Big Sky Documentary Film Festival 2009

"Step Right Up, Pull out Your wallets and Win a prize!"

"Hit em high Hi em low, Hit em in the middle and down they go!"

Words to live by, literally...."if ya don't have a good tag working a joint that brings the marks in to play, then you don't make no money and you don't eat". The life of a Carny, agent, showman, ride jock, what ever ya want to call the guys and gals that sweat out rock salt and spin it into a fine sugary floss, that rattle and cajole across this vast country called the United States(and into Canada too). CARNY a documentary made in collaboration with Canadian Filmmaker Alison Murray and me, Virginia Lee Hunter. Alison and myself traveled a season with a carnival, up and down the eastern states following 5 carnival workers. Each character unfolds their aspirations and struggles involving love, friendship, family, the middle class dream, and just wanting a community that accepts and which to belong.
Hairy, the cotton candy maker wants to be loved by the woman of her dreams. She envisions finding her anywhere, even at a truck stop working the counter eagerly longing to run away with the carnival and love Hairy.
Bozo Dave, the dunking tank clown, was born into the carnival business calling it a ‘family business’. His Father had carnival rides and conjoined brothers, Ronnie and Donnie were on exhibition. He knows no other means to live by until his sudden and unexpected departure. The revelations surrounding this departure haunt and torment not only himself as the film reveals, but Ray, his best friend still on the carnival show Dave left behind.
Life in the carnival business does not always bode well for everlasting friendships but somehow Ray thought this friendship was different. Meanwhile, Ray and Stephanie, his wife and mother of his daughter diligently work towards achieving their idea of middle class dream, elusive yet possible on the carnival.
As Ray and Stephanie have their eyes on the prize(better truck, bigger house trailer, another baby), Dave V and his 2 girlfriends are still at step one in achieving likeminded goals. Despite working as a team to help achieve these goals, they still remain in the bunkhouses among all the other carnival workers.
The lone ranger is Poochie Love. Poochie is an ‘agent’ who used to work the games they called ‘traps’. Games you couldn’t win, unless he wanted you to win. But those are outlawed and now he works a game where you pop balloons with darts in order to win a prize. Poochie’s former self’s aspirations were to be a singer and has all the moves to prove he could have been up on stage with the likes of James Brown or even be one of the Temptations. His stage now consists of rows of balloons instead of rows of lights rows of lights, Instead of an audience captured by him in song and dance, he ‘grinds’ all day and night trying to capture the attention of passers by on the Midway, hoping to lure them into spending a dollar or two. It’s for the money, all for the money, and a little bit of joy seen on the faces when the ‘marks’ pop a dart and win a prize.
As well as telling the often gritty stories of the carnies, the film conveys the nostalgic timelessness of the carnival and what it brings to the small towns they travel through using imagery shot with the classic Super 8 mm Kodachrome 40's rich and saturated stock.
A bit about myself: In 1996 I set out with a couple of Nikons, a tape recorder, sleeping bag and a hunting knife to explore the life of the Carny. I wanted to see if the carnival still held its own in this modern world. If it still was apart of Americana. I wanted to know who the carny was as well. I still remember the whistle a carny made towards me when I was roaming the midway as a young teen, marouding the midway in search of something more exciting than what my town offered. I had often wondered who that carny was. Why they had the reputations they had. Who was the 'Carny' anyways?
After many summers traveling across the country, I felt like I had my answers. My images and stories are published in a photographic book called 'CARNY:Americana on the midway' by Umbrage Editions. The images from this book inspired CARNY . Alison, whom I had met several years earlier at a HOBO Convention(another story but I highly recommend 'Train on the Brain', Alison's first doc) and I teamed up in 2005 to begin the filming - she as director and I as Director of Photography.
Please come see CARNY if you have nostalgia for the midway of your youth, or are just curious to meet some amazingly poignant and witty, charming , carnival workers on the screen. Life can be hard, but then there's cotton candy.....
Screening
Monday 2/16 at 11:15 am at Wilma 1 Theater