Email
PrintLiving Arts of Tulsa presents its 24-Hour Video Race
On your mark, get set, record!
If you like making movies or shooting video footage, and if you’re in or near Tulsa, you probably already know about the 24-Hour Video Race, which the Living Arts gallery (now located at 307 E. Brady St.) hosts annually. If you’re a local filmmaker who somehow doesn’t know about this race, please read on.
Or if — like myself — you’re just a person who enjoys seeing new movies, and outside-the-mainstream ones at that, you’ll want to know about it as well.
This year’s video race happens Feb. 6. There’s also a “kickoff party” at Living Arts Feb. 5. And most if not all of the films submitted during this year’s race will be shown at a “3rd Thursday” screening at Philbrook Museum of Art Feb. 18. (The race is presented in connection with Philbrook and Oklahoma City’s Individual Artists of Oklahoma. For more information, visit www.livingarts.org or call 585-1234.)
Recently, I contacted Steve Liggett, artistic director of Living Arts of Tulsa, to learn a bit more about the video race. He kindly agreed to the following Q&A.
The race is now in its fifth year. Describe how it began. It began as an offshoot of my visits to the Dallas Video Festival. Bart Weiss, director of the Video Association of Dallas, started that event, and I felt like the challenge it presented would be good for all the videophiles in Tulsa. After talking with Pam Hodges at Philbrook, we decided to go in on it together — and Katie Giminez, who was working as my intern at the time, had previously worked with Bart in Dallas. She also helped us get it started.
How exactly does it work? Videographers must utilize the assigned elements of a certain prop, a given line of dialogue and a chosen theme in their videos. And all videos must be under five minutes in terms of running time. A participant can have up to eight people in his or her team, and each participant’s video must be planned, shot, edited and then put onto a DVD or VHS tape within the 24-hour limit. Finally, entries can be submitted at either the Living Arts space in Tulsa or at Individual Artists of Oklahoma in OKC.
So it’s a statewide happening, in a way. Do you really attract people from all over the state? And can you describe a typical participant? It’s been interesting to watch. Some people are just into it for the fun — staying up all night, running around town filming stuff, that sort of thing. Others are either serious video-makers or students in film school. And although most of the submissions are from the OKC and Tulsa areas, we do have some entries from all over Oklahoma.
It’s been a popular event over the years. Was it slow to catch on, or have you always had lots of entries? The turnout is incredible. It always has been, even during the first year.
Describe an especially notable or memorable video from years past. For the first year’s race, our theme was “miscommunication,” and a team from OKC came up with an amazing video that parodied the “Miss Universe” contest. It was hilarious, and it got (those who made it) enough attention that they’ve been chosen every year since then to be the videographers for the deadCENTER Film Festival’s introductory videos. They were also asked to work on the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition’s video catalogs.
Several months ago, Living Arts moved to a great new location on Brady, in downtown Tulsa. As far as the video race is concerned, how will your new digs make for a different experience? Well, as we continue to define the new space, or spaces, and to see how things work there, we plan to use our facility more and more as a creative space for video work — a place where videographers’ creations can be both shown and developed. I think our new location will offer an even greater opportunity for young talent to work with video.
In this age of video-capable cell phones and Web sites like YouTube, it seems that everyone and his brother shoots digital footage and then shares it with the masses. Has the recent development of this sort of instant filmmaking, so to speak, influenced your contest? I know that a lot of the final videos from the last two years of our event have been uploaded to YouTube and that appropriated parts of videos made for us have made their way into other works on YouTube. But our interest is really centered on people making new works, using whatever methods available. Some of the animated work in the past — that is, animation used in videos created for our event — has been worked on in Oklahoma and then sent to friends in, say, Seattle, who added their own soundtrack to it and sent it right back. So, I guess “the medium is the message” still rings true!
Your video race is a very concentrated (and maybe even frenzied) event; much activity is packed into a 24-hour period. And it’s a race, of course — there’s a finish line involved. What’s the best part of the whole experience, in your view? No doubt many Oklahomans, as well as many people elsewhere, are procrastinators — so a lot of what happens here comes down to packing as much creativity as possible into a 24-hour experience. That is the aspect that’s made this event become a real success. And it’s been the most fascinating aspect for me personally, I think. We see this race as just one of many things that we’re offering to help create a more interesting place for people to live. It’s empowering, as people come in contact with the power and the freedom granted through the medium of video.
Scott Gregory hosts “All This Jazz” on Public Radio 89.5 KWGS, where he also serves as the producer and editor of “Studio Tulsa.”
