Daniel Buckley Arts

Mariachi Cobre performs at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference.

Mariachis are so integral a part of modern Mexican and Mexican American life, but are also a global phenomenon.

Everywhere they exist, they serve profound social and cultural roles.

When a child is born, or a person dies, mariachis mark our arrivals and departures. They are there for weddings, quinceañeras, birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations of every sort.

In Tucson the mariachi has become as much a symbol of our city as the iconic saguaro cactus. It symbolizes cultural pride, history and heritage. The mariachi is a noble symbol at that.

The symbolic power of the mariachi is never lost in times of political struggle either. The repertoire unites people and helps movements to find a voice.

Mariachis in Tucson have made an important contribution to our city’s educational system. In schools where mariachi and folklórico dance programs have been instituted retention rates are higher, scholastic achievement greater, and the numbers of college bound students elevated over schools without such programs.

Youth mariachis outside of the schools, such as the legendary Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos – America’s first and longest running youth mariachi – provide scholarships that send students on to college. Often times these students are the first in their families to graduate college.

Participation in mariachi and folklórico programs teaches important life skills as well – teamwork, discipline, self reliance, and the ability to get up and perform in front of others. These become true leadership skills that are needed in the political process as well.

Mariachis are an important part of the modern fiber of America, and deserve respect for the important roles they play, as well as the quality of their music.

The modern mariachi is among the most versatile folk orchestras in the world, comparable in complexity to the gamelan of Indonesia.

The “sones,” which are the roots music of the mariachi, are handily among the most rhythmically complex folk music forms on the planet.

It takes skill, style and cultural mastery to become an accomplished mariachi.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, culture, Daniel Buckley, education, Latino, mariachi, Mexico, Tucson

Every film maker has the same problem: Millions of clips, no comprehensive way to access data about them

Apple’s Final Cut Pro software has a database within it, but it’s specific to the project you’re working on.

When I am working on a film, I’m pulling elements from many different projects into the new work. For example, I might be pulling in five different performances by the same group, and stills from 20 different sources.

In each of the original projects I might have stored information on each clip or photo. But when I then grab the folder of clips from that project and put it into a new one, I have to ID those clips all over again.

For many years I’ve used File Maker Pro to easily create databases of all sorts to help me get my hands on all manner of information.

So today I created a new database which will allow me to access all of the clip and photo information. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass to copy and paste the info from each project as I go along, but doing so will open possibilities yet to be discovered.

For now the database is very simple, but it will evolve as my needs change. I will likely add fields to indicate which hard drives store which projects, what general heading the clip falls under (interviews, location shots, time lapse, etc.), and what format the project is in. The transcripts can be added from interviews so that I can go to text on a particular topic in an instant and find the quote that works best. There might be a field for issues (poor lighting, wind noise, etc.).

I will be storing this document in the cloud so that I can add to it from any computer I might be working at, and backing it up regularly to avoid file corruption.

Time will tell if this new system will prove practical. But I suspect on the documentary projects, this will become a life saver.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, databases, documentary making, film making, information retrieval systems

Looking back on 2012, so much of my focus has been on El Casino Ballroom – a place that is an embarrassment of riches to a documentary story teller. I heard so many great stories from so many different people, and met some true heroes who dedicated their sweat and blood to getting this venerable landmark back into the game after the roof blew off. They did it for the most selfless reasons, without fanfare or really any thought of acknowledgment.

Also to really see how much El Casino Ballroom has meant to so many of us who have marked personal milestones and just had some of the greatest experiences of our lives there. It was a hard undertaking and one I’d do in a second again.

It also gave me one of the scariest and most personally transformational moments of my life when, 30 hours before its scheduled premiere in August, I heard the sound of a hard drive dying. I knew I had all of the video clips and photos backed up, so that was no concern. What I discovered within minutes though was that I had somehow not backed up the tiny file that binds all of this multimedia together into a film.

Even before that discovery my training from my Tucson Citizen newspaper days had kicked in. I knew that I had to transfer the clips and photos from the backup drive, which only had USB 2 connections, to a drive with connections fast enough to actually do the work, in this case Firewire 800 connections. That would take almost three hours. Shortly into that process I discovered that the only copy of the Final Cut Pro file that bound the film together left on any of the other drives was months old and represented an abandoned direction.

I had gotten huge press, and I was damned if I was going to head to the Fox with nothing to show. So I started thinking through how to proceed as the hard drive was copying. I knew what was most important to me was to tell the story, and that I had all the elements at hand to do so. I had the transcripts as well as my notes on how things were sequenced. All the clip markers were gone, but the timecode readings from the top of each page of the transcript gave me the coordinates I needed to shave a bit of time off the process. Thanks to Shawn Herreras and de Vie Weinstock for their meticulous attention to those details in transcribing the interviews, without which this rough version would have been much rougher.

What I didn’t know was how long it would take me to lay that story in. So I had to keep a second plan to create a partial film in the back of my mind as I proceeded. After eight hours I could calculate that I should have about 45 minutes left before I would have to export the film and show what I had if everything continued at the pace I’d set. In the end, I had 38 minutes, so I was pretty close. But I did finish the story line and did what I could in that 38 minutes to throw in a bit of extra footage and a few photos in the key spots. It was as patchy as the temporary tin roof that let the monsoon rains ruin half the dance floor at El Casino Ballroom when the roof blew off, but in both cases, it was survival mode.

When my alarm went off, I exported the film and burned the DVD. I wasn’t absolutely sure that would happen in time either, but it did. I got to the Fox three minutes before I was due and ran up to the projection booth to check it with Skip. Something came up on screen, and that would have to be good enough.

Crowd at the Fox Theatre Tucson for the August premiere.

The crowd was huge – close to 900 people. Imagine not having slept in a couple of days, having the biggest audience yet for one of your films, and having to announce that a rookie mistake on my part meant that what was intended to be a premiere would now instead become a work in progress. But I was fairly confident that I had been true to the story line, and hoped that might be enough to hold interest in the hall.

So then I sat down and saw it for the first time along with everyone else. There had been no time for me to ever see more than a minute or two at a shot. WIthin the first 15 seconds I realized Id somehow left out my intended opening shot. The edits meant some people twitched on screen like Max Headroom. But at the end, the audience exploded in applause.

We had a brief Q&A session with the audience, during which I invited members of the families of the three gentlemen who started El Casino Ballroom and a couple of key El Casino current staff to join us. I was delighted to discover that the widow of founder Adolfo Loustaunau, who I’d been trying to reach for months, was there in the audience. We invited her to join us on stage. It was an unexpected triumph.

After it was over I went home and crashed for about 20 hours. And then I went back to work to complete the film.

With no clear date as to when we might shoot for a completed film, I was able to shoot a few things alluded to in the original film which had not yet happened. One of the workers who rebuilt the hall, Javier Escalante, had talked about doing the work when his daughter was four with the intent that she would have her quinceañera there when she turned 15. And as a result of the delay, I was able to shoot it and put it in the film. The same was true of manager Fred Martinez’ youngest daughter’s wedding, which proved to be one of the most breathtaking transformations of that hall I’d seen in the 18 months of filming. And I got to shoot a few extra interviews with some folks I’d missed on the first pass.

The resulting final film, which premiered December 8, 2012, was much better than the original I’d lost with the August hard drive crash. We held it at El Casino Ballroom, and musical acts Los Nawdy Dawgs, Suerte, Relente and Joe Ahumada’s Love LTD played for free to help raise some money for the El Casino Ballroom restoration fund. Again, it was a success beyond my wildest dream.

But probably the most uplifting moment of the whole endeavor came between the two premieres when local musician David Membrila put a new committee together to finish the restoration of the other half of the El Casino Ballroom. Currently some legal changes of the structure of El Casino Ballroom are underway and a new not-for-profit entity called the El Casino Ballroom Cultural Center is being established. Once that’s done we’ll be pitching in to write grants and create a whole new set of memories for generations of Tucsonans to come.

And so I leave the El Casino Ballroom documentary project. Copies of the DVD “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” are for sale at El Casino Ballroom and through my website. But I will never leave El Casino Ballroom. I’ll always be going back to recharge my batteries, experience more of the extraordinary music and culture of this town, and to do my part to make Tucson a better place.

I go on in 2013 to create a film about the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson. And wouldn’t you know it? One of the stories I heard from Tucson mariachi pioneer Tony Garcia was that it all got started through a youth mariachi club started at El Casino Ballroom by Mr. Loustaunau.

Sometimes the universe puts you where you need to be, whether you know it or not. I feel blessed that it put me at El Casino Ballroom this year, and introduced me to some of the most generous people I will ever meet – people who not only lived history but made it. It gets no better for a documentary maker than this.

I’d like to thank my partners in this project, Ralph Gonzalez and Julie Gallego, the whole Cine Plaza at the Fox team, the Fox Tucson Theatre, the Arizona Historical Society, KXCI, the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s PLACE Initiative program, and all of the individual contributors who pitched in when the Kickstarter campaign failed to meet critical mass. Without all of you, this film might never have come to pass. And without the inspiration of Ralph Gonzalez and Julie Gallego, the seeds for this and all of the Cine Plaza at the Fox projects might never have been planted. Thank you for giving me a life after newspapers.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Mariachi blog, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, Arizona Historical society, CHISPA, Daniel Buckley, documentary, El Casino Ballroom, Foundation, Fox Theatre Tucson, KXCI, Latin AMerican Social Club, Tucson

When it comes to making documentary films, two things guide my work.

The first is my responsibility to the people who share their stories and photos. The second is my responsibility to myself and my partners in choosing topics for my documentaries.

My job foremost is to stay out of the way and let the people I interview tell their story. They lived it. They tell it well.

It is not my job to second guess them, nor to paraphrase what they say, so I try to avoid voiceovers wherever possible. I will prune long, winding answers to help consolidate it, but do so only to focus what they’ve said.

Not everyone I shoot ends up in the film. This generally happens when multiple sources have spoken on one topic. In the end, who says what on film is labored over considerably. Every word anyone says on film is transcribed. I spend weeks going through transcripts with highlighter pens and legal pads, fleshing out the various subtopics of the film and trying to arrive at the best way to structure things.

Choosing the right topic to make a film about is largely a personal thing for me, in part because certain stories I know I can tell well. I have to feel that it’s something I am passionate about – so much so that I can convince others to help me make the film, and to come and see it. In truth 90-plus percent of the work is going to be done by me, so it had better be something I care about deeply.

Fortunately I live in Tucson, Arizona which has an endless stream of interesting topics. And the films themselves suggest others. I knew going into the El Casino Ballroom documentary, for example, that I would be doing films in subsequent years on the evolution of the mariachi movement in Tucson, father of Chicano music Lalo Guerrero, and on America’s longest operating youth mariachi – Los Changuitos Feos. But in doing interviews for this and other films, I am seeing material start to accumulate that will likely result in other documentaries. The evolution of Tejano music in Tucson, for example, and the man who brought Mexican folklórico dance to Tucson – Angel Hernandez.

I recognize that I am very lucky to do what I do, and that people trust me with the most cherished details of their lives. I am grateful to them and try to show them the respect they deserve.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, Daniel Buckley Arts, documentary

So it’s over, and it’s not.

“Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” is finished and made its premiere.

Most documentary makers pack up their cameras and head on to the next gig. And to a large extent, I am too, beginning work on the film on Tucson’s mariachi scene.

But it’s almost impossible for me to put El Casino Ballroom in the rear view mirror entirely. People still are coming out of the woodwork with stories that should be captured, even if they didn’t find their way into the film.

I had a woman call me a day before the premiere who snuck out of her house to see Fats Domino there as a teen. Someone else told me at the show about sneaking out to see a Mexican singer at El Casino. His parents had gone to see that show, so he sat outside listening through the open door, then ran home near the close of the show so he wouldn’t get caught. “How was the show?” he asked his parents when they returned home.

Logistically there’s still a fair amount of work to do too before I turn the raw footage and transcripts over to the Arizona Historical Society. I need to go through the transcripts with my associate producer, Ralph Gonzalez, to make sure that all the spellings are correct and that we’ve tacked on any additional information someone might need later on.

I also need to go through all of the photos, ID those who I can and distinguish what amongst them are my shots and which came from other sources. It will take several months to do that.

And at the moment there’s the more mundane chore of syncing main drives to backups to make sure that every file has been accurately duplicated.

El Casino Ballroom has always been a community center, and I’m trying to treat these materials as though they are community property. I want others to be able to use them, with permission, in projects they will create in the future.

And my commitment to El Casino Ballroom’s future is solid. I’ve joined the committee to create a new fiscal entity called the El Casino Cultural Center, which will work with the ballroom to make it an educational and cultural hub for the city. In turn that will help restore it to its former size and build in a few new features that will put it on track to evolve into whatever the community needs in the future.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary
Tags: Daniel Buckley, documentary, El Casino Ballroom

Mariachi Tucsonense

Word arrived today that the 2013 edition of the Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series – this time on the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson – has been chosen to receive a $5,000 PLACE Initiative grant from the Tucson Pima Arts Council.

Producer Daniel Buckley says work is already underway on the film which will trace Tucson’s mariachi and folklórico dance roots from its earliest days as a club at El Casino Ballroom in the early 1950s through the birth of the city’s first mariachi, Mariachi Tucsonense, its first youth mariachi, Los Changuitos Feos, the dawn of folklórico with Angel Hernandez, the birth of the Tucson International Mariachi Conference, the mariachi and folklórico programs in the school and so much more. The film will aspire to show the social and cultural impact these art forms have had on Tucson and the rest of the world, and the ways that this movement has changed the social and political face of Tucson.

This P.L.A.C.E. Initiative Grant is designed to leverage and enhance resources and talent to implement arts based civic engagement projects that deal with issues of tolerance and or civil society in Tucson and Pima County. The issue of cultural and civic belonging is central to this initiative-–how to understand and accommodate cultural difference in matters of civic participation, how to build a tolerance of diverse views: religious, cultural, aesthetic; and how to enhance the understanding of the common good.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, ballet folklorico, Cine Plaza at the Fox, Daniel Buckley Arts, Los Changuitos Feos, Mariachi Tucsonense, Mexico, Tucson, Tucson International Mariachi Conference

The DVD of the documentary “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” goes on sale December 10.

The DVDs are $20, plus a $5 charge for shipping and handling.

Copies of the previous Cine Plaza at the Fox documentaries are also available. The first DVD, with the films on the old Cine Plaza, the downtown scene before urban renewal, and urban renewal in Tucson, are $20 plus $5 shipping. The Barrio Hollywood DVD is $10 plus $5 shipping.

And you can order all three together for $50, shipping included.

Ordering is easy.

Send a check made out to DANIEL BUCKLEY to

750 E. Waverly St.

Tucson, Az. 85719

Make sure to let me know which DVD (s) you want, and include your full name, address, email (if available) and phone number so we can keep you up to date about further film projects. No one will pester you and the list will not be sold, but we’ll let you know when we’re screening new films.

Allow roughly 1 week in Tucson, 10 days national, for delivery.

You can also email me at dbtucson@gmail.com.

In addition, copies of “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El casino Ballroom” are available at El Casino Ballroom, 437 East 26th St., Tucson, Arizona for $20/copy. $5 of each copy sold at El casino Ballroom goes towards its restoration project.

For more on “Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” click “Project” for background info and “Blog” for the ongoing blog on the documentary. If you’re on Facebook, also check out the El Casino Ballroom documentary page by clicking “Facebook.”

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Cine Plaza at the Fox, Daniel Buckley Arts, DVD, El Casino Ballroom, Tucson, Tucson's Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom

“Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom” documentary finished and re-debuting at El Casino Ballroom at first “Fiesta El Casino.”

CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS

For 65 years Tucson’s legendary El Casino Ballroom has been home plate for the festivities of Tucson’s Latino population and the rest of the city.

Its iconic dance floor – the biggest in Arizona – shouldered fans of everyone from Mexican film stars Pedro Infante, Maria Felix and Lola Beltran to Fats Domino, James Brown and many more. It housed clubs for the Mexican community, served up dances every Saturday night and created lifelong memories for generations of Tucsonans.

(Click here to go to the KUAT profile on the documentary)

(Click here for Tucson Weekly writer Mari Herreras’  preview)

It was the headquarters of Arizona’s Tejano music scene in the genre’s infancy and the place where such local greats as Love LTD and Adalberto got their start.

In the 1980s KXCI launched its game changing House Rockin’ series at El Casino, bringing throngs of zydeco, blues and world music fans to its sprung dance floor.

“El Casino Ballroom doesn’t make money, it makes memories,” says Luis Cruz, one of the crew members who helped restore El Casino.

It’s a story of family, community, and a coming together of people, after its roof blew off in 1991, to rebuild the place of their memories. It’s a story of music and love, of countless weddings, quinceaneras, political rallies and community celebrations of every sort, told by the people who lived it.

Film maker Daniel Buckley spent 18 months shooting at El Casino Ballroom, interviewing patrons and performers, restoration crew members and families, distilling a bit of 65 years into 65 minutes. A well-received work-in-progress version debuted to a huge crowd at the Fox Theatre in August as parts of its Cine Plaza series.

Now the completed film will be seen where it all took place, at El Casino Ballroom, as part of the first Fiesta El Casino celebration. Proceeds will go to continue the restoration effort and restore the ballroom to its pre-storm size.

Producer Daniel Buckley

After the film is shown the party will roll on into the night with local favorites Los Nawdy Dawgs, Relente and Suerte ready to heat up the dance floor. In addition singer Joe Ahumada will join Relente to recreate some of former house band Love LTD’s trademark sound.

DVDs of the film will be on hand for sale for $20 each.

What: “Fiesta El Casino”

When: Saturday, December 8, 6 p.m. (doors open at 5)

Where: El Casino Ballroom, 437 E. 26th St.

Donation: $5 at the door for the El Casino Restoration Fund

Press info:

Daniel Buckley, producer –  dbtucson@gmail.com

http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/

Hall information:

520) 623-1865

http://www.elcasinoballroom.com/index.php

Musicians:

Suerte: http://tucsontejano.com/band.html

Relente: http://www.myspace.com/relenteband

Los Nawdy Dawgs: http://www.losnawdydawgs.net/

For more info go to http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/home/bios/daniel-buckley-documentary-maker/cine-plaza-at-the-fox/el-casino-ballroom-documentary/,

The El Casino Documentary blog – http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/category/el-casino-ballroom-documentary/

or the El Casino Ballroom documentary Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ElCasinoBallroomDocumentaryProject?fref=ts

This project was supported in part by a PLACE Initiative grant from the Tucson Pima Arts Council and was completed in partnership with the Fox Theatre, KXCI Radio, The CHISPA Foundation, The Latin American Social Club, El Casino Ballroom and the Arizona Historical Society.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, El Casino Ballroom documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, documentary, El Casino Ballroom, Los Nawdy Dawgs, Love LTD, Relente, Suerte

Laura Milkins in Poem From Memory

Nothing like finding out a week before deadline that there’s a film festival you should enter, and it’s right up your alley.

I about dropped over when I opened the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s email newsletter and discovered that entries for the Cinesonika 3 film festival were due November 15.

Cinesonika 3 is a festival in Northern Ireland that showcases film works that put particular emphasis on the soundtrack. They could be any style from documentary to experimental to uncategorized. But something about the music or soundscape within it had to take on a prime role.

As luck would have it, I had a piece. Since late summer performance artist Laura Milkins and I have been working on an experimental piece, shooting her in the desert, then carefully superimposing over her time lapse footage of storms, changes of day and landscapes around southern Arizona.

It was one of those projects where I’d had something in mind for a long time, got talking to Laura about it, the weather turned right and we just went out and shot it. A lot of what we did was improvisational initially, and later refined for a second shoot. I knew Laura was the person I wanted to work with on this because she is a thoughtful person, a fascile movement improviser, and someone I personally feel very comfortable with.  Which is good because the piece was performed in the nude.

I used her as another time element in the film – one moving in real time though exaggerated slightly.

Where the weather and landscape examples run at 5000 percent speed, she is slowed to 1/3 her natural speed. But together they look like they’re finding a similar sense of time.

I suspected beforehand that by blending the two video feeds Laura’s body would become a kind of screen for what was in the other landscape. But I never expected how the two images would alter one another and blend into a new reality.

The opening background, for example, was the moon moving through clouds. The clouds float over Laura’s body, while the dark sky darkens the blue of the landscape she is in and adds to the surreal quality. It transitions to a different, much more brightly lit landscape  that lightens the blue cast.  Sunset clouds arrange themselves like a belt on her body, then fade out as she opens her arms.

The landscape in which I shot Laura is west of Tucson in a section of desert sparsely populated with creosote bush. Behind her is the full expanse of the Tucson Mountains off in the distance, low in the image in the first session, more prominent in the second.

Various landscapes from around, Tucson, Sonoita, Yuma and Prescott, Arizona are superimposed over her walking in a stylized way.

Superimposing footage in this way seems to amplify and mutate the color. The river becomes the sky, the sky becomes a river. It is magical and primal. It is beautiful.

It is art.

I called it “Poem From Memory” because it is like a poem without words. Something beyond language.

Visual brain tricks that call into question how we perceive our world.

In the way that poetry conjures sometimes impossible images, so this piece is visual poetry.

After a bit of fiddling I had a first, very rough edit. Balances were way off, edit points weren’t precisely chosen. It was more of a photographic proof. But it had the right shape to it. It felt right. So I sent that silent draft over to Laura and we talked about it. Laura felt we should come up with some words for the project. I was stumped.

So I did what I do when words fail me. I started writing instrumental music. Using MOTU’s Digital Performer I was able to start improvising a score while watching the film.

Poem From Memory X1a (audio excerpt from Poem From Memory)

Musically I wanted to project a sense of amorphous motion at the start, turning into a loose walking rhythm. Both rhythmically and harmonically I wanted to magnify the aura of worlds intersecting, and not always in the way you’d expect. I wanted it to be beautiful and a bit frightening but somehow calm throughout.

I used digital samplers to produce sounds of electric piano, cello, guitar, violin and bass. Once I had the tracks basically where I wanted them I began to finesse them with various software effects and a variety of different mixes. I wanted to blend them and have them arise and evolve as unpredictably as the visual elements of the film. And then I wanted to experiment with the elements further, dropping some down very low or out altogether, and emphasizing others to alter the shape and character of the music.

It took many weeks to get the soundtrack to the point where I was happy with it but it’s hard now to envision the footage without it. It becomes its own manifestation of those intersecting worlds and adds layers of mood and experience in the process.

So when do you get to see this creation? Dunno. Maybe they’ll show it at Cinesonika 3. I did manage to get it Fed Exed to Canada in time for the deadline. Or maybe I’ll have a show at a gallery sometime.

Laura and I are already talking about a next installment be shot in the summer of 2013. It would involve shooting her in a swimming pool to create the sense of flying through landscapes. We’re also working on a still image series. Maybe after we complete those we’ll have achieved critical mass to show something.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Uncategorized
Tags: Cinesonika 3, composer, Daniel Buckley Arts, experimental, film festival, Laura Milkins, Performance Artist

A future mariachi is born at El Casino Ballroom.

Just going to throw an idea out there: A photographer in residence program for arts organizations and live music providers. Each group would pair up with a photographer that digs what they do. The photographer would have unlimited access and be able to shoot anytime for a period of one year. At the end of the year the photographer would have an amazing show-ready portfolio piece, and the organization or business would have some splendid, special images to hang on their walls or use in their publications and on their website. If a huge number of organizations were doing this one particular year Tucson would have an unbelievable snapshot in time of its artistic and cultural resources. And that could turn into tourism dollars and more.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, arts, Daniel Buckley Arts, photography, Tucson