Day Nine- LOOP Can Cannes!

I was a nervous wreck all morning! I downed about five of these free coffees that they offer folks in the palais (really excellent futuristic style stuff from "Nespresso" coffee cartridge machines) and passed out the remaining postcards and bookmarks like a madwoman! I ran into a friend in the palais and made him pace through the halls with me. I was getting nervous because I wasn't seeing anyone going into the screening room. My roommates (who I thanked in yesterday's post and thank again here) showed up- all smiles with their necklaces aglow. I was expecting to walk into the screening room and only see the four of them. I was shocked to see the room half full! It's impossible for me to know who ended up watching the film, but people with market badges get scanned at the entrance and Pericles tells me that nine different buyers/distributors ended up on the list of "scanees" in a 40-person screening room, along with about ten people that I had given special invitations to!

Nineteen people might not sound like a whole lot until you read my previous posts and see what LOOP was up against! This little film was competing with Steven Soderbergh's "Che" and about thirty other screenings slated for that time slot! I've been to other screenings in the market- even some with far better marketing campaigns- for which five or six people were in the audience. Some folks were speechless (it's an intense film- particularly where it leaves you), but others had quite a bit to say. I was told they loved the editing and the direction (one guy was shocked that it was directed by the director of "Redneck Zombies," which is a film he claimed to love and had no idea it was connected to "Loop" in any way). The effects got some praise, too. Of course, I was standing right there, so they had better said they loved them :) !

It took a good day for all of this goodness to really sink in. I left the theater a little shell-shocked and desperate for a beer! I was disappointed by the dismissal I personally received by some "friends" who didn't bother to show up after feigning excitement, but more on that later...

I felt this was a victory for LOOP. We may not have those "super delegates" of the film industry yet, but it's gaining momentum with the people. Only time will tell.

Snowbird on Cable

The title of this post sounds like a casual observation. Birds are frequently found perched on cables when it's snowing. While that is very true, that's not what this post is about. Ahem.

My film is going to be on the IFC three times (that's thrice) this month:

Tue 01/08/08 02:50PM Tue 01/15/08 12:50AM Mon 01/28/08 10:50AM

All times are Eastern Standard. Check it out if you haven't already. Chances are, if you read this blog, you have already seen this film. You've never seen it on cable, though! Think about it...

If you haven't seen it and don't have cable but would like to see it and don't have cable so you can't see it on cable, you can watch it online here: Snowbird on IFC

I'm in a bit of an idiotic mood...

The Galilean Satellites: Europa

This is the first in a four-part series of films dedicated to legendary filmmaker and friend, Stan Brakhage. It is also dedicated to a group of filmmakers with whom I shared orbit around the massive scope of Brakhage's work.

This has been the "audience favorite" of my works so far- at least, it has traveled around the world to all sorts of festivals and gotten great feedback (though the New York Times called it both one of the "most ambitious" films in its program as well as "relentlessly abstract." I'm not quite sure how to take the latter, but every artist knows that "ambitious" feels like a blow-off. I digress...)

As such, I am a bit reluctant to post it online, where it will be seen at 1/100th of its intended size, with resampled sound and dropped frames. Still, I'm reaching out into the volgosphere! It will be traveling around the country soon, so perhaps it might inspire a few souls to go see it when it comes to town (more details as they become available).

It is a 16mm sound film that imagines the icy hatched-marked world of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The soundtrack consists of recordings from several probes that visited the moon (specifically, the "sounds" are coming from the atmosphere of Jupiter), as well as whale songs- an imagining of the possible life beneath the icy surface. The imagery combines hand-painted liquid crystals and Super-8mm footage from a local aquarium (hooray for (now extinct) Kodachrome).

Okay, I'm slacking

So I've been working on this incredible independent film by Pericles Lewnes. I haven't been able to say much about it because it's all been top secret, but I'm really excited that I might not have to be quiet too much longer. Pericles is the quintessential independent filmmaker. Whenever I start a job for someone, I always get a little nervous when it comes time to actually watch the movie. I hope for the best, but I'm often... a bit let down when it comes to "quality." People often overrate their abilities as filmmakers (or underrate the difficulty of the jobs people on productions have) and try to act, write, direct, edit, sing, fly... on their own, usually ending up exploiting me or whoever else they have suckered into working on their production. However, this was not the case with "LOOP." I was blown away by the quality of the production, the acting, the...

I still can't go into details here, but I wanted to give a little shout out. Pericles has been a great person to work with. I met him participating in the "On the Lot" competition. "LOOP" is premiering at FAIF on October 31st at 7:30 PM at the AMC Downtown Disney 12 Theaters in Los Angeles. I highly recommend anyone who is going to be there to go see this film. At least check it out online at:

http://faif2007.bside.com/?_view=_filmdetails&filmId=32395578

Additionally, if you want to hear a little true independent spirit, he was on blogtalkradio, interviewed by Jon Moody for "The Independent Corner." I had wanted to get this blog up before his live interview last night, but the wireless in my house was acting up and I haven't mastered my new iPhone quite yet (more on that later). Click on "The Pericles Lewnes Show:"

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/JonathanMoody

The poster below will take you to the the site for the film.

The Counter Girl Trilogy at The New York Film Festival

I'm proud to announce that my short film series "The Counter Girl Trilogy" is being included in this year's official selection at the New York Film Festival. This is its U.S. debut (it's world debut was in London a little over a year ago). It will be included in the "Views from the Avant-Garde" series in a program called "Bits and Pieces (Make up to Break Up)." The screening is at 6:15 pm on Sunday, October 7th at the Lincoln Center (Walter Reade Theatre) and I couldn't be happier with the company in which it will be shown! Some links are below:

The Bits and Pieces Program

The Entire Views from the Avant-Garde Series

The New York Film Festival Home Page

I've had the honor of seeing my films on this enormous screen before, so I'm really looking forward to being there. Also, due to the fact that Kodachrome has been discontinued, this might be one of my last Kodachrome prints!

Polymer

Polymer was a sort of chain mail/penpal film. Carl Fuermann and I began sending a high-resolution image back and forth, each one modifying it before returning it to the other. We then used each image as a frame of film and recorded it out to 16mm film. It's only 30 seconds long, so make sure you are paying attention! When it played at the New York Film Festival, the lights hadn't even dimmed fully before the film was over

Sweet Intuition - Part 2

This second part consists of about 7200 16mm frames of the film "Amelie" (a more "professional" romantic fairytale view of Paris, but a parallel one). Each frame was cut out, stacked in order, placed in bundles of 24, labeled and then individually re-pasted (in order) on strips of 35mm film that had been flashed with colored lights and scratched. These strips hung in my lab for two days while the glue dried, then they were spliced together to form the complete five minute film below.

This film celebrated an anniversary of sorts this last Saturday. I participated, in my way, in my friend's annual all-night meditation. I stayed up until 5:00 AM cutting my 16mm frames in my own quasi-meditation.

Sweet Intuition- Part I

This was a labor of love. I say that for many reasons- romantic, obsessive, blind, sentimental- but I will leave out the personal reasons and focus on the technical for now! I split this film into two parts and I'm sharing them one at a time. It would be too long, otherwise. Part One (below) consists of Super-8mm footage I shot in Paris. Part Two will eventually be above this one. I'm not fond of this method of blogging organization, by the way. It gets quite annoying when one wants to continue a thought at a later time and can't do so fluidly without directing readers to the post just below it. It's almost like starting a book with the last chapter and asking the reader to skip to the end and read from the back. I digress.

The film is a reflection on romance. The setting is Paris (bien sûr). This first part is a fairytale daydream view of the City of Lights- complete with Eifel Tower and carousel! The second will come tomorrow...

The Galilean Satellites- Callisto!

Finally! I feel so neglectful of poor little Callisto. I got my firewire cable in the mail on Monday and re-rendered Callisto last night. Callisto is the final film in The Galilean Satellites series. She is silent. This film was complete magic toward the end. I had not quite expected the results that I got, but I was awed by them.

Callisto is also one of the most heavily cratered bodies in the solar system. Jupiter's gravity attracts comets, meteoroids, and other objects and Callisto, being far away and tectonically inactive, bears thousands of years worth of battle scars. She also has the lowest density of the Galilean Satellites and it is thought that there might be an ocean beneath her rocky crust.

The imagery consists of liquid crystal paints and rubbing alcohol (like I said, magic). Enjoy:

Poor little Callisto...

...experiencing technical difficulties. Where did Callisto go? My original file is gone! :( (Non video types, skip to the end of this paragraph) I'm trying to get the digital recording from the betacam back online. I copied it to a digital 8mm tape, but got rid of that camera, so I can't recapture the video. I ordered a digital 8 camera from ebay but wound up with... a camera that records to DVDs? Not at all what I need. There, nerd talk over.

I FINALLY have the camera now and plan to get that and other neglected videos back online (including one that didn't even make it onto the DVD). In the meantime, I will shamelessly plug myself here:

Come vote for Snowbird on "The Lot!" http://films.thelot.com/films/28908

"Wait," you ask, "didn't I already vote for this film once?"

Well, how would I know? Who are you? And how in the world did you just type that above?

Yes, this film is up on the IFC, and yes, I begged my blog viewership to go and vote for it there (that's right, all ten of you- according to feedburner statistics, anyway). BUT this time, I might win $1 million development from Steven Spielberg to make my first feature AND I would be on the equivalent of American Idol for filmmakers. Just think about it, you could be watching TV and saying, "wow! I actually know that very sad, sad person!!"

Plus, there is now a 45 second introduction before the film that includes drawings and a moving, talking me (unlike the stationary me in the upper right who just produces text).

Okay, you have been sufficiently coerced. End transmission...

The Galilean Satellites- Ganymede

If Europa could be considered the "audience favorite" of my films, Ganymede would have to be her cute little brother. This is the third film in The Galilean Satellites series. It is quite a bit shorter than the previous two, but was easily the hardest of the series to make (easily the hardest- bad English, I know, but funny enough for me to leave it there).

The imagery is both digital and film in origin. The opening sequence of photographs consists of digital images taken by the Galileo probe that visited Jupiter recently. The film imagery is clear 16mm film leader that has been scratched, pitted, twisted and bent to refract the polarized light.

The soundtrack consists of radio signals received from the moon's ionosphere. Unlike the previous two films, however, I have not manipulated this sound in any way. In fact, you can hear Ganymede's voice on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's page.

This film tries to capture the essence of Ganymede, who, like his sisters, is pulled and pushed by the tidal forces of Jupiter and the other moons (sibling rivalry...even the planets and Greek deities suffer from it).

The Galilean Satellites- Io

This is the second film in The Galilean Satellites series. It is an artistic study of the wrenching and twisting of Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io. This film is quite a bit longer than the others. It is also what I feel to be the "scariest" film I've ever made. The soundtrack consists of stretched and manipulated radio emissions from Io's ionosphere, while the image consists of various objects that I'm twisting and pulling in polarized light.

Io is constantly pulled and pushed upon by her sister moons and the immense gravity of Jupiter. This film probes into the beauty of turmoil. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and is actually the hottest body in the solar system, outside of the sun (which reminds me of that Groucho Marx quote: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read").

Again, imagine this quite a bit bigger than it actually is. Much of my work is meant to be seen on a very large scale. I have wanted to project this particular film around an entire room as an installation.

It was originally shot on 16mm film and is a sound piece:

Ether Twist

Back on track! Now, for the next film in my one-woman show: "Ether Twist." This film has sound! It's strange and quiet, but it's there...

Sounds from very low frequency (VLF) radio emissions make up the soundtrack to this film. These sounds include aurorae, solar flares, lightning and other electromagnetic phenomena that affect the Earth's ionosphere. The imagery is composed of various pieces of transparent plastics (try to guess what some of them are- you might be surprised) whose colors are revealed through polarized light. Neither the sound nor the image would be detectable if it weren't for careful manipulation of electromagnetic waves.

Many thanks to Stephen P. McGreevy for recording the incredible VLF sounds and allowing me to use them. This is a rather large file- the film is about 10 minutes long.

Footnotes: Ether (or Aether) was once considered to be quintessence, or the "fifth element." It was thought the be the medium through which light waves (indeed, all energy) traveled. It has since been dropped from the world of scientific thought and is considered to be, well, more...ethereal (not sure if that can qualify as a pun, but it was intended). It is considered to be the unifying energy for all living spirits in Wicca and some other religions.

The film title owes its existence to lyrics in the Tori Amos song, "Suede:"

i'm sure that you've been briefed my absorption lines they are frayed and i fear my fear is greater than my faith but i walk the missionary way you always felt like suede there are days i am your twin peekaboo hiding underneath your skin jets are revving yes revving from an ether twist call me 'evil' call me 'tide is on your side' anything you want

I connected with these lyrics instantly, but really keyed in on the phrase "ether twist." The liquid crystal materials I use do a sort of "ether twist." By twisting (refracting) the direction of the light waves at different wavelengths (colors), the bland, transparent plastics become vibrant, colored light sources.

Munkphilm

"Munphilm" came to me through a dream: I had a great job working with the orcas at a monastery (yes, a monastery with killer whales- what?) I swam with them at night, which was quite frightening. I couldn't see them approaching me and suddenly, my body would lurch through the water. I would find myself tumbling through the air and plunging down to the bottom of the pool... luckily, we can do things like this in a dream and not drown!

One morning, a monk approached me. He handed me a toothbrush and told me to clean the orca pool, brush stroke by brush stroke. I took this duty and found that just as I had made a complete circle around the entirety of the pool, algae began appearing at my starting point. My day became an endless circle of the minutiae of whale care!

The monk in the dream was my friend Phil (hence the title). In this film, I try to explore yin and yang- depth, mystery and darkness interrupted by cuts of smooth, metallic vibrancy (note: you guessed it, this film is also silent - there will be sound in later films, but aren't you glad you don't have to turn the volume down at work?)

Gossamer Conglomerate

Now that I have my technical wires uncrossed, I plan to post one of my 16mm films here every day for the next few weeks. Although the compression looks much better than I thought it would, I do have to take a moment to say that this is not the preferred format for my films. They are best seen in their original 16mm format in a darkened theatre. Well, not all of us live near an experimental film venue, nor do we have finances at our disposal to rent film prints from places like Canyon Cinema, The Film-maker's Coop, CFMDC (Canadian films) Light Cone, or Le Collectif Jeune Cinéma (though you can click on any of these if you do- they have many great films in their collections). I decided to make my films available online, too. You can also subscribe to my podcast (you'll need iTunes) or check out my blip.tv channel.

Okay, enough. Here is my first film, "Gossamer Conglomerate" (click the image to play- note: this film is silent):