Almost Gone (2005)

Watch Almost Gone Trailer
welfare room
Web Extras
Watch movie trailer
Visit Official Site
Buy the DVD and CD-ROM
Read Essay on Film
Read Essay on Photography
Watch PBS documentary on Bethlehem Steel
Watch PBS segment on Beth Steel redevelopment
The Steel Workers Archives
Save Our Steel
Almost Gone is a visual journey through what remained of Bethlehem Steel's historic Lehigh plant on the day that Bethlehem Steel Corporation officially dissolved on December 31st, 2003.

Almost Gone takes the viewer down deep into the twisted labyrinth of the blast furnaces, the forlorn recesses of abandoned locker rooms and into the massive, gaping foundries where America forged its mighty weapons in the wars of yesteryear.

Photography is by Marc Reed - a First Place winner in the 2005 and 2006 SouthSide Photography Contest in the "Lehigh Valley Industrial Heritage" category.

Almost Gone runs 20:36 minutes in length. The DVD is available from The Garden Bay Films Store.

Produced and Directed by Marc Reed and Richard Behrens

The Birth of Graffiti (2008)

BOG2

Web Extras
Jon Naar's web site
Book Review by Richard Behrens
Buy the book at Amazon.com
In 1973, a New York City photographer named Jon Naar took to the streets to document the phenomenon of graffiti writing. Guided by a small group of uptown kids who he met in a subway station, Jon was able to capture a period in history that is equally unique and fascinating. Some of the photos were eventually published as a book called The Faith of Graffiti with text by Norman Mailer, but in 2007, Prestel has published over 150 previously unseen images in a beautiful new book called The Birth of Graffiti.

Garden Bay Films in collaboration with Jon Naar has created a small sampling of that brilliant collection of historical photos.

Directed by Jon Naar and Richard Behrens

Watch The Birth of Graffiti  
 
(Requires Flash)

 

The Lizzie Borden Documentary Project (2008-2010)


Watch the Lizzie Minis

Web Extras
The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast
Visit Lizzie Online
Read The Hatchet: The Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies
The Fall River Historical Society
In 1892, a young woman in Fall River, MA was arrested for brutally murdering her parents but was subsequently acquitted. Not only has Lizzie Borden become an American legend, but the unsolved murders have created a lasting legacy of amateur criminal investigations, and endless speculation. So much so that the house in which the murders occurred is now a Bed & Breakfast.

The Lizzie Borden Documentary Project will attempt to trace the history of Lizzie Borden against the backdrop of Fall River and its rich industrial and cultural history in a series of on-going Mini films.

Written and Directed by Richard Behrens


The Films of Marc Reed

Marc Reed is a painter, photographer, film maker, graphic designer, urban explorer and part-time contributor to Garden Bay Films. Back in 2004, his award-winning documentary photography exhibit on the ruins of Bethlehem Steel caught the eye of Richard Behrens, and became the basis of Garden Bay Films' first film project: Almost Gone.

Marc Reed continues to support Garden Bay Films and create his own unique documentary shorts, and we are pleased to showcase them here. Two of his recent works may be viewed in their entirety below.

For more information on Mr. Reed and his work, please visit his personal website: www.marcreed.com.

Abuse and Neglect (2008)

In 1979, an investigation into a large and notorious asylum revealed a system of criminal abuse and neglect that resulted in a court mandate to close the facility. What makes this case so chilling is that this was an asylum for children.

In Abuse and Neglect, producer and director Marc Reed revisits the old asylum as it is today - after more than two decades of neglect - and retraces the steps of those who lived its horrors.

Watch Abuse and Neglect    (Requires Flash)

The Paper Mill (2007)

The theme of industrial abandonment is explored again as Marc Reed uses timelapse photography techniques to record a day in the life of an abandoned New Jersey paper mill.

Watch The Papermill    (Requires Flash)

Produced and Directed by Marc Reed. Original soundtrack by Billy Atwell.

 
Upcoming Projects

The Harry Smith Documentary Project (2009-2010)

Web Extras
89 The Harry Smith Archives
78 The Anthology of American Folk Music
7 Harry Smith at the Getty
Harry Smith was an American musical anthologist, writer, experimental filmmaker, cultural anthropologist, ceremonial magician, mystic, painter and ethnographer. But he is perhaps best known as the creator of the 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, a seminal and talismanic vinyl album box-set that literally changed the world through music. It can be said that without Harry's record collection, there may not have been rock and roll or 1960s culture. He was the hidden gem of the Bohemian and Aquarian Revolutions, but died penniless in New York's Chelsea Hotel.

This unnamed project will trace the threads of meaning and pattern throughout his various art forms: paintings, experimental film, writings and the various collections (such as string art and paper airplanes) that collectively formulates a psychic exploration of our own transpersonal magics.

Produced and directed by Richard Behrens

Six Experimental Shorts (2009)

1. Zula Zelick   2. A Solar Myth   3. Osiris Entombed
4. The Market   5. India Song 1   6. India Song 2

Circassian Freak Show Women, Nepalese Temples and howler monkeys, solar flares in the solitude of space, ancient entities haunting Jersey City, the way to destruction given over the radio on a remote 1980 evening. Featuring the lost soundscapes of Body Without Organs, Tibetan Bowls, Current 93 and other ethereal whisperings.

Compiled and/or Composed by Richard Behrens.

Music For Twilight (2009)

Web Extras
Visit Cy Walter Online
Through the course of a musical career spanning some four decades, many sobriquets have been applied to describe Cy Walter's talent, among them the "darling of New York supper clubs"; the "poet of the piano"; and the "Dean of Cocktail Pianists". Although sometimes categorized as a "jazz improvisationalist", Cy preferred to characterize himself as a "stylist of show tunes". Cy's piano playing, however, was unique and largely defied stereotyped labels.

Music For Twilight, written and Directed by Richard Behrens, will trace the life, career and lingering legacy of this special artist.

pennhurst asylum bethlehem steel film photography urban exploration infiltration abandoned steel mill ue urbanex factory papermill cy walter lizzie borden marc reed richard behrens