NewEnglandFilm.com

Dean "Dino" Georgopoulos’s resume includes business planning for Quentin Tarantino, teaching Don King to surf the net, building a "one box" live production studio for Orange County, and coaching hockey. NewEnglandFilm.com recently spoke with the New Hampshire native about one of his many innovations — ROADance — a shorts festival projected on a truck that he drives through Park City, Utah during the town’s busiest time of year.

Erin Trahan: So should I call you Dean or Dino?

Dean Georgopoulos: I’m a Dean, that’s my actual name. There’s a percentage of friends before college that call me Dean, but everyone I’ve met since 1987 calls me Dino.

ET: You’re an alumnus of the University of New Hampshire and a native New Englander. What do you make of the New England filmmaking and exhibition community?

Georgopoulos: I grew up in Manchester. It’s something I’m very proud of. When I know someone in L.A. is from New England, I let them know that I am too. My parents and sister live in Rye, so I come back for Christmas and other events.

You don’t have to be here to get your "Blair Witch" done, or your documentary, or whatever story you have that you feel is compelling. Just learn the tools of the trade: How do I shoot? How do I get the best possible sound? Have at it. If I got on the map as a filmmaker and could make movies at the budget level that I want, I’d move back in a second.

ET: Why ROADance?

Georgopoulos: I was the head of programming for an Internet company called DEN (Digital Entertainment Network). It was basically the 800-pound gorilla of the streaming media business in the dotcom age. We produced 6,600 hours of content over 14 months. But due to many factors we went out of business. The long and the short of it is that the bankruptcy court trustee for DEN contracted with me to sell a majority of that content.

I was literally in the shower, where I do my best thinking, and I had the idea to take a truck and project the video while I drove around Park City. So in 2002, I did ROADance to market the DEN content.

ET: Did you ever find a buyer?

Georgopoulos: I met a guy at NAPTE (National Association of Television Program Executives), and according to him, he’s the largest private content owner of anyone in world. Supposedly he lives next to the Kennedys on the Cape. I pitched him and two days later, his father, who’s 82 years old and can’t hear, shows up in a 16-foot cube truck and gets my guys to fill the truck with tapes. This man proceeded to drive it back to Hyannisport in 48 straight hours.

ET: How do you make decisions about submissions?

Georgopoulos: ROADance is a festival in a traditional sense: we show different films from different filmmakers. But with me, everyone who submits a film is in. The ideal is a one-minute silent short, so people can understand it.

ET: I haven’t had the good fortune to witness your mobile theater in action. What am I missing?

Georgopoulos: Park City’s Main Street, which is only about a quarter-mile long, is packed solid on both sides during the festival. The idea is to drive but I get the best response when I legally park the truck while people are walking to bars, to screenings, and have a few minutes to stop. The mantra for dTheatres [one of my sub businesses] is: "We bring content to you, where there are natural audiences."

ET: Sounds simple enough, but I understand you’ve had some legal trouble?

Georgopoulos: The bottom line is that I show movies for free and Sundance doesn’t like that. My third year I got shut down, a cop gave me a ticket, then they wrote a bunch of laws into the city code to make what I do illegal. So in 2005 I got a permit to operate in a drugstore parking lot. I felt like a man without a country.

ET: Who are your peers in nontraditional screening innovation? Or perhaps there are people/activists who cross genres? Poets, say, who are really getting their words out in a way that inspires you?

Georgopoulos: I haven’t met anyone who does it all like I do. I’m a geek. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about this industry. I started as a manager of a pretty famous rock and roll band, and then I moved to production, made my way up from PA to producer. When I got involved in 3D film, back in 1994, I had to build my own 3D movie theater. DEN hired me because I knew how to produce content, manage a business, and do all the technical stuff.

I know this out of desperation more than trying to be a pioneer. The only way you can learn to project digitally is by doing it. It might be abnormal for a 42 year-old but for a 25 year-old it’s like putting cereal in a bowl and eating it with spoon. In time, this kind of radical filmmaking and projection will be the norm.

ET: Didn’t it use to be spelled RoaDance?

Georgopoulos: RoaDANCE actually, but I had so many people calling me, asking me if I was doing ROW-AH-dance that I decided to capitalize the road so people would say road first, then dance. Capital letters are not very democratic; I’ve lived a lowercase life for 20 years because of my typing ability and 23 years using a computer. Anyway, ROAD is the part to emphasize.

ET: Your father was a politician, you studied political science in college, and you had a major role in helping Al Gore start up his new cable channel, Current. How do politics relate to your current endeavors?

Georgopoulos: If you’re a politician you can never get 100% of people to agree with you. You are constantly failing somebody. Everything you do is being criticized or scrutinized. If you make a movie that resonates with an audience, you’ve affected people but you don’t have the enemies. I want to use the technology and tools of filmmaking to affect policy without the negative repercussions. Working for Al Gore really cemented the gratification of a goal to get people to use technology to tell stories from wherever they are.