Open Casting Call for The Great American Home Movie on October 19, 2013!

America is a land of stories, and we need yours!  That's why The Great American Home Movie is searching for people who lived in the United States between 1946 and 1976 and who are at least 40 years of age to tell their stories of a time when American life was documented in a unique and intimate way:  The Golden Age of Home Movies. 

The Great American Home Movie, produced and directed by Robert Hanley, is a feature length documentary film.  Distilled from thousands of hours and millions of feet of 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm film it explores American life from the perspective of people's home movies taken in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.  This film is also complemented by a custom music score by three-time Grammy and five-time Emmy-nominated composer Steve Dorff.   

A vital component of The Great American Home Movie will be interviews of select Americans who lived in this time. This is where you come in!  Your story is important to this project.  An open casting call for interviewees in the final production will be held on October 19, 2013 at Home Video Studio 4844 W. Rialto Ave., Visalia from 10 am to 2 pm.

We are especially interested in people who took home movies and/or 35mm slides, or were the subject of those movies and pictures. If you remember Mom and Dad getting out the movie camera (or you were Mom and Dad) then we want to hear from you!

The Great American Home Movie will highlight America’s “Coming of Age” period. We want to hear about your experiences during this time: The Cold War, The Korean Conflict, the birth of Television and Rock ‘n Roll, Camelot, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, the British Invasion, Vietnam, the Summer of Love, Woodstock, the Moon Landing, Watergate, computers and the birth of Apple and Microsoft.  

What an era of sweeping change - yet unparalleled stability for average Americans!  It was a revolution in jobs, careers, businesses, automobiles, birthing babies and raising families, childhood, toys, family gatherings, cookouts, picnics, holidays, vacations, schools, sporting events, weddings and funerals – life and living.  What was your part in the revolution during this Golden Age of Home Movies?  Come by Home Video Studio 4844 W. Rialto Ave., Visalia on October 19 from 10am to 2pm and tell your story!  Should you be chosen as one of the featured interviewees the filming will begin in 2014 with a movie release in 2015.  There is no compensation for the interviewees.

The Great American Home Movie will have a universal impact - like no other documentary ever produced.  And you have an opportunity to be part of it!  American families tell their own stories - their hopes, desires, and most special moments. It’s America in Red, White and You!

                                                                     

                SYNOPSIS OF THE GREAT AMERICAN HOME MOVIE

Post World War II America – the Baby Boom generation era, beginning in the mid-1940s and climaxing in the 1960s, stretching into the 1970s – redefined and challenged the traditional American experience.  It was an amazing time of great change – the re-industrialization of America, the Korean Conflict, the birth of Television and Rock ‘n Roll, Camelot, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, the British Invasion, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Summer of Love, Woodstock, the Moon Landing, Watergate, Computers and the birth of Apple and Microsoft.  Yet this era of sweeping change brought unparalleled stability for average Americans – jobs, careers, businesses, automobiles, birthing babies and raising families, childhood, toys, family gatherings, cookouts, picnics, holidays, vacations, schools, sporting events, weddings and funerals – life and living. 

What is even more amazing is that all across the country, Americans captured these precious moments as they happened on 8mm and 16mm motion picture film – the Greatest Generation, the parents of the Baby Boomers, documented this “Coming of Age” period in American history. This is the context and cinematic canvas for The Great American Home Movie – a feature-length documentary shot by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and yes, even their children.  

  

Over the past twenty years, Producer/Director/Editor Robert Hanley has been evaluating, capturing and archiving America’s home movies. Culled from over 5,000 hours of 8mm, Super-8mm, and 16mm film, The Great American Home Movie engages and electrifies the viewer, first in the simplicity of its subject matter and then in the poetry of moving images – Dad grilling hamburgers on the back porch for the family’s 4th of July cookout; Betty unwrapping her brand new Barbie Doll on Christmas morning; Billy riding his first Schwinn bike down a gravel road, fishing pole over his shoulder; Baby Karen taking her first steps; and Corporal Johnson, home from the war, washing his brand new Chevy.

Added to these iconic images is our American landscape – small towns, big cities, suburbs, farms, schools, roads and highways; city parks, national parks, zoos, and monuments. These scenes, and thousands of others, comprise the single, constant theme that ties The Great American Home Movie together: the American experience.   Multiply these iconic images by the more than thirty-year chronological time-span of this documentary and the very ordinary becomes truly extraordinary!  Hanley has rescued, edited, and woven together these incredible, priceless images with real live accounts of those days by the Americans who lived it. Everything is set to a lush musical score by Composer/Songwriter Steve Dorff.

The Great American Home Movie has a universal impact and is like no other documentary ever produced.  American families tell their own stories with their own cameras, displaying their hopes, desires, and most special moments. They captured scenes from everywhere – from living rooms, back yards, parades and playgrounds to Disneyland, the Mississippi River, and the Washington Monument; indeed from “sea to shining sea.” And while they were at it, they covered most of America’s historical moments as well. As groundbreaking and graceful as Disney’s Fantasia, reflecting the real and surreal spontaneity and liveliness of Woodstock with the elegance and fun of The Sound of Music, The Great American Home Movie will grab your heart and move you to tears of joy. It’s America in Red, White and You!

©Great American Home Movie 2013

The Great American Home Movie™
Runtime: 69 minutes, Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Produced, Directed and Edited by Robert Hanley

Musical Score by Steve Dorff

The Great American Home Movie LLC

8141 Raven Rock Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46256
317-358-5932
866-714-1956

GreatAmericanHomeMovieProject.com
Facebook.com/TheGreatAmericanHomeMovie
Twitter.com/GreatAmericanHomeMovie.com
Roberthanley@mac.com

The Great American Home Movie Project Synopsis Copyright 2012, Home Video Studio, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Great American Home Movie Project is a Trademark of The Great American Home Movie, LLC.

America in Red, White and You is a Trademark of The Great American Home Movie, LLC.