Gregg County Historical Museum movie featured in Reel East Texas Film Festival

 

Longview News-Journal
By Jo Lee Ferguson jferguson@news-journal.com
November 10, 2023

When COVID-19 shut down the world in 2020, the Gregg County Historical Museum found a way to send the museum out to the world with “Mystery at the Museum.”

The 28-minute movie was Executive Director Lindsay Loy’s creation — she wrote the script — because the museum wanted to be able to send something to area schools about the museum.

“We just wanted to film a short little movie. We were calling it at the time a virtual tour, but we wanted to make it a little bit more fun,” Loy said. The tour turned into a movie with a video game feel, in which a security guard — "Security Sam" is played by Josh Mandreger — discovers something missing from the museum.

He tours the museum, talking to people in different exhibits, looking for help solving the mystery while learning about local history.

“We’ve never done anything like this before,” Loy said.

The movie has since found success inside and outside of the classroom and was selected as one of the films that will be featured in the Reel East Texas Film Festival at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Texan Theater in Kilgore.

A variety of ticket options are available. Visit www.reeleasttexas.com for more details, including other movies still showing throughout the weekend.

Loy said the schools "really enjoyed it." The museum would send them a link and then follow up by providing free tickets to the museum.

"We had a really great response from the students," she said.

The museum worked with Forbes and Butler Visual Communications to help make the movie, with grant funding from RBC Wealth Management and the city of Longview.

At Forbes and Butler, Jim Tilley worked on the film with Jerrad Parsons.

"We haven't produced anything like this before," Tilley said. "It was such a unique time," with organizations finding "creative ways to reach people and keep them engaged."

"Personally, it was really great to go through all the exhibits in the museum and find a way to take each of those exhibits and find a kernel to take out and find a way to draw people in," Tilley said.

The film features interactions with bank robber Bill Dalton, a Kilgore Collee Rangerette and the ghost of the young girl who died in about 1870 and whose coffin was unearthed in 1975 and eventually taken to the historical museum.

After it was completed, Loy said she didn't just want the movie to sit around unused. In 2022, the museum submitted it for consideration to the Texas Association of Museums Media Innovation & Excellence Awards — TAMMIES — which recognize museums doing "innovative things with media and technology." The museum won a TAMMI award with its submission

Loy started submitting it elsewhere and was selected for viewing in the Texas Short Film Festival in San Antonio, and then, Reel East Texas.

It's been shared with other clubs and senior living facilities as well.

The movie also led to some inspiration that could help the museum address other issues.

"We've been struggling with handicapped accessibility issues in the museum," Loy said. The museum has considered installing elevators, but that presents a number of issues — not the least of which is the question of whether the 123-year-old historical building, the former Citizens National Bank — could support an elevator.

The movie brought the museum to the idea of virtual reality tours, which would address those accessibility issues without elevators.

She said the museum has started the process of seeking a grant that could providing funding for the creation of a virtual reality tour that could be viewed using a special headset.

"We thought that would be super cool on an Oculus (virtual reality headset) so kids would take a virtual tour," Loy said.

Someone who isn't comfortable with a headset could be provided a place to watch the tour on a television or monitor. With some significant anniversaries arriving, the museum is planning a remodel and updates that could include a small theater where audiences could watch the movie.

In 1963, the Gregg County Historical and Genealogical Society was founded with 70 charter members. From this group, the Board of Directors of the Gregg County Historical Foundation was established and chartered by the State of Texas on February 28, 1966. The museum opened in 1984.