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Palm Springs: The Heart of Gay TV
By Stan Jenson
Call her a visionary, call her a dreamer, but whatever you do, don’t ignore comedian Shann Carr when she shares her vision of Palm Springs as the natural production site for all gay television and film projects. She’s not going for a laugh when she notes that much as Nashville is the home of country music and Chicago the launching pad for comedians, Palm Springs has the potential to become the epicenter for all gay entertainment projects.
Carr, named this year by Curve Magazine as one of the top ten lesbian comics in the country, is especially familiar to gay men, having entertained on 65 Atlantis charter cruises. She reckons the guys have adopted her as their “token lesbo.” When not on tour, she resides in Palm Springs, and has grown to understand the desert community’s rhythms, strengths, and charms. She feels that the town’s distance from Hollywood is perfect to allow them to tap upon technical and human assets without being bogged-down by the conventional “studio suits.”
Her first trial of this production concept happens this month with “Gay TV Week,” from July 6 – 12. Carr explained, “The mission of Gay TV Week is to attract television projects and top-notch media-makers to Palm Springs with such regularity that it becomes the ideal destination for the gay entertainment industry to combine work and play.” The week will be a summer camp for industry professionals and hopefuls alike. The centerpiece of the project is a commercial-making competition open to filmmakers from across the country. Organized under Carr’s business title, The Moxie Project, entrants will compete for three $1,000 prizes for the best 60-second TV spots created by teams of professional and amateur contestants. The cash prizes will be awarded in three categories: The Best Commercial for a Palm Springs Gay Business (sponsored by The Santiago Resort); The Best Public Service Announcement (PSA) for a Palm Springs Charity Organization (The Desert Pride Center); and The Best Promo Portraying Palm Springs as an Exciting Gay Entertainment and Vacation Destination. The modest registration fee of $25 allows teams to submit up to five entries total in the competition, and projects can be entered in any of the three categories.
One of the highlights of the week will be socializing (gays didn’t invent it, we merely perfected it!). Friends and interested onlookers are invited to mingle with the filmmakers, and remember that plenty of extras will be needed for the various commercials. This might be your big break! As with so many other gay and lesbian events, Hotel Zoso will open its facilities to the filmmakers, their friends, and other interested attendees, and nightly industry mixers will bring the filmmaking crews together at the end of each day. The mixers will kick off with brief conversation-starting items such as viewing sneak peeks of gay-ish shows currently being pitched to the networks, screenings of gay clips from overseas, a discussion of “How To Green Up Your Production Company,” and more. On Saturday, July 11, after the last commercial has been submitted, film crews and the public will play together at an afternoon T-dance called “Decades.” It will be by the pool at Hotel Zoso. A full schedule of events can be found on The Moxie Project’s website, www.themoxieproject.com.
Carr’s vision for Palm Springs is certainly not limited to one week in July. This summer’s event is a precursor to The Moxie Project’s much larger Gay TV Week from December 26, 2009, to January 3, 2010, during which several TV pilots will be filmed and screened by Moxie Studios, independent production companies, and television networks. And if that’s not enough, she hopes that someday she will see a huge resort in Palm Springs that is the only choice for any US gay conference. She is a frequent guest entertainer at gay functions across the US, and she constantly sees straight hotels trying to handle gay functions. How much more efficient it would be for those guests to travel to Palm Springs and an all-gay resort. But for today, Moxie Resort will stay on the shelf while all attention is lavished on Moxie Studios and Gay TV Week. Get in on the ground floor.