayne on the radio station Q93, the early bounce music of TT Tucker, Ricky B, Cheeky Black, early Mystikal, DJ Jubilee, and Partners N Crime. A few years later, The deaths and music of Kurt Cobain and 2pac Shakur made me develop a strong appreciation for both, as well as the genres they came from, the Seattle Underground and the West Coast Hip Hop. As I grew older, my tastes broadened to jazz and second line music and I developed a fondness for the music of Kermit Ruffins and Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong became perhaps my greatest influence, a hero, someone who came from poverty, turned music into his weapon, and still continued to grow as an artist, inventing many new types of music and making jazz a soloist's art form. I began to love New Orleans' sounds of music that Jazz Fest only furthered my affections for.... artists like Fats Domino, Dr. John, Professor Longhair, Ernie K Doe, Earl King, Lee Dorsey, The Neville Brothers, The Meters, Chris Kenner, and Irma Thomas. Over time, I began to resent private radio. I loved WWOZ (www.wwoz.org) and WTUL (www.wtul.fm). I started to love folk music like Bob Dylan and Arlo and Woody Guthrie, and I began to love classical music like Beethoven, Berlioz, Debussy, and more contemporary composers like Danny Elfman and Gyorgy Ligeti and I began to understand the value of original composition and how it can evoke moods. About the same time, I grew fond of indie rock, loving innovative bands like The Flaming Lips, The Brazillian Girls, The Mars Volta, and Bloc Party. Finally, my musical affections are now global, but I've also turned intrinsically to the music scene here, appreciating local bands like the New Orleans Bingo Show, Quintron, The Public, Trombone Shorty, and The Morning 40 Federation. I still continue to search myspace for new bands, new artists, new sounds.I*N*F*L*U*E*N*C*E*D*** BY****F*I*L*M*S**&**D*I*R*E*C*T*O*R*S* (was never formally taught to me) I see a film as more than just a movie. I see the ability to grow and to awaken. I feel I've grown so much from the films I've seen and the experiences they've evoked emotionally. Films that influenced me: Donnie Darko, Nosferatu, Metropolis, The Trial, Do the Right Thing, Ran, Trainspotting, Once Were Warriors. My strongest influences as directors are Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, and Orson Welles. I loved Orson Welles because he was a boy wonder, someone who never let age dictate his confidence or his abilities... Someone who tricked everyone in the country in his twenties with his War of the Worlds broadcast, when he was 17 he told everyone in Dublin he was a famous actor from New York so he could take to the stage. I admire Spike Lee because of his social realism, he sees films as a way of self-growth, something I've experienced personally. Films awakened me. I want to emulate what he did with Do The Right Thing, he took a broken down Brooklyn neighborhood, the Stuyvesant, and he re-vitalized it by shooting the movie there and throwing a party for the people of the neighborhood, I want to do the same in New Orleans and give back to the community. When I met Spike, all I could say was thank you, When the Levees Broke is a good portrayal of New Orleans culturally and of the state and federal government's failures in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. I love Spike's often criticized stylizations, the still walk, the constant "WAKE UP" references directly addressing his audience, and I love his charisma and passion, he's truly a wonderful human being. Stanley Kubrick was a technical genius as well as a chess master director. He could evoke any performance, he was one of the first to develop the steadi-cam, and he even had the genius to put a speedometer on his steadicam rig for "The Shining" so all the shots would be the same speed. Finally, Martin Scorsese's film, "Raging Bull" was a movie that changed my view of what a movie can be. I saw a man in Jake Lamotta, not innocent nor guilty, but someone who like so many of us often is somewhere in between. The shameless portrayal was beautiful like nothing I'd ever seen. Martin Scorsese continues to change filmmaking. Even now, I continue to grow in my tastes in film, most recently I'm developing a love for the films of Ingmar Bergman after seeing Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light and Truffaut for Shoot the Piano Player and The 400 Blows. *********************************** ****F*I*L*M******R*E*S*O*U*R*C*E*S**** One of the best resources for you in the New Orleans area is Timecode: NOLA, a television show on Cox that shows your indie films. Be sure and visit their website and submit, and get your films SEEN!!!!http://www.timecodenola.comOther resources for filmmakers.....http://www.withoutabox.com (to submit to film festivals) http://www.wga.org (to register your screenplays) http://www.youtube.com (to upload your videos) http://www.imdb.com (to check credits) ************************************* ***A*C*T*O*R***R*E*S*O*U*R*C*E*S*** ****If you are an actor or aspiring actor, here is a list of email lists and websites that you can sign up on or refer to for Casting Calls, Info on How to Audition, Info on Headshots & Making your Resume', etc. Just be sure to actually READ YOUR EMAIL. All of these lists are run/organized by a variety of different knowledgeable people, including: Veleka Gray, Wayne Morgan, Johnny Rock, Lauren Michelle, Lance Nichols, and many more.... hope this helps you!!!!!Email lists.... Louisiana Produces http://filmind.meetup.com/3/ H.U.R.D. Casting Networkhttp://filmind.meetup.com/179/Audition New Orleanshttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/AuditionNewOrleans/ Gulf South Actors http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GulfSouthActors/Louisiana Filmhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouisianaFilm/New Orleans Professional Actors http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nopa/Websites..... Louisiana Film / Tv Websitehttp://www.lafilm.org*********************************
