Pipestone Square

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American Graffiti mixes with the Pipestone Square!

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By Michael Smith

American Graffiti mixes with the Pipestone Square! This 6 minute and 3-second-long video was conceived in a dream I had after making the previous Pipestone digital drive video around the Square.  The thoughts in my dream were to attempt to blend live-action movie shots and movie stills from the great George Lucas movie American Graffiti staged for a 1962 era, with historical Pipestone photos and combine with a periodized soundtrack. Excited to see your comments . . . relive all your Square drive memories again!

Here is some movie trivia: George Lucas released the movie American Graffiti in 1973 with a budget of only $777,000 (Small even in 1973) and it made an astounding $140 million at the box office!  This movie became the cash bankroll that allowed George Lucas to fund his ultimate movie venture, Stars Wars Episode IV and the rest was history as they say!  George’s first movie was a sci-fi feature called THX 1138, but it did not fare well at the theaters.  It was very subtle in the American Graffiti movie scenes, but if you look fast the license plate of Milner’s 1932 yellow deuce coupe is THX 138.

Interestingly American Graffiti was one of Harrison Ford’s first movies, and also for Richard Dreyfuss, Charles Martin Smith, Mackenzie Phillips, Susanne Somers, Paul LeMat and Cindy Williams. Ron Howard of course was a star long before this movie came out and Wolfman Jack was a renowned radio disk jockey on the West Coast.

Besides the huge 42 song soundtrack, American Graffiti also used a multiple movie vignette structure to have parallel storylines all wrapped up in one movie. Many directors at the time thought having so many parallel storylines in one movie would be too complex and hard for people to follow and doom a movie. History proved this multi-story approach that George Lucas decided to use provided the success charm, and love of this movie by so many. This multiple storyline structure would soon become the standard for future movies and TV shows – and all from one movie!

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Cruzin’ the Square Video Digital Drive Around the Square

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Cruzin’ the Square Video . . .

Greetings all that grew up driving around the Square in Pipestone looking for friends or just something to do.  Decided to create a 4 Minute 50 Second video documenting a virtual drive around the 3.5-mile Square, which is ironically actually a rectangle, for everyone. Painstakingly stitched together 123 Google Earth “Street View” widescreen images all put together in a virtual digital drive around the Square.

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For the soundtrack I used the 1966 top hit “Walking Around” from local music legend Steve Ellis (1963 PHS Graduate) and the Starfires. In “Walking Around” Steve Ellis mentions the “Pipestone Square” and he wrote it for his and other teen’s ventures on the Square growing up in Pipestone.  I close the music soundtrack with one of my all-time favorite “Square” driving songs from 1970, “All Right Now” by the English rock group Free.

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My hope is this short video will bring back memories for Pipestone residents current, past and future that trekked around the Square with your school friends, either driving, walking, or riding your bike like I did hundreds of times!  Especially made this video for people that have not been back to Pipestone for many years and wish to relive those cruising memories.  The 1973 George Lucas movie “American Graffiti” reminds me of my growing up in Pipestone and cruising the Square.