John Paget's Blog

Route 66 artist's life coming to an end -- chicagotribune.com

Route 66 artist's life coming to an end -- chicagotribune.com

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"Buffalo: You'll Eat It Up!" now online!

The short film I directed/shot/edited for the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau went live online today.  You can view it at the Buffalo Convention & Visitors Bureau website here:

http://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/visitors/dining/EatItUp.asp

Also, check out the short article on Buffalo Rising about the film, and read some viewer reactions in the comments section.

Thanks to my creative collaborators Nelson Starr and Nathan Peracciny, and to the Buffalo Niagara CVB for the opportunity!

So, does it make you hungry or what?

 
 

"Buffalo: You'll Eat It Up!" - New short film on Buffalo food premieres Monday night

Since July, I've been working (with Nelson Starr and Nathan Peracciny) on a new short film, produced in conjunction with the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"Buffalo: You'll Eat It Up!" is an entertaining, whirlwind tour of Buffalo's food scene.  Designed to literally whet viewers' appetites and promote cultural tourism to Buffalo, the film will be unveiled at 6:30pm Monday, Nov. 2nd at the Market Arcade Theater in downtown Buffalo (639 Main Street).

It will screen as part of Field & Fork Network's TABLELAND event, which includes a screening of the award-winning feature documentary "Tableland" and a local food showcase.  (Check out the incredible menu!)

If you miss the event, you can still see the film - it will launch on the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau website Tuesday morning, Nov. 3rd.  But don't wait for that - come see the premiere on a big screen in full HD brilliance!

Bourdain in Buffalo Bash Tonight!

Tonight is the Travel Channel's national broadcast premiere of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations visit to Buffalo (his crew filmed here in February).

Here is the short film I made with Nelson Starr that lured Bourdain to Buffalo.

We're throwing a TV watching party at Pearl Street Grill & Brewery to celebrate (see flyer below for details).

We'll be showing episodes of All Access Pass and Adventures in Buffaloland, leading up to the Bourdain broadcast at 10:00pm. The Travel Channel has a promo teaser - watch it here.

I'm starting my own TV channel...

...an online TV channel, that is.

It's a show for and about Buffalo, New York.  Check it out at www.truebluebuffalo.com/tv

It will officially launch on Jan. 9th, and has already received some mentions in the press including Buffalo News and Buffalo Rising.

The two flagship series of the online channel are a food show, All Access Pass with Nelson Starr (who I previously collaborated with to woo Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Travel Channel show to Buffalo);  and Adventures in Buffaloland, hosted by Tim Tielman, executive director of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo.

Our Buffalo pitch to Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations "Travel with Tony" contest makes top 20

Last week, my pal Nelson Starr asked me to help him make a short video to enter the Travel Channel's "Travel with Tony" contest for Anthony Bourdian's No Reservations.

I had the three-course lunch of a lifetime as we hit Ted's Hot Dogs, Anchor Bar, and Ulrich's Tavern all in the course of about 90 minutes during a raging blizzard.

Nelson, who is a big fan of the show, wrote the script, composed the original music and we whacked it up together to create a 3-minute piece.

We submitted the final cut last night and just heard that we made the Top 20 out of over 300 submissions. You can watch it here - leave a comment and give it a rating - and tell Tony to get to Buffalo!

Beware of Airport Bistros

I went coast to coast this week, producing case study marketing films for Microsoft. I did a one-day shoot in Manhattan on Wednesday, profiling a rentals realtor working out of Chelsea.
I flew to San Francisco Saturday to shoot a behind-the-scenes mini-documentary of the big event staged around the announcement of Microsoft's Unified Communications. We stayed at the top of Nob Hill, and the event itself was at the Fairmont Hotel and Masonic Temple. Jay Leno and Rainn Wilson (from The Office) were there as part of the hype-and-circumstance. I've got an interesting shot of Dwight Schrute peering into my camera and asking, "Now where is that Mr. Gates? I want to give him a big smooch on the ass!"
If you're headed to San Francisco, make sure to stop by Lefty O'Doul's near Union Square: in the amount of time it takes you to eat a hand-carved pastrami sandwich and wash it down with a Guiness (poured by a bartender with an Irish accent), you'll hear the all-time campiest piano lounge singer mercilessly butcher all your favorite songs. But try to leave before he does his heartfelt cover of "With or Without You" wherein he may swap the lyric "rubbing your shoulders" for "with or without you" as the song moves to the repeating refrain.

But the strangest thing I saw on my trip was at the San Francisco airport last night, about 11:30pm, as I waited to depart on my red-eye flight back to Buffalo. Near my gate was a man sprawled out on the floor, right in the center of foot traffic, and sort of rolling around quite acrobatically as if trying to demonstrate it was impossible to get comfortable. He had both shoes off, and one sock on and one sock off.

This looked like great fun.

He was munching on a panini, and good-naturedly taunting passers-by. Around him, in a ten-foot radius, he had unpacked his carry-on bags and set up a sort of airport-campsite. Various dog-eared magazines were lying around, and he was thumbing through the latest issue of MacWorld. Remnants of a great feast encircled him - empty bags of chips, large chunks of cookies and crumbs, all ground into the carpet by people walking by. There was a half-eaten scone, and it was obvious he had rolled over it a few times.

I was beginning to admire him as a performance art protestor against red-eye flights and all the indignities suffered by airline travelers today. (Was it Kunstler?)

The Northwest gate agents were pretending to ignore all of this, and passengers were either staring in wonderment or averting their eyes.
Naturally, I approached him and tried to make conversation.
"What's going on? Are you getting on this flight?" I asked.

He said, "No, they probably won't let me on this flight."

"Why not?"

"Because look at me, I'm an embarassment."

"Well...what's going on? Are you loaded - are you drunk?"

"Huh?"

"Have you been drinking?"

"No! Someone spiked my panini!!!"

"Who?"

"They did!" - (pointing to the bistro ten paces away) - "They put marijunana in my panini!"

La Nova Wings Aim To Take Flight After Slump

My friend Anna, a six-year employee at La Nova Pizza, reports that the world famous restaurant is suffering a particularly nasty case of the annual New Year's Resolution slump. Sales of pizza and wings are traditionally slow in the month of January as Buffalonians make their usual, obligatory (if empty) promises toward better health and diet. Business typically bounces back by the second week of January, but a recent string of unseasonably warm weather may have kept locals outside, active, and unrealistically optimistic about their goals.
Thankfully, after temperatures hovered at near 60 all week, today it dropped to a blustery 20 degrees with snow squalls. Both delivery and walk-in orders are picking up pace, and should return to pre-January 1st full force levels by Superbowl Sunday, the traditional end to the New Year's resolution pizza and wings business cycle.

Beer for Breakfast

Yesterday, I was hired to do a half-day shoot in Utica, New York. Its for a documentary/reality style TV show which follows the story of one man's creation of new beer, from concept to market. They are launching the new beer in Texas in a few weeks, and the inventor-brewmeister, Larry, came to Utica, New York to oversee the very first bottling run at the F.X. Matt Brewing Co. (creator of the award-winning crafted Saranac Beers). http://www.saranac.com
Utica reminded me a lot of Olympia, my hometown. They are similar in size, and both towns share the common story of a German immigrant in the 1880's founding a brewery that would employ generations of workers and make important philanthropic contributions to their city. In Olympia, it was Leopold Schmidt; in Utica, it was F. X. Matt, who left a promising career at the Duke of Braden Brewery in Germany to come to the United States and pursue his dream.
The stories diverge in 1983. The Schmidt family sold the Olympia brewery to Pabst, who sold it to G Heilman, who sold it to Stroh's, who sold it to Miller, who merged with South African Breweries to become SAB/Miller, who closed the brewery in July 1, 2003. Within 20 years, big corporate breweries managed to kill off a century old family run brewery that had been the pride and paycheck of a small Northwest town. Once among the country's most efficient breweries, and the only one to ever brew with pure artesian springwater, today it sits empty and unused, forlornly perched above the picturesque Tumwater Falls. http://www.brewerygems.com/olympia.htm
But in Utica, New York things are hopping at brewhouse square (apologies for the pun). Today the Matt Brewing Co. is run by F. X. Matt's grandson Nick (President), and his nephew Fred (Vice-President). It brews its own popular line of crafted ales (Saranac), offers tours, and does contract brewing for startup brewers like Larry.
The shoot started at 8:30am, and an hour later, the first bottle of Stampede Beer was rolling down the line, bottled, capped and labeled. It was at this point, upon the insistence of Larry, that I took a quick break from shooting to sample one.
Cheers, and good luck Larry!
http://www.stampedebeer.com/

More links:
Check out a vintage TV commercial for Olympia Beer. Just go to the official page for Go with the Flow, the film I directed about Olympia, and click on the beer ad image to watch.
http://www.pagetfilms.com/gowiththeflow.html

Save the Old Brewhouse!
Visit http://www.oldbrewhouse.org/