Producing : Riverhood by Travis O Harrison

Please excuse any or all of this, It's been a day like few I've ever experienced and I wanted to take a moment to just get it out with others who understand the life we live chasing improbable dreams. My little idea we're developing down here in New Orleans is tearing me into two diametrically opposed directions as it progresses. I'm terrified and humbled knowing the avalanche coming now that we've kicked the first rocks down the mountainside, while simultaneously absolute in my belief that we are about to do things for New Orleans that no one could imagine.

Now that we've set things in motion and begun building the team to bring it all together, things are moving exponentially faster. It's like when you think the rollercoaster has dealt you its worst but, "Oh, hell no! Hold to your legacy, Buttercup! Mama about to take you upside down in the dark!" Yeah, it's like that but, fortunately for me, I live in New Orleans. Upside down and in the dark is what we do. Like, all the time. We may even have a festival for it.

Making the decision early on to utilize only local talent in the production: the actors, the music, the crew, everything, we the best decision we could have possibly made. Once the right pieces started falling into place, they opened the doors to dozens of other local talents who now lend their voices to the chorus. Of the eleven principles and key supporting roles, we found five in less than a week. Absolute perfect embodiments of their characters. It's uncanny.

And I don't mean they were the exact idea I had in my head when I wrote the characters, I mean they embodied their presences, the way they carry themselves, who they are. They had the same personal swaggers I saw in my characters. The characters are based on dozens of different inputs. They're ghosts. I have ideas of who they are and how they interact with others, not so much what they look like. Now I have faces to my characters, physical beings each with their own unique set of quirks, talents, and foibles to be incorporated. When I review the show in my mind now, playing it forward and backward, adjusting reactions and running it again, changing angles, over and over, breaking it all down, it's no longer a monotony to kill time, it's a passion to find the perfect path from mind to screen.

I was never really worried about finding the actor to play the primary male lead once Layla singed on. Not sure why. I intentionally never tried to visualize someone in that role. If I had to force myself into thinking it, I wasn't thinking it. That's how it was with Layla. Met her for three seconds in passing at a blues fest down in here in New Orleans about a year ago. I had no idea who she was or that she was about to give a surprise performance, which I had to miss, I'll add, but I knew in that three seconds she was Carla. Two months ago I sent her the script, two days later she was on board. She's not only a world renown blues musician and daughter of a blues legend, she's a highly trained actress having studied in both Italy and France. She could not be a more perfect fit, nor could I have anticipated what I can now do with the character as a result of her inclusion. The more I listen, the more she defines the character and gives her clarity. Now it's like Layla was always the one in mind when I wrote Carla. So it wasn't any real surprise when I was going through emails and the social media accounts this morning that I came across a picture of one of the actors already signed to the project and another actor I didn't know named Jonas. I deep a dive on Jonas who's both an accomplished actor and musician, as well as already works with education support programs for inner city children here in New Orleans. He was also the look I wanted for Declan without knowing what Declan looked like. I shot him a message at 7:02 this morning. By 7:26, he'd read the script and was fully committed. HIs exact reply was, "Dude, I'm so fu*&ing in!"

Whatever divine gratitude I may have warranted in my life I'm pretty sure was used up during my fight against stage IV throat cancer ten years ago. I doubt it was held in reserve in case something really important should come along later, like an irreverent sitcom which opens which blasphemy, for instance. But it's hard not to feel a certain energy building around what we're doing. Riverhood is built from the soul and music of New Orleans. Now that we've been given direct injection into her heart, our path becomes that much more defined each day. The reason this show is going to be something different is because it's a show only New Orleans can create. No other city could either inspire it or support it. Every voice has to be authentic, every knowledge genuine. Any outside input would only dilute it. We're doing something quintessentially us. We have til February to get everything into place and see if our little idea is worth a hoot. It's going to be a lot of fun as it grows into place but being unafraid of the dark doesn't make me immune from falling over the chair. We're still walking a careful path, slowly inching our way forward, trying not to run before walking, bridling back to maintain schedules and gather information.

We've got one really good shot to drop this on the world in a way few others can do. We have till then to get all the different pieces in place. Assuming we do, we're already tied to virtually every musician already contracted to perform the VIP events for the Big Game being played down here next February but more importantly, I'm networked into every server in every major restaurant in the French Quarter. Imagine what I'm going to do with them and 100k show cards when the time comes? We've been building the neural path through the city for years preparing for next year. The clock is ticking.

But we're not there yet. Gotta make sure all the pieces are set first. Right ho, boys! Into the darkness we ride!

Thanks for just letting me vent. I'm too old to adrenaline rush and want to run a marathon, it's more the "let's type some shit" kind of adrenaline I get when the project's moving forward. I need to vent it somewhere to keep it out of the storyline. When you write all pumped up, the story goes extreme really fast. It's a waste of time. I've found this lets me clear the head and get back into the game.

I hope everyone's having a great day!

Travis Harrison