December 12, 2006 at 05:16pm by Maria de los Angeles
Building a nightclub takes balls, as Miami’s young masters of celluloid suggest in their latest project Clubland—a series of web-based shorts about Miami-Beach’s cut-throat nightclub industry. Calling themselves Rakontur (a bastardized spelling of French raconteur, or skilled story teller), the producer/director team of Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben are good at telling stories about bad scenes.
Clubland comes out on the eve of their recent success with Cocaine Cowboys, which chronicled Miami’s 1980s drug culture. Picked up by Magnolia Pictures for distribution rights, Cocaine Cowboys is currently playing on select screens across the country. Clubland, however, will focus on electronic distribution via the internet with two dozen five-minute episodes financed by Level 42 Vodka.
Spellman and Corben started rolling their cameras again early this year to follow club owner Nicola Siervos in the process of building and opening chic nightclub Mokai on 23rd and Collins Avenue. The preview reads like a modern Shakespearian saga of frustrated ambition: “to open or not to open” seems to be the real question on the gritty endeavor behind the glamorous facade of South Beach.
Clubland takes you inside the epicenter of the hottest party scene in the world – Miami’s South Beach - offering unprecedented access behind the scenes of the nightclub industry at its most competitive. Beyond the velvet rope, through the VIP lounges, past the DJ booth and right into the back office. This is the story of the money, the egos, the catfights and the controversies at the most popular nightclubs in town.
Build It and They Will Boogie
South Beach’s clubbing industry has a long history of successes and failures that have kept its reputation of party scene alive for dozens of decades. I’ve always thought of clubbing as an exaggerated theatrical experience, a kind of Disney for adults. Not just going to dance or listen to music or have a few cocktails—but rather a fantasy within four walls, made all the more enticing with exclusivity to make people want to stand in line, risk being turned away or if not, pay exorbitantly for the fabricated privilege.
I’m really looking forward to Rakontur’s take on the movers and shakers that make it all happen backstage in the underbelly of deals and delays. Behind the scenes might just be more interesting than in front of the velvet rope!
Clubland is scheduled for release in January 2007. I’ll update with more information as soon as its available.
 | Maria de los Angeles is a freelance wordsmith who loves to write about all things Florida and the Caribbean. She is also the author of Sex and the Beach, where she writes under the pen name Manola Blablablanik. See more articles by Maria de los Angeles > |
