BALLY-MASTER

a film by Gary Beeber

music by Mario Sprouse

BEST DOCUMETARY SHORT
Coney Island Film Festival, 2007

GRAND JURY AWARD FOR DOCUMENTARY
DC Independent Film Festival, 2008

FESTIVAL DE CANNES
SHORT FILM CORNER
May 14th-24th, 2008

Boomtown Film & Music Festival, 2008
Friday May 17, 4:00PM
Beaumont, Texas

OFFICIAL SELECTION
NewFilmmakers, 2008
Location: Anthology Film Archive
32 Second Avenue, NYC
Wednesday, June 11, 6:00 pm
Scott Baker will perform LIVE!

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Ybor Festival of the Moving Image

OFFICIAL SELECTION
da Vinci Film Festival, 2008

OFFICIAL SELECTION
On Location: Memphis, 2008

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Backseat Film Festival, 2008

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Charlotte Film Festival, 2007

Experience a guilty pleasure as you are drawn into the bizarre world of Scott Baker, Master of the Bally stage at Coney Island's Sideshows by the Seashore.

Watch Scott as he performs hardcore sideshow-geeking acts such as razor blade eating, straight jacket escape, “The Human Pin-Cushion,” “The Human Blockhead,” and watch, if you can, as he consumes a meal of glass chards. “Professor Scott” also talks about how many of these outrageous routines came about.

Meet fellow sideshow performers who share the stage with him such as Insectavora (the sensual Coney Island fire-eater), Bambi the Mermaid (burlesque star and unofficial Queen of Coney Island), Serpentina the snake charmer as well as other Coney Island personalities and habitués.

Scott talks in depth about his life, the sideshow, and the history of geeking, and by geeking, we mean biting off the heads of live chickens, not sitting at a computer all day. Many of the legendary performers who influenced him such as Harry Houdini, Frank Lentinni, Melvin Burkhardt and Gypsy Rose Lee are discussed.

Scott was filmed live on the bally stage at "Sideshows by the Seashore," as he worked the crowd as well as other locations in New York City.

It's all REAL, it's all HERE, it's ALIVE!

"A fabulous evening of film all around, "Bally Master" stood out as
a tight, riveting document of a national treasure - Scott Baker.
Through Scott and his cohorts at Sideshows by the Seashore,
an important cultural and anthropological history is being preserved;
through Gary Beeber's lens, it is presented in a captivating and entertaining format.
Gary Beeber's journey from photographer to filmmaker gives his work
the feel of an "unrehearsed art object." Hats off to both
Mr. Baker and Mr. Beeber for a wonderful evening!"

- Professor Sprocket,
Outside Talker, Inside Lecturer
Palace of Wonders, Washington, D.C.