Good idea and hope it comes to fruition.

Is the term "digital film" an oxymoron?

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These artifical attempts to revitalize downtown are interesting if only for their continuous failures. I grew up in Little Rock so I remember downtown in its heyday during the 50s. However, when something dies it stays dead no matter how much you dress up the corpse. You can build some high rises that appeal to those with a substantial bankroll but even that effort is limited. I suppose River Market enjoys some degree of success to date but that is limited and who knows what time will tell for that island of commerce. Commercial and residential Little Rock still moves West and will continue to do so. Are these failed attempts at downtown revitalization homage to a political ideology or an attempt to make a buck?

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"revitalization of Little Rock's Main Street has been seen, to date, as almost wholly a government-underwritten enterprise"

I'm confused. I thought the city leaders were supporting the westward expansion.

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The school is a great idea. Among the arts, the study of motion pictures in the 21st Century is (or should be) as basic and essential as the study of English, writing, painting, sculpture, still photography, theatre, dance and music.

There are currently over 74 motion picture schools across the United States. Most, you've never heard of. But their students and graduates have.

Still photographers -- good ones -- were rarities at the turn of the last century. Today good photographers are a dime a dozen. Motion pictures, television, and their accompanying technologies and business models, are evolving at an even more rapid and ubiquitous pace than did still photography.

Schools do not make Jeff Nicholses (Arkansas born writer / director of "Slingblade," "Take Shelter," "Mud"). Individuals like Nichols ALREADY have the talent, drive, ambition and determination to make it in motion pictures (or any art) -- no matter what. No matter how many loving well-meaning people advise them to go into something "secure" instead.

The Jeff Nicholses of the world will find their own schools and training -- their own financing and casts and distribution and festivals -- as needed. Always have, always will. The same is true for any art form. Cream rises, they say. Talent will out, they say.

But not necessarily.

The required combination of talents and personality traits -- including relentless ambition and the ability to compete and to network, much less innate creativity and vision -- can't really be taught like "techniques" and "business models." Plenty of highly talented artists in all fields sooner or later find their livelihoods in something more "secure."

The school in The Rock is a terrific idea. A natural neighbor of The Rep on Main.

Could The Rock's long-dilapidated and depressing Main Street actually evolve into a magnetic creative corridor for The Natural State and the region?

One has to laugh -- through one's tears -- at the monies annually poured into sports in The Natural State, versus education in general and the arts in particular. To expect Arkansas' taxpayers to support such a school -- alone or even as primary funding source -- is ludicrous.

Further, if the motion picture school is founded on dreams of Arkansas someday becoming a "film capital" or attracting "stars" and "celebrities" and big money, it is doomed to disappointment and failure. Same for any of the other 74+ motion picture schools across the country.

As with any art form, those tinseltown visions of stardom are the silly immature easy and superficial attractions that belie the hard work and sacrifice demanded and seldom financially rewarded.

Arkansas, like most states in America, will never become a hub of round-the-clock motion picture production on a Hollywood-like scale. That indeed is a foolish dream and a hollow promise.

Building and sustaining a motion-picture school in The Natural State, in The Rock and / or elsewhere, like backers build and sustain athletic programs, on the other hand, at least provides a dedicated educational institution in the techniques and realities of the art form, technologies and business models that offer a foundation and springboard to future Jeff Nicholses.

That alone is worth whatever it takes.

A winning touchdown rouses a season.

A winning motion picture draws cheers for generations: art never dies.

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Mr. Holmes, I think you'll see that the trend nationwide, and even state-wide, is moving back towards downtowns. Look at Jonesboro, for example. For years, their downtown hosted nothing other than law firms and banks. These days, it's more vibrant than Little Rock's.

It has bars, shops, restaurants, coffee shops, and more. All of those are in direct competition with a brand new mall that was built farther out in the city.

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So how do you explain the development in the Chenal area and out Number 10? Does that support the assumption that you are making relative to downtown? Development in Little Rock has been going Westward for decades. I'm always amazed at references to the University Avenue area as 'midtown'. I remember when it was a dirt road called Hayes Street. So back to my original question. Are decisions about downtown development political or business based?

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"The idea of starting a Pulaski Tech program to train film industry workers" and what film industry in Arkansas are we talking about? Where will these students find work around these parts? I was for the culinary school on Main but PT can put this dog on I-30 also. Maybe the students can find work at Tinseltown.

The next thing you know the mayor will try to get PT to start a Center for Exotic Arts on Main Street. They could put poles in all the windows facing Main and let the dancing commence.

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Stodola did a lot of sore-loser grousing and finger-pointing at Pulaski Tech yesterday, according to the article in today's Dem-Gaz. Why should we now expect that Pulaski Tech will want to explore another downtown idea any time soon?

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Apples and Oranges. Jonesboro is growing. Little Rock is stagnant and relocating. Yes, it's confusing. We subsidize western expansion so that western development is cheap and a drag on any effort to revitalize downtown. Then we seek to subsidize urban development to keep the city from turning into a ghost town. You see the common theme here? Tax money going int both directions for a city that has next to zero growth. And, there is no competition in LR. It is often the same country club growd that owns all of the old buidlings and vacant lots downtown that is developing the new shopping centers out west. Little Rock is based on planned obselescence; quick, cheap, tax payer subsidized developement, blight, new, quick cheap developement.

Growth is LRs real issue. LR's workers live in Conway, Cabot, Saline County, as far away as Searcy and Hot Springs. Growth is not an issue that LR is capable of dealing with. But, it is past time to look at responsible sustainable developement. There are real pieces to that that require the tax money now being given to our local swells.

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