About twelve and a half years ago I spent my thirtieth birthday in New Orleans with a wonderful old friend. She took me to a burlesque show and I had a great time. It was a really hot NOLA night.
Bellow are some notes I made then. I found the piece of paper with these notes stuffed inside a copy of the Sun Ra biography Space is the Place.
Is this a movie you’d like to see? Might you donate on Kickstarter to see it made?
9.24.00 New Orleans Shim Sham Club & Juke Joint “Shim Shamettes”
Two main groups of characters. The Strippers & The Musicians
Question One
Is this movie: a) Documentary b) Docu-Drama c) Dramatic Fiction
Question Two
Is this a) a script b) a road map c) an instruction manual
Original thoughts: Strippers and musicians lives before, during, & after their performances. The “show” is in a review style lasting an hour or more. NOT the nonstop grid on a poll and watching football stuff. This is set in the 40s – 50s seudo-past.
III Most Shots of the scenes will describe intermittent lives of the strippers and musicians separate from each other. These two groups will not appear together in a scene interacting until the end of the movie.
Goal of separation is to express the segregation of these joints. The clientele are white men who come to see white women strip and hear hot jazz made by black men.
Another important point that the movie needs to make is that the “conductor or director of the characters action is the musicians and the music they play.
Structure of movie Ideas
Cuts from scenes of strippers working, living, partying, getting in trouble to musicians doing the same. Hot Jazz soundtrack sets all temp of cuts. Sometimes literally on the beat or a musical temp changes occasionally when the strippers shake their hips and breasts to the beat.
Brian C. Russell 