- Kevin McCaffrey
- Visiting Scholar, 2009-10 TOPIC: Louisiana Food Cultures + New Media
- Posted October 4, 2009
Documentary film producer Kevin McCaffrey is a James Beard Award finalist, and a publisher, writer, editor, oral historian, reviewer and creative industry consultant, with a long history of both commercial and volunteer service. McCaffrey is managing partner of e/Prime Media LLC, specializing in research and products relating to culture, history, environment and design in Louisiana and around the rim of the Gulf of Mexico. Quite recently, McCaffrey wrote and produced video profiles of artists Michael P. Smith, Alan Gerson, and Shirley Masinter. e/Prime has done research work for the State of Louisiana, produced video for such disparate clients as the Louisiana State Museum, The Historic New Orleans Collection, Galatoire’s Restaurant and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It also produced its own documentary for television: “A Common Pot: Creole Cooking on Cane River”, a study of Creole Cuisine and “Celebrating Tradition, 100 Years of A Galatoire’s Restaurant."
In 2009 his documentary television program, “We Live To Eat: New Orleans’ Love Affair With Food,” was a finalist for a James Beard Award in broadcast media after airing on WYES and the Louisiana Public Brodcasting network.. e/Prime has also published The Incomplete, Selectively Quirky, Year By Year Prime Facts Edition of the History of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. (ISBN 0-9766154-0-1) and videos on 3 booksellers and the effects of Hurricane Katrina, an endangered catfisherman, and “Lakeviews” a community based art project he documented. Kevin is currently producing a documentary on Acadian Foodways.
In studying foodways in Louisiana, he worked as co-director of an oral history project on culinary issues and foodways and recorded many hours of food related interviews for the archive at the Nadine Vorhoff Library at the Newcomb Center for Research on Women. He was also a consultant with the Deep South Regional Humanities Council on foodways related programs and recognized as a foodways scholar by the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities. He has also conducted oral history for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation archive, interviewing the participants in the origin of its Festival.
NCCROW Visting Scholars Claire Menck and Kevin McCaffrey review footage from a recent joint excursion in Acadiana.
Listen: Claire Menck and Kevin McCaffrey: A First Conversation About Food Cultures, Food Systems, Food Policy, Food Media @ Sophielab 09 14 2009 (45:47/MP3/49.1 MB)
PLAN OF WORK: KEVIN MCCAFFREY, NCCROW VISITING SCHOLAR 2009-10
After discussions this summer with Crystal Kile and the two interns managing Sophielab, I have a good grasp on current setup and past performance and staff aspirations for the role of the Lab in campus life. I understand some of the pressures that come to bear from campus departments, the intensity of time commitments of potential Lab workers and students, and the academic pressures on them. I see how this affects the Lab’s productivity. Finally I believe I am clear about the Center’s primary partnerships and programs and the need to produce and disseminate media about that.
During Fall semester, I will help organize Sophielab activity into lines that take into account the knowledge to be acquired and learning experiences that will develop a bank of students who will be current with techniques in digital media to competently tell stories. If by the end of the year, they can do it with a bit of style and panache, I will consider that a personal bit of lagniappe. I hope in the first couple of weeks to give a foundational presentation on production techniques, terminology and practices for audio and video production. This will familiarize the students with how productions get done and give them a road map to achieve Lab goals. I will help monitor the organization’s success and suggest ways to tweak and manage the productions this year. Of course, if students require information and help from me, I will be available to do what I can.
The second semester in particular I will do scholarly research for a next culinary culture program for public television: The Contribution by Women to New Orleans Food History. This is a large, important and untold story, particularly on TV, and the Center particularly affords me an opportunity for study and exploring resources in the archive. I’m quite excited by this opportunity for this line of research! I plan to finish my tenure at NCCROWwith a script treatment for the program with just about all the pre-production completed.
