With video, Morgan City is hoping for a makeover

Morgan City has entered a contest with the hopes of winning a hometown makeover on a new show “Hometown Takeover.”
HGTV has a popular makeover series called “Home Town” which stars Ben and Erin Napier, residents of Laurel, Mississippi, who makeover homes in their hometown. The couple is planning on branching the series out into a spin-off called “Hometown Takeover” where they will lead a team of renovation professionals and make over portions of a small town somewhere in the United States.
Morgan City wants to be that town, and Beth Price, Morgan City Main Street director, worked with a team to create a video for entry.
“I became aware of the competition when I was on vacation with my family. I got tagged by probably 50 people for it or sent messages about it so when I got back to town I learned a couple other main street directors I am in touch with were making videos so I looked up what the requirements were and saw that it was due the next week,” Price said.
The main requirement for the competition is to have a population of 40,000 or less. Any resident or group of residents was eligible to make an entry.
“This isn’t just a Main Street thing, anyone could have applied, but I think when people saw the competition they just thought I would be a good choice to spearhead the project,” Price said.
They were right. Price put a message out on Morgan City Main Street looking for help and specifically a videographer and got in touch with Nicole Perri, a videographer.
“Nicole understood we wanted more of an artistic approach rather than a commercial approach. So we laid out what we were thinking and she took it from there. It is a very different video, and we wanted to get people’s attention and I think she did an excellent job in doing that,” Price said.
According to HGTV, applicants should try to highlight aspects of their hometown that make it special, fascinating or unique: like vintage or period architecture, special destinations and a classic main street. The Napiers wanted to see videos that showed a place that needs a makeover like a diner or a home, other places the town could use a facelift and what the citizens love about the town.
“We chose to focus on the downtown area because lots of the things we wanted to point out in the video were places like the houses on the down ramp onto Federal that is an entrance to the city that is not the greatest looking area for people’s first impression. We made sure to include Shannon school because it is such a piece of historic property and we just chose some of the historic homes because of the architecture that they have,” Price said.
Price worked on the script for the video with Chris Hunter, station manager at KWBJ-TV 22, Scott Sicard, a former member of Morgan City Main Street’s board and Deborah Price. Hunter and Danika Foley, news reporter at KWBJ-TV, narrated the video.
“Chris and Danika got together so Nicole could interview them and get it to where it sounded more like they were having a conversation instead of reading off of a script, but they still hit on all the points that we wanted to make known,” Price said.
Price said she is hopeful and would most like to see Rita-Mae’s receive a make-over. “Rita Mae’s would be awesome. They need some help in the building they are in and they are widely known. They have been written about in tourism magazines and featured in different books and anyone that comes to visit, they know about Rita-Mae’s. Plus, it’s an old Acadian-style house and that is one of those things that call attention when people visit here,” Price said.
HGTV has closed the competition to entries and has not announced a date for when they will announce winners. “Home Town Takeover” will air as a six-episode special in 2021.
“I know other communities are also waiting and I know our video is very different. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it was what we wanted to grab attention and it kind of tugs at your heart strings because we are reaching out for help, but it still portrays pride and a sense of community which is what we wanted,” Price said.
The video can be viewed on the Morgan City Main Street’s Facebook page.