The surprising challenge to making After The Fair

When you map out a project like this, you try to anticipate the challenges you could face. For this film, I assumed we would have a tough time finding people who would talk about the fair, and an even harder time getting permission to shoot at the dozens of fair-related sites around the country. It turns out, those things have been quite easy: everyone has been incredibly generous with sharing their time, and often providing us with more access than we could've hoped for to all of these treasures.

However, there's one thing that's proven far more difficult than I expected, and that's finding home movie footage of the fair. By my rough math, there should've been somewhere around 100,000 - 500,000 people with cameras at the fair over the two-year run. Granted that was 47 years ago, but let's assume 10% of the footage survives. That means there should still be 10,000 to 50,000 reels of footage out there somewhere. Unfortunately, most of it is probably withering away in attics, long forgotten, or perhaps without any way to watch it now.

Our challenge, and I hoping you can help, is to find those reels of film, and convert them for use in the film. If you (or your parents, or grandparents) attended the fair and shot footage, we would love to hear from you. Heck even if you weren't personally at the fair, I'd appreciate it if you could ask those you know who would've been the right age to attend.

Much like the relics of the fair themselves, we are slowly losing these films to heat, dust, and just plain old age. So please take a look, ask around, and let us know what you find.

Here's to a great 2012, and a quick look back at 2011

2011 was an amazing year for our project. As you can see on the map, we covered a lot of ground, with over a dozen sites visited around the eastern half of the country, including our two-week midwest road trip. Along the way, we met a lot of great people, many of which led us to even more people to interview, and even more fair-related sites to visit.

When I started on this documentary, I thought this would be just about the time we would be kicking back, and enjoying watching the final cut of the film. However, we've had so many fascinating additional paths to explore, that we now have most likely another 10 to 12 months of shooting. That's good news though, as it will give us the time to make a better, more fitting tribute to this fascinating event of American history.

Thank you to everyone who has visited the site, friended us on facebook, donated footage, pointed us to a great interview, and made donations to keep the project going. I'm looking forward to what is sure to be a challenging and ultimately enjoyable year of filming.

A World's Fair pavilion hides in plain sight

Spain Pavilion, 1964 Photo: Alan LovitchIf you're a baseball fan, you probably watched at least a portion of this year's World Series between the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals. If you also happen to be a fan of World's Fair relics (hey, you're on this site now, aren't you?) then you might not have known that you were occasionally seeing a pavilion from the fair, hidden in plain sight.

The Spain pavilion from the fair was re-located to St. Louis after the fair, with high hopes for it to be a tourism destination. Unfortunately, most people don't even know it is there. Today the pavilion, or more precisely, its exterior walls, serve as the lobby for the St. Louis Hilton. The hotel happens to be right next to Busch Stadium, with several rooms having views of the field. So in several of the wide, aerial shots of the stadium, millions of people were seeing a World's Fair pavilion, without even knowing it.

As a sidenote, along with the pavilion, a six-foot plus bronze sculpture of the first Queen of Spain also moved to St. Louis. If you go to the hotel hoping to see the Queen, you won't find her. She's in hiding right now, but we found her. Stay tuned...

St. Louis Hilton & Busch Stadium 

World's Fair dinosaurs stand guard In Texas

Travel about an hour west of Dallas TX, past acres and acres of ranches and natural gas drilling sites, and you come to the quiet town of Glen Rose. 

Today, Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, TX, stands where a fascinating discovery was made that ultimately led to this tiny town becoming home to two of the Sinclair Oil dinosaurs from the World's Fair. As Maude at the park gift shop explained to us, (and she'd be happy to tell you as well, if you visit) through a series of coincidences, Roland T. Bird from the American Museum of Natural History visited the area in 1938, after receiving word of a set of dinosaur tracks in the area. Bird ended up removing a portion of the tracks for inclusion in the museum. Thankfully plenty of tracks remain, and the park is home to some of the best preserved dinosaur tracks in the world, specifically from sauropods and theropods. 

The Sinclair dinosaurs from the 1964-65 NY World' Fair ended up on display throughout the US. After the travelling tour of the Sinclair dinosaurs was complete, in 1970 ARCO (who had purchased Sinclair Oil) donated the T-Rex and Brontosaurus (or Apatosaurus) to the park. They now stand and keep watch over real dinosaur tracks! If you find yourself near Dallas TX with an afternoon to spare, be sure to stop by Glen Rose, and say hi to Maude for us!

One Fair Relic You Can Never "Tire" Of Seeing

Sorry for the bad pun folks, but I couldn't resist. We are finally back from a road trip visiting several World's Fair legacies. Our first stop was the "giant tire" outside of Detroit Michigan, along Interstate 94.

Billed as "the world's largest tire" (and we tend to agree) today it serves as a billboard of sorts for Uniroyal tires.

In 1964-65 it was one of the most unusual ferris wheels in the world. When it was part of fair, the ferris wheel gondolas went inside the two outer walls of the tire.

While we got some great video and photos of the tire, the mystery of just what might be lurking behind the door at its base remains a mystery...

Anyone have any memories of being on the U.S. Tire ferris wheel at the fair?