On October 9th, WWL TV reporter Charisse Gibson brought her camerawoman down to Six Flags New Orleans to conduct the first exclusive interview inside New Orleans’ own abandoned theme park in about twenty years.

For the first part of the interview, Charisse was treated to a quick trip around the park, courtesy of Elvin Ross of E. Ross Studios and his tricked-out studio golf cart.

After the tour, she sat down with Elvin and my boss, Jason Lanier to discuss Elvin’s plans for E. Ross Studios’ location in Six Flags as well as what Jason and I have been doing for the last eighteen months.

The first part of the interview debuted on the 10 o’clock hour broadcast on October 30th. It focused on Elvin Ross giving Charisse the park tour.

The main interview aired on October 31st. While I wasn’t on camera, my work was.

Jason Lanier is the Chief Archival Photographer for E. Ross Studios and Six Flags New Orleans. It’s a mouthful, I know. I happen to be the Assistant Archival Photographer.

I had three jobs that night.

1. Survive the mosquitos.

2. Take Behind-the-Scenes photos and videos of the interview.

3. Light the entirety of Main Street.

When you look at the image above, you see a beautiful photo of Main Street. It’s really cool, actually. What you don’t see and likely wouldn’t think about is HOW it was lit.

Jason and I set up forty brand new (in the box) lights and placed them everywhere. It took two full hours and would have taken longer, but… well, we’re very efficient. We’ve had a lot of practice.

In addition to lighting the street, we also did the lighting for WWL’s interview. Then, once the recordings were done and the fireworks were over, Jason and I had to break down everything and put the lights in storage. It was not an early night for us.

Just another night for the official Archival Photographer for Jazzland and his Assistant. If you watch the interview, you’ll get a tiny taste of the work we’ve been doing. But you still won’t have a clue how much blood and sweat we’ve poured into this project.

And that’s okay. I’m just excited that after everything I can finally talk about what I’ve been doing and give everyone a taste of what’s coming.