In recent weeks, Hurricane Katrina has been a topic of this column as well as two recent installments of Production View (9/23 and 10/21, p. 4). The latter have been diary accounts by Blair Stribley, partner/executive producer of Backyard Productions, Venice, Calif. (SHOOT, 9/23, p. 4), and director Matt Ogens (10/21, p. 4) who both chronicled their relief effort trips into the Gulf Coast.
Stribley and Backyard jumped on the grassroots initiative started by Los Angeles visual effects house Zoic Studios. They collected assorted goods for Katrina victims and then delivered the basic necessities to the needy in Louisiana.
Ogens and three other filmmakers spent nearly three weeks in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, documenting the devastation and aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita for the Red Cross. Although they were constantly shooting footage, the first priority for Ogens and his colleagues was to offer assistance to hurricane victims.
While Stribley and Ogens went to the Gulf Coast, those who remain at home can also serve. A case in point is the recent benefit held at Crossroads, Los Angeles. The event featured a barbecue and a live performance from the band Lisa Haley and the Zydacts. Raffle tickets were also sold for $25 apiece, the grand prize being a trip to London (two-round trip business class tickets, hotel accommodations for four nights, dinner for two at Portobello Road’s Electric Brasserie, and two tickets to Billy Elliot at London’s Victoria Palace Theater). Second prize was a choice of a trip to New York (round trip airfare for two, a couple of nights at Soho House, a spa package at the hotel, and dinner for two at Craft restaurant and at Veritas) or Los Angeles (roundtrip airfare for two, two nights at the Mondrian, two tickets to either the Disney Concert Hall or a Los Angeles Lakers game, and dinner for two at either Il Sole or at La Terza). The third prize winner got to take whichever trip the second prize winner didn’t select.
First prize went to Ginny Heuer, a broadcast producer from St. Paul, Minn. Second prize winner was Kelly Christensen, a freelancer who works with bicoastal Tool of North America. And third prize went to Joseph Uliano, exec producer of merge@crossroads.
But the big prize winners were organizations attached to relief efforts in the Gulf Coast. The barbecue raised nearly $16,000. The raffle generated a little more than $9,000. A grand total of $25,095 was distributed as follows:
$10,270 to Habitat for Humanity; $5,820 to the Ochsner Clinic Foundation; $4,750 to the Humane Society of the U.S.; $3,165 to the American Red Cross; $860 to the Faith Bible Church in Covington, Louisiana; and $230 to the Salvation Army.
Assorted companies took part in the fundraising event at Crossroads, including Tool, Santa Monica-headquartered GARTNER, bicoastal Anonymous Content, bicoastal Original Film, and Eastman Kodak.
The event drew people from a cross-section of the industry, spanning production, ad agencies, post, and varied other services and suppliers. The turnout and financial support were gratifying. And while this particular event generated the most money reported thus far, other fundraisers throughout the industry have also aided relief efforts. Furthermore there have been a significant number of individual contributions from the ranks of the commercialmaking community–“community” being the key word because there’s a heightened sense of community given the coming together of so many to in some way help those hit hardest in the Gulf Coast.
