The Norman Studios Silent Film Museum (NSSFM) and the Art Institute of Jacksonville have begun pre-production of First Coast Flickers: Jacksonville’s Silent Film Heyday.Written, shot and edited by AI film students, the 30-minute documentary will examine Northeast Florida’s brief but glorious stint as the “Winter Film Capital of the World” and will air locally in 2010.
A century ago, Jacksonville was beginning an exciting new era as the winter hub of the burgeoning motion picture industry with more than thirty studios located here during the heyday. The likes of Lillian Gish, the Barrymore clan, and a funny newcomer named Oliver Hardy wintered and worked in the town that had become the nation’s most modern by way of the post-Great Fire recovery. After a glamorous two decades, a tragic plot twist would send filmmakers westward to California.
Fast forward 100 years to the restoration of the Norman Studios – Jacksonville's only surviving silent film studio complex, which was also one of the first to produce films that starred black actors in positive roles. NSSFM and partners aim to save and share Northeast Florida’s stories of its earliest days in the motion picture spotlight.
“Jacksonville’s contribution to film history is an amazing, but largely forgotten one,” says Director Nadia Ramoutar, Media Arts Director for the Art Institute and President of the Jacksonville Film Festival Board of Directors. “We want to remind the filmmaking world that much of its story starts here on the First Coast. It’s something that Jacksonville-area residents can be profoundly proud of.”
First Coast Flickers producers hope to locate local elders who may have firsthand memories of witnessing films being shot in Northeast Florida. And a search is on to locate descendants of actors who starred in locally shot silent and classic films. One confirmed interviewee is Capt. Dick Norman, son of silent filmmaker Richard Norman. He’ll share childhood stories of playing on the set as his father made movies.
CLICK HERE to see a First Coast News feature on First Coast Flickers (aired October 9, 2009).
FIRST COAST FLICKERS IMAGE GALLERY
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