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Interview with: Tom McDermott

Length: 13 minutes, 6 seconds

Summary: At the end of the interview, Tom plays a wonderful version of the Maple Leaf Rag. After hitting a broken, high key many times near the end, he says, “I’m not going to ever fix it because Henry Butler personally broke this string.”

Notes: I watched the last 5 minutes of this video at least 15 times in the last two days. Hearing and watching Tom play is truly awesome. Video pales in comparison to the real life experience. Even so, I really treasure this recording. Please support Tom and buy his CDs.

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Interview with: Cat and Mischa

Length: 5 minutes, 8 seconds

Summary: Cat and Mischa talk about their July 4th weekend visit to New Orleans and how great it was. Austin just isn’t home for them. “It has character, but doesn’t have a soul.” Lots of observations about Austin vs. New Orleans. “Austin is like a never ending Kenner with less character.”

Notes: It was great to see y’all, even if only for the weekend. I hope you move back here soon.

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Interview with: Donna and Ronald

Length: 10 minutes, 8 seconds

Summary: Donna and Ronald talk about staying in New Orleans during Katrina and leaving town on Wednesday after the storm. They left town with 6 people in a little Honda Civic. A family in Lafayette took them in. They eventually made it to Champeign, Illinois where they initially stayed with family and have now relocated.

Notes: These are some of the sweetest people I know. And their story is amazing. I’m so glad this interview happened.

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Interview with: Steve

Length: 10 minutes

Summary: Steve talks about living in Champaign, Illinois. He compares his life there to life in New Orleans. Topics include: LEAP tests, fireflies, bats, snow and Steve’s soccer team named Respect.

Notes: Steve rocks! Despite all the ambient noise, I think front porches are my favorite place to do interviews. I’d love to interview more New Orleanians who have moved away since Katrina. If you would like to be interviewed from somewhere else, please contact me. Maybe I can do a big road trip full of interviews.

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Warning: one swear word and a photo of a dead body appear in this video.

Interview with: Andy Levin

Length: 23 minutes, 10 seconds

Summary: Alan talks about his experience in New Orleans during Katrina and the ten days after. Some of the photos he shows in the interview are on his website AndyLevin.com. Some of his photos are on display at the New Orleans Museum of Art exhibit: Katrina Exposed.

Notes: I showed this video to my brother and he said it showed him the most about the immediate aftermath of Katrina so far. I didn’t get a chance to put it online right away because I’ve been on a trip the last week or so. When I mentioned the news coverage I saw while in Austin of black people being called looters and white people being called something else, this is the article I was referring to.

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Interview with: Robert Wallace Thompson

Length: 15 minutes 39 seconds

Summary: Robert talks about Fair Grinds Coffeehouse and what inspired the community feel. He talks about two books that influenced him: The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community and Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Evacuating to Houston and trying to reconnect with the Fair Grinds community of displaced New Orleanians there by meeting at the Orange Show every Friday until Rita came. Slowly rebuilding and serving free coffee.

Notes: Check out the Fair Grinds Katrina story page for photos and words.

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Interview with: Alex Walker

Length: 10 minutes 51 seconds

Summary: Alex Walker talks about returning to New Orleans from the San Francisco bay area and continuing to get to know the city. I tried to ask if our city, it it’s somewhat broken state, still has the charm to make Alex want to make this his permanent home. This city has charmed so many people into staying and I hope it still has that magic.

Notes: I’ve noticed that I know (and interview) a lot of transplants. That is, people who moved to this city from somewhere else. I intend to take Tim’s advice and interview more natives. I need help finding them, though. If you know any native New Orleanians who you think would be willing to be interviewed, please get in touch with me via the Contact Page. Thanks!

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Interview with: Dave Cash

Length: 12 minutes 20 seconds

Summary: Dave Cash talks about the first day of hurricane season. Evacuation plans, Bart’s blog post about neighborhood plans, closeness to the Gentilly Ridge, brass band music in New Orleans.

Notes: Dave has been super-helpful with the whole PeopleOfNewOrleans.com project. He’s been giving me feedback and ideas about all kinds of stuff. It’s great to finally interview him. I really need to get a good wind screen to stop wind noise. One of these days I’ll get around to building a Zeppelin using these nice DIY plans.

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Interview with: Candice Quates

Length: 6 minutes

Summary: Candice talks about riding out Katrina on the north shore. The strange aftermath: hot weather, lots of tree debris, sneaking back into New Orleans, salvaging stuff.

Notes: This interview gets cut short because I ran out of tape. D’oh! I keep over-exposing. I want the face to be visible without dark shadows. My one-chip video camera doesn’t have much range. Still, I know I can do better.

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Interview with: Sam

Length: 13 minutes, 37 seconds

Summary: Sam talks about weathering the storm in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Dissertation defense at Tulane after the storm. He knows some property and business owners getting lots of insurance money even though they didn’t have much damage. Unfair compaired to average folks who are working hard yet struggling.

Notes: I went back to the tripod/static shot format for this interview since we met at Sam’s office where there wasn’t much to see. Now that there are 15 videos, I think I’ll make a DVD so people who lack the patience or bandwidth to download these videos can just buy a DVD.

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Interview with: David Martin

Length: 15 minutes, 45 seconds

Summary: David Martin tells the story of his trips back to New Orleans right after Katrina. He has photos from those trips online here: Sept. 3, 2005 & Sept. 13, 2005. From that second set, here’s one the illustrates the front porch around the corner that he talks about.

Notes: My interviews are getting progressively longer. I’ll make more of an effort to keep them around the 5-10 minute range. This one just needed 15 minutes.

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Interview with: Zeke

Length: 11 minutes, 8 seconds

Summary: Zeke talks about living in Thibodaux after the storm. The different New Orleans. Toys lost in the flood, new toys to replace them.

Notes: I broke my no editing rule. I edited out the sound when Zeke says his teacher’s name. I know, I know. Concession made. Compromised principles, etc., etc. But, I figured it was better than not showing the video at all. Besides, rules are made to be broken.

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Interview with: DJ

Length: 11 minutes, 29 seconds

Summary: DJ talks about his Gentilly neighborhood. Gives a tour of the lower level of his house which he’s rebuilding. Talks about getting all his family together and evacuating.

Notes: I thought I had a good sense of ten minutes without using a stopwatch, but I guess I got caught up in this one. DJ is a great talker.

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Interview with: Marilyn

Length: 6 minutes, 19 seconds

Summary: Marilyn talks about her post-storm experiences while gutting her house with the help of some friends on a Sunday.

Notes: I love all the moving around in this interview. It shows so much stuff. I think I’m going to avoid setting up the tri-pod from now on. I need to encourage people to walk around and show me stuff like Marilyn did by pointing out how close the London Ave canal is. I just need to get better at quickly changing the exposure.

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Interview with: Vivian Torres

Length: 4 minutes, 27 seconds

Summary: Vivian talks about opening Freret Hardware soon after the storm and selling supplies from the parking lot while cleaning up the store from flooding and looting.

Notes: Mike Hahn told me about Freret Hardware opening soon after the storm which lead to this interview. I’ve learned to ask each interviewee to recommend other people with interesting stories.

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Interview with: Claudia P. Santoyo

Length: 8 minutes, 18 seconds

Summary: Claudia Santoyo talks about her destroyed house in Arabi. All houses on her block except one will be bull-dozed.

Notes: Claudia’s directions to her house included this: “After you pass the third house in the street…”

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Interview with: Maitri V-R

Length: 9 minutes, 48 seconds

Summary: Maitri V-R talks about her neighborhood, the Lower Garden District. Evacuating to Houston from Katrina. Makes a comparison to evacuating to India from Kuwait because of the Iraqi invasion. Talks about the question: what is home? Compares Madison, Wisconsin with New Orleans.

Notes: I hope it’s not distracting to point this out, but there’s a cat on the neighbor’s porch lounging about in the lower-right corner of the frame. I love that.

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Interview with: Ernest Svenson

Length: 9 minutes, 27 seconds

Summary: Ernie talks about living uptown, staying in New Orleans during Katrina, change to the city, focus on the positive. The positive effects of blogging. Meeting Dave Winer. Check out Ernie’s first post-katrina blog entry and the Katrina Entries section of his blog.

Notes: A little under 10 minutes seems to be a natural length for these interviews so far. Maybe I’ll aim for 5-10 minutes from now on. Anyone think 10 minutes is too long?

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Interview with: Fran Ledger

Length: 5 minutes, 25 seconds

Summary: Fran talks about how VIA LINK, her previous employer, received many emergency phone calls after Katrina. The trials of landlords and apartment/house searches. And a bit of happiness: falling in love. Yay!

Notes: I’m going to avoid shooting interviews indoors because my camera doesn’t do so well in that light. I could set up my own lights, but that’s pretty darn intrusive, so I’d rather not go that route. I need to get better at following up with questions based on what was just said. Like I wish I would have followed up on the 211 stuff more. I gotta get better at that. Plus, I need more questions at my fingertips. It turned out to be 5 minutes so I guess it was okay to end it when I did.

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Interview with: Michael Hahn

Length: 8 minutes, 10 seconds

Summary: For perspective, Mike explains the tiers of damage to lives and neighborhoods, putting his neighborhood in the 5-6 feet of water tier. Tells a neighbors FEMA trailer story. Talks about neighbors. Comradery among neighbors. He took some photos of his flooded downstairs in October and put them online here. His flooded books that he talks about are pictured here.

Notes: This interview was so easy because Mike just kept talking. The less I talk, the better. If I can find people who are “talkers” it’ll make my job easier, I think.

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Interview with: Editor B

Length: 8 minutes, 45 seconds

Summary: Bought house in mid-city three years ago between two hurricanes on the one-day-window when it was possible to get house insurance. (When a hurricane is in the gulf of Mexico, insurers won’t sell insurance.) Silver lining, was able to fix termite damage because of flood insurance money. Compulsively taking photos (and putting them online) of the amazing things one sees these days in this city. For example, he saw some houses in Gert Town the other day that apparently caught on fire during the flood and burned about halfway down — the flames stopped when they hit the waterline. Link to photos.

Notes: With a static-shot where the light doesn’t change, turn off auto-exposure so iris doens’t change unnessasarily (like when a white t-shirt moves to another part of the frame).

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Interview with: Joshua Barone

Length: 7 minutes, 06 seconds

Summary: House flooded, living in a FEMA trailer in River Ridge. Wedding soon after the storm in November. Stayed during the storm. Got to his office downtown with work very soon after the storm. Looking to leave the New Orleans area eventually.

Notes: Cars driving by are loud, try to find quieter locations in future. Set up tripod more right in front of me so it looks like people are looking into the camera when they’re looking at me. I kind of like the hand-held camera better. Still debating it though…

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Interview with: Tim Best

Length: 9 minutes, 19 seconds

Summary: River Ridge and what’s happening in the neighborhood. Damage to Tim’s house from a tree blowing down. Support from people around the country wanting to help. Slow pace of recovery.

Notes: Maybe the hand-held camera is a little distracting. It’s handy when I can pan to things Tim talks about, but mostly, it’s just Tim talking so maybe a tripod is better. Hand-held also results in a larger video file size. Remember stopwatch. Try not to say “um”. Have more questions ready. Don’t pretend the focus isn’t Katrina stuff. It just is. Talk about other stuff later.

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Interview with: Simon Dorfman

Length: 3 minutes, 19 seconds

Notes: Here I am, sitting on my front porch chair-swing, interviewing myself. I talk about what inspired peopleofneworleans.com and why I’m doing it. Loud music, courtesy of my neighbor. Wind noise, courtesy of the wind. I was tempted to re-record this, but I stuck with my one-take, no editing philosophy.