There’s something we love about one of the more recent photos on Michael Paul Smith’s Flickrstream. It only has a handful of old cars in it, and it doesn’t include any crazy flying saucers, robots, or secret stashes of Tuckers, but it still has a sense of playfulness in it, one that reflects Michael’s attitude to his miniature street scenes all along.
At first glance, there’s not a lot of playfulness to its depiction of a half-empty movie set, complete with scaffolding, sawhorses and film camera. But Michael’s decision to pull the curtain back a little and show the artifice of the set’s buildings not only helps tell the story, which we’ve copied below, but also recalls Michael’s practice of making his dioramas look incredibly lifelike in one photo and then revealing how he put it all together in the next. There’s a certain subtext of Michael telling us he could go for deception, he could just tell the story of Elgin Park the same way a novelist tells the stories in his pages, but there’s more fun to be had in explaining how and maybe even why he’s telling the story of Elgin Park. Brilliant.
As for the story he’s telling with the above photo:
In 1963, Elgin Park was chosen as a backdrop for a major motion picture. Way up in the township, not that far from the WLGN TV station, a series of back lots were constructed to represent the 1920’s. The work continued for several months and WLGN TV was invited to do a special LIVE program to document the progress.
In this photo you can see the ‘LGN TV camera mounted on the dolly that had been pushed down the street for a pan shot.
The people of the town were more than delighted by the spectacle and a sense of civic pride swelled throughout the area.
To add to all of the excitement, Boxoffice magazine did a cover story in their June issue, featuring not only the creation of the backlot but a sidebar story of Elgin Park itself.
To this day, people still go up to the heights to view what’s left of the false front town and reminisce about watching it all happen.
Aside from the UFO crash, this was the biggest thing to hit Elgin Park.
And, naturally, he followed the diorama photo with his own behind-the-scenes photo and a story to go with it:
This particular photo was taken while I was in Pittsburgh signing books.
The actual place was a former steel mill site that is now basically a desolate flattened area.
Because it is private property, I always ask permission to set up my stuff. A group of truck drivers, who were standing by their rigs, said: “they didn’t give a flying _ at a rolling donut”, so I took that as a YES.
When I tried to engage them in a conversation about what I was doing, there was little interest.
When I thought about it later, it must have seemed odd to them that an old man was fussing about with little buildings and cars, set on a card table in the middle of acres of a demolished steel mill.
I have to say, this was by far the most complicated photo shoot I’ve ever done due to the amount of props I was using.
And to add to all of it, I had packed it all up in rented car and drove 600 miles, not knowing exactly what kind of background I would find once I arrived.
As I always say: “What we do for ART.”
For more of Michael’s work, check out his book, “Elgin Park: The 1/24th-scale creation of a fictitious mid 20th century American town.”
from Hemmings Daily – News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/1WsxIMf
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