Originally released in 2006 on Amazon and then updated several times later, this documentary is about Boston’s most diverse dance club, open from the 70s to the 90s. Three floors, a piano bar and pool tables in the basement, a new wave punk dance floor and then a classic disco dance floor… plus in good weather a roof deck with a grill! The entire LBGT+ community was welcome and mixed together as well straight people and a few other minorities that were not welcomed in other, straighter bars at the time.
This version is recut, new graphics, where possible, with better sound and upscaled to HD. It was filmed on zero budget with an old video camera and a mono microphone from the Radio Shack so I’ve tried to improve it where possible but tech is only so magical, even these days.
The goal is to give people who were not able to go to this wonderful place and a sense of what it was like and to remind the world of Boston’s gay history and a world that is now gone and lost.
I started my next documentary restoration. Each one gets more complicated and prepares me for the next. This was originally made in 2006 and, as usual, with no budget. The former 1270 security head, Bruce, found all sorts of photos and some very rough video about the club, its owner and the people who went there. I had a clip taken from a memorial video that showed many of the old gay bars in Boston which wasn't ideal but it was all I could find. 20 years later, there is a lot more info on the web but still not as much as I would like. I went through photos, newspaper and magazine ads and found a good 20 logos I could clean up or redraw and give a consistent look too to replace the bad video with something more professional. In 2011 I re-edited the 2006 version and took out some bad graphics of my own and this time I hope to do more of that and elevate the doc closer to today's standards. I discovered Final Cut Pro will isolate the voices and it took out the background music which will give me more options for re-editing the film as the original interview files are long gone.
On YouTube I have the completed longer version of my documentary about one of Boston's greatest bars from the days when Boston actually had 30 or so gay bars at one time. I made a shorter more concise version for a festival but this one has stuff many of the people interviewed liked in it. It was the third of 3 films I made about gay history (maybe 3 and 1/2 if you count "46 Years" to "50 Years" as separate films). It took 3 years to get the research done and the interviews set up and 8 months to edit and get the graphics done.
I tried to get the History project in Boston interested but they were pretty cold and unresponsive (as they have always been when I've tried to contact them to tell the truth). In fact, while many people showed up to see it and were happy it was made, in general not many people, particularly younger gay people, seem to not care at all where their roots are. I am glad at someone, even if it was only me, managed to get something done before no one remembers Boston's quite interesting gay past.
