Michael Donovan's Walking Home

(Indie Director) As development tears through Manhattan, Clayton Dean Smith saw his LES neighborhood begin to gentrify from urban development and started to play with ideas. As an active community member and an artist, he decided to create a short film to address the human aspects of the swift changes. His film, Off Track Betty, is destined to be a historical film that marks the transition marking an end of an era in New York while bringing an artistic expression to the ongoing discussion as we globally move from analog to digital communities. I join in at his home in the Lower East Side to discuss:  • Whole Foods: your neighborhood scam    • Birthing “Off Track Betty”  • NYC: a cautionary tale for other world cities  • We are the gentrifiers  • Adapt with the change or get rolled  • Witnessing NYC DIY cinema history develop in your hands  • Ways to advocate while living inches from colossal mistakes   • The Rat Race vs The Alien Race  • Chasing Manhattan  • Enjoying the NYC analog culture that still exists