Snowbird

REPOSTED WITH MY SITE RELAUNCH... This is a short film that I originally shot on 16mm. It is my first "narrative" film (well, apart from "Exploding Science Lab III" from my early days as a filmmaker). The film was shot in New York State at the end of 2003 and didn't get finished until just recently (though a rough copy of it played in the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Festival Market in 2004). The film stars Perry Daniel and was shot by Carl Fuermann (and hey, this one has sound!)

The above link takes you to the IFC Media Lab. If you like it, give me a vote. If not... well, maybe just make a graceful exit (don't "single-star" me- I'm beggin' ya! Think of the ducks!)

If you'd rather not deal with the stress (or you are a chronic "single-starrer"), but would still like to see the film, go on over to Snowbird on blip.tv where it plays just the same!

Special Features Section: Perry is sitting in front of the reservoir that supplies New York City with its drinking water. Needless to say, when the sun went down we were harassed by both the local Police and the Feds for our "suspicious" activities! On top of all of this, it turned out that the car we had borrowed from a friend was recorded as having been impounded but never released. Translation: as far as they were concerned, we were driving a stolen car and up to no good. Oh, and they also suspected that our bottle of water was actually a bottle of vodka (Absolut and Smart Water have similar bottle designs). We managed to clear everything up, though. The Police were actually very friendly and let us finish filming- with a stern warning that if we crossed over the guardrail, they would "turn us over" to the Feds!

Innocence - Bjork Music Video Competition

This was my entry to the Bjork Innocence music video competition. Shot by Carl Fuermann with the assistance of Geneva Bailey in front of a homemade green screen. I worked a little bit of my liquid crystal magic into the mix.

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!

Living with a Star

This could be a shocking expose about life with a celebrity. It's not.

It's actually the name of a group that studies the interactions between the sun and life on Earth, or space weather. Furthermore, it's a cool way for me to show you something... cool. Well, cool relative to the rest of its surroundings, anyway. It's actually pretty hot! The below movie clip is footage of a sunspot captured by the Japanese-launched Hinode (Sunrise) international spacecraft.

Sunspots are areas of relatively cool temperature on the surface of the sun. This is caused by intense magnetic activity, which inhibits convection (that up and down swirliness that you see in soup and coffee- among other things, I'm just kind of hungry right now). The exact details of how and why they happen is still an area of intense research in Physics.

Some have said that the footage looks like trilobites. Others have said it looks like cells. According to the article (if you click on the title to this blog, it will take you there- all of the titles of my blog entries are links, incidentally): "This movie is a magnetogram— a dynamic map tracing the sunspot's intense magnetism," Physicist Lika Guhathakurta explains. "Black represents negative (S) polarity, and white represents positive (N)."

I just think it's pretty cool! Enjoy!

Why Haven't You Blogged?

I'm asked. It's not that I don't want to. It's not that I don't care. I do. I think about blogging. I've just been working day and night on a new video project. More details later. While I enjoy working on my films and videos, you know you have a problem when the last time you remember bathing, it was for a shot you needed:

Good thing blogs are scentless (though I did have the good scents (sic) to bathe recently).

And now, a series of behind-the-scenes candids shot by my talented neighbor, Geneva (who is working on a story with NPR about a time capsule car that she helped bury in 1957- it will be unearthed on the 15th of June):

Setting up the blue screen. My partner, Carl Fuermann graciously filming me instead of working on his own video. Thanks, Twigs!

Everybody was Kung-Fu fighting! Okay, only me.

Then everybody was Kung-Fu stepping-on-a-rock-and-injuring-their-foot (soon to be a popular song)

So everybody was Kung-Fu dancing (because that doesn't involve pointy objects)!

I'm clearly Kung-Fu worried about something here, but I have no clue what that could be. Oh yeah:

"I shall fight this Pteradactyl flying down at me!" (or, "crap, the cat is in the tree again!")

Gratuitous action shot. Please note that none of this has anything to do with "real" Kung-Fu, which would be an embarrassment to the entire art form! I was just looking for "shapes" in front of the blue screen.

I do apologize that all of this came up in the middle of an epic tale- there are more hot springs antics to share...

In the meantime, here is a great blog to read:

The Heliocentric Pantheon: An Interview with Walter Murch

(Many thanks to Sam for sending this link to me.)

Yet another competition

But this one is really cool! This is one that I actually hope I win and have no reservations about entering. Bjork's new album, Volta, comes out next week. I'm excited for a variety of reasons. The first reason is that I always look forward to a new Bjork album. She is one of my favorite musicians. The second reason is that I have front row, center tickets to her concert at Red Rocks. The third reason is that she is hosting a music video contest for one of her songs: Innocence! Apparently, she will hand pick the winner. If I had to imagine a musical counterpart to my visual rhythms, Bjork would be at the top of my list! Here's hoping she might feel the same way...

Oh, to hear the song, you can visit my MySpace page. Or Bjork's.

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.

Guest Vlogger- Jason Bortz and "Taxi Ride"

Blog, meet Jason, Jason, blog. Jason Bortz is a guest filmmaker here today. Like me, he entered one of his films in the On the Lot competition (and like me, got nuthin'). I've decided to post one of his videos here today because, well, I just like it!

I'm a huge Tori Amos fan (we share a birthday and a love of pianos, among other things). Below is Jason's submission to a competition Tori (well, officially Sony) was hosting for filmmakers to make a video for her song "Taxi Ride." Jason's video made it to the top nine!

Click the image below to watch the film and the link on the side (or above) to see his other works: