Progress, Larry Giles and the Title

So far we’ve shot seven of the core “talking head” interviews that will become the core of the film. At the moment we are trying to schedule the last four or so key interviews that we think we need and then it’s on to shooting the exterior parts of the film if and when it ever warms up in St. Louis.

One of my favorite interviews we’ve done so far is with Larry Giles of the St. Louis building Arts Foundation. He’s been salvaging pieces of lost buildings in St. Louis since the early 1970′s. The STL Building Arts Foundation purchased an old Steal Plant on the other side of the river where most of these artifacts are stored, and that’s been documented in this video by KETC:

This brings me to the title of the film. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a title for this film since I started this project. Early on I was using the working title (a movie biz term for a temporary title) Brick City, but that soon proved problematic when another documentary by that name appeared on the Sundance Channel which isn’t about bricks at all, but about the inner workings of  the city government of Newark, New Jersey. Also there is (what I think is) a now dead local blog by that name. So to avoid confusion I decided not to even use Brick City as even a working title and opted to just call it “The Untitled St. Louis Brick Documentary” for the time being, since that didn’t require me to explain that it’s a temporary title, or why I was using a title that had already been used elsewhere.

So the process of coming up with at title sent me looking for quotes or metaphors regarding brick. Looking for that one combination of words that would be a suitable name for this project. Of couse most brick metaphors are clichés, “brick by brick”, “another brick in the wall”, etc. All of them we’ve all heard a million times. No brick metaphors were out … then it was on to quotations … there are several regarding bricks, and almost none of which were good inspiration for a title, save for one … and after a week of deliberation with my managing producer, Jeannette, and other friends I think I’ve found our title. But after telling you all this I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say what it is.

So over the weekend I hope to work on rebranding this site and make the big reveal what the new title will be early next week. So stay tuned …