MC Trailer from Sara Kelly on Vimeo.
Check this out, someone is doing a documentary on model railroaders. Actor Michael Gross ("Family Ties") is prefacing this trailer. For more on the movie, visit: http://modelcitizensmovie.com/
Our club layout has hosted Sara for a couple of her shoots on this project. She is doing a great job and I highly recommend that if you've got a layout worthy of a visit, you should contact her.
Michael Gross is on some VCR or DVD I have on model railroading. Looks like it could be a nice thing to see when they get it finished
Hope someone keeps us posted so we can all watch it when it comes out.
Thanks for sharing
Richard
Michael Gross has narrated several videos for the NMRA. He is very active in the hobbly and he shows up at quite a few events in the Southern California region when he isn't working at his day job. Sara Kelly will be at the NMRA Convention next month and has plans to also visit Pennsylvania and shoot some layouts there along with the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum. It sounds like she might be doing a crowd sourcing fund raising program to raise capital for the finished project. I will put out the word on this thread once she has the details nailed down.
Does anyone have cntact info for Sara Kelly? I would like to recommend she include a friend's layout.
Left Coast Rail Michael Gross has narrated several videos for the NMRA. He is very active in the hobbly and he shows up at quite a few events in the Southern California region when he isn't working at his day job. Sara Kelly will be at the NMRA Convention next month and has plans to also visit Pennsylvania and shoot some layouts there along with the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum. It sounds like she might be doing a crowd sourcing fund raising program to raise capital for the finished project. I will put out the word on this thread once she has the details nailed down.
I remember one "Family Ties" episode where his character had this small N-scale layout in his bedroom.
Probably just me, but I can't get the video to play -- and I belong to Vimeo. Will keep trying, as it sounds interesting.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
If she's going to the RR Museum of PA, she absolutely needs to do it this coming week, to see the huge layout of the Reading Company Technical and Historical Society.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I interviewed Sara about her interesting project last week. The interview is posted on my blog at http://cprailmmsub.blogspot.ca/2014/07/i-recently-became-awareof-model.html
John Longhurst, Winnipeg
mlehman Probably just me, but I can't get the video to play -- and I belong to Vimeo. Will keep trying, as it sounds interesting.
Wanted to note the video is working for me now, just in case anyone else ran into that problem. Give it another try.
Great trailer, looking forward to the rest of it. I'm a passing acquantiance of Steve Harris and looking forward to seeing what he has to see and show beyond the brief comment in the trailer with his layout behind him.. Only met him in person once at the 98(?) NNGC in Colo. Springs. Used to be on the same email lists, but haven't seen his name lately. His layout is narrowgauge and has an elevator (written up in MR several years back). Great guy to chat with and I'll bet I'm not the only one here who'll be vicariously catching up with folks we know to a greater or lesser degree.
JDL56 I interviewed Sara about her interesting project last week. The interview is posted on my blog at http://cprailmmsub.blogspot.ca/2014/07/i-recently-became-awareof-model.html John Longhurst, Winnipeg
John, Good interview. This sounds like a great project.
Do we know how long the documentary will run? Is it a short documentary or fairly long?
Rich
Alton Junction
Rich,
They're still filming. I may have missed where that was indicated, but my guess is between an hour and 90 minutes. It's too complex a topic to render in a half hour, given the work so far. Most documentaries don't run exceptionally long, unlike some movies.
Mike, 60 to 90 minutes would be great. That would be enough time to do the subject justice.
My fear is that if it turned out to be 20 or 30 minutes, it would be much too superficial.
So, I hope that you are right.
The "Model Citizens" is still very much a work in progress. Sara is in the process of "peeling the onion" and discovering more about the hobby of model railroading and rail fanning in general as she gets more leads and talks to more people. From what I've seen so far, and my personal experience communicating with her, she will have multiple opportunities to utilize the material she is in the process of gathering.
Heck, maybe she will have enough material to produce a series.
Something like that could really re-invigorate the hobby.
richhotrainSomething like that could really re-invigorate the hobby.
I agree, she's offering a fresh perspective by looking at the people in the hobby and why they find it rewarding. I really liked her comment about being an outsider and seeing things in ways that we typiclly don't when we make videos about ourselves. She isn't dissing railroad hobbiest productions, just noting the the outsider perspective she brings is something new. I also suspect having an "outsider" tell our stories will make them much more accessible than things we create for oustsiders as insiders within the hobby.
I agree about the value of an outsider's perspective for this type of documentary. When people who are outsiders to the hobby see my layout (very much in progress) or the things I have built, I am often struck by the things that impress or interest them first -- things we seemingly become nearly blind to ourselves, and which never draw comment from fellow modelers. Some of them can't stop looking at the backdrop for example; they take the weathered rail and painstakingly ballasted turnouts for granted. A scratchbuilt four unit apartment building that some local modelers have praised gets fewer comments than the Preiser figure of a woman pushing a lawn mower that I have near it.
Dave Nelson
Sara Kelly's project has now gone to the crowd funding stage. She has started a Kickstarter Project for it.
Excellent! I'm pretty limited in funds myself right now, but it was well worth $10 to help this very worthy project. And it was very easy. Please consider aiding this worthy project. They're trying to raise $30k in the next month. very doable, especially with lots of small donations. I think each one of us can find value in a project like this.
And it'll do way more for the hobby's image than Gomez Addams every did, altough I appreciate his style, spirirt, and spontaneity.
She should interview Rod Stewart. No doubt that ought to bring in lots of supporters from outside the hobby.
Jaime
BUMP
For all of those folks who feel our hobby will fade as the present generation passes on, here is an opportunity to help ensure model railroading's longevity.
Let's keep this topic on page one, give what you can if you can, and get the word out about being a part of putting our hobbies' best foot forward.
I'm in!
Chris Ballinger
Modeling the Clementon Branch of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in HO scale
Chris,
From the short clips Sarah has videoed and produced so far, it's easy to tell this is a high quality effort that's worthy of support. The NMRA is helping support the project among others. I think it's easy to recognize, as I suspect they did, that they could not hire someone equally talented for several times what the overall budget for this project is tp promote the hobby.
The current balance stands a little past $3500 from about 40 contributors with 20 days to go to raise the $30000 goal. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1007036228/model-citizens-a-model-railroading-documentary-in/backers
Most are modest contributions, so don't consider what you might be able to help with too small. I'm definitely in the quite modest contribution group, but every bit is appreciated as contributing to the overall goal.
Bumpin this one back to page 1! 8 days to go for the Kickstarter fundraiser and almost at 100 contributers... still well short of the goal but nice to see a lot of support.
The campaign has 5 days left and so far 113 generous people have pledged $12,616 towards it. Sara still needs more support, if they don't hit their goal of $30,000 in the next 7 days (September, 4 8:31 PM EDT) she will not receive any money from the campaign.
I've been following the project for that last few months ever since I heard heard on the MRH podcast. I think its a great way to promote model railroading and introduce new people to the hobby. Its easy to contribute, just create a Kickstarter account and if you have an Amazon account you can pay through that. It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up and contribute. Check out her site and if you can please support the project and pass the word around.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1007036228/model-citizens-a-model-railroading-documentary-in
Well over 100 sponsors now with 5 days left to go to reach the Kickstarter funding target. Pledges now total over 40% of of the $30K goal.
Go down this page or you may have to go to the next page, but there is a thread with the title starting "Model Citizens...." It discusses this program. Do hope it makes it's goals.
Have fun,
There's been some discussion about this over at the Model Railroad Hobbyist website. In one of their recent podcasts, they had an interview with Sara Kelly (the lady behind the documentary). From the interview, it sounded like she was already plugged in with NMRA, at least.
Sounds interesting, and a lot more friendly toward model railroaders than other articles, news clips, and documentaries I've seen in the past. Can't wait to see the finished product!
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
I've seen this pitch on a number of forums. However, it's pretty clearly a solicitation to invest in an individual's business venture. In effect, this person is selling something. Isn't that in violation of the forum policies?