Never Let Me Go

2012-02-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living or dying. After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt. At the same time she seemed to be recovering her roots, and the sap rose anew in her body, which was no longer trembling. Pressing her whole belly against the parapet, leaning toward the wheeling sky, she was only waiting for her pounding heart to settle down, and for the silence to form in her. The last constellations of stars fell in bunches a little lower on the horizon of the desert, and stood motionless. Then, with an unbearable sweetness, the waters of the night began to fill her, submerging the cold, rising gradually to the center of her being, and overflowing wave upon wave to her moaning mouth. A moment later, the whole sky stretched out above her as she lay with her back against the cold earth.

Albert Camus

image- Édouard Boubat

Some words about Kodak

2012-02-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

My brother Brennan, who lives in Japan, came home for a month around the holidays. It was great to see him (it had been three years). We had both studied film and made a lot of projects but we had never worked together. So we decided to make a project while he was home. And we decided we'd shoot on film. I had made a couple of projects that were influenced by Douglas Sirk's melodramas, but I'd shot everything digitally. Sirk's films were shot in Technicolor and he really took advantage of the medium, his films were rich, saturated color. So we decided to shoot a one reel melodrama. We were visiting our parents up in Milwaukee so we had to make sure we had everything do it. I got the Bolex out and cleaned it. I went to Xav Le Plae's Riverwest Film Video and bought a roll of Vision stock. The film was tungsten balanced and since we were shooting outside I needed to find an 85 filter. I used to have some tucked in my camera case but they're long gone. Thankfully North American Camera had some and Bob, the proprietor asked, "Did you just wake up and decide to shoot a film?" We basically did. My friend Heather Vernon took the train up from Chicago to act in our little production. And together with a powder blue dress, we shot some emotive stuff in the park There were some blowing leaves and everything (WOTW). It was a great day and I look forward to seeing our finished product. The roll is in the fridge awaiting processing (an old habit...).
Last month Kodak announced plans to file for bankruptcy. It was sad to hear but not surprising. When I worked at Helix I would get memos from Kodak regarding which products and stocks they were discontinuing. It was tough when they discontinued the slide projector. I never was too interested in a film/video debate. I enjoy and appreciate the facets and practice of shooting on both mediums. I'm planning on shooting my upcoming noir on Super 16 and I know it's going to be super pricy but I want to shoot my noir on film. And I'm happy I still have the option to.

Wardrobe inspiration

2012-01-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

Wardrobe inspiration-Jil Sander for Uniqlo, Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, Giorgio Armani, -Kingdom of Style, an Ungaro pantsuit Melinda thrifted. Still pondering...

Style Within Style

2012-01-19T21:35:00.000-08:00

While I'm writing a science fiction noir, I need to concentrate on the story and character through-lines, but I am also mulling over aesthetic choices. & both the Noir & Science Fiction genres can be very stylized. I find working within a genre can be helpful because it feels as if there's a compass for your course as a writer. There are components for a style and I am going over them with my own brush. I'm trying to step away from some of the old conventions. Science fiction can be very polished, cold and...masculine. I want the woman protagonist in my film to be warm, approachable. I want the setting to be urban, lived-in and familiar. The characters are professionals so they will be wearing suits but we're going to try to stay away from the 1940s. Melinda Snyder, our wardrobe lady, has some great ideas about where we will go for suits. We're looking towards 1980s and 90s cuts, dark greys. Fun.

Image-Steven Klein Vogue Italia

Distopian Noir

2012-01-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

images- Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia, Blade Runner, Blade Runner, Brazilian cover of Neuromancer, Brazil, Brazil, Alphaville, Theirry Mugler by Helmut Newton

Am I deceived or did you sigh?

2012-01-16T17:42:00.000-08:00

Image- Steven Klein Vogue Italia March 2009

Linda's Film on Menstruation

2012-01-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

A couple years ago I came across Linda's Film on Menstruation. An educational film on menstruation directed by Linda Feferman. It was an interesting and delightful find (yes I was delighted to find this period film). If memory serves, health films usually were not that interesting, well-written or (intentionally) funny. Linda's Film on Menstruation feels comprehensive and progressive. The film centers on Judy, a plucky teenager who's got a few headaches. She gets her first period and and she's got a dopey boyfriend, Johnny. But through watching 70s style cartoons, a rap session with some feminists in a park about tampons, and a nightmare about cultural menstruation myths-Judy comes through a confident woman. It's fun a movie.

Since a narrative element in KICK involved menstruation, I showed a portion of Linda's Film on Menstruation as a part of the shorts program that ran with KICK. It always got an amused response. So when I screened in LA, I had a thought. A lot of directors live in LA right? I wondered if director Linda Feferman possibly lived there. Well I found her contact through the DGA, and I invited her to the screening. SHE CAME and my friends and I were able to meet her. She still works with science and informational films. Linda was an interesting woman director to meet. We were all inspired. It was awesome. The end.

Linda's Film on Menstruation Linda Feferman 1974

Wilson Bentley's Snowflakes

2012-01-15T13:46:00.000-08:00

In 1885 Wilson Bentley developed a technique to photograph snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope. He also photographed and studied clouds, fog and raindrops. He died of pneumonia after prolonged exposure during a blizzard, he had been photographing snowflakes.

Gadajace Glowy (Talking Heads)

2012-01-15T05:40:00.000-08:00

Krzysztof Kieślowski's short documentary of "talking heads", where people of different ages share their hopes and opinions. The subjects are emotive and articulate. The tone ranges from cute, bitter, resigned, and then optimistic. A little boy states that he hopes to paint horses, a middle aged man sarcastically infers that his occupation is drinking and a 100 year old woman states that she hopes to live longer. I've always enjoyed Kieślowski's documentaries. They share the same spirit of his later films. There was a naturalism and emotivity to his work; the characters would convey, or try to, or look for an emotional truth. Sometimes in the most quiet and simple ways, even when the film itself was romantic and surreal, like in the Double Life of Veronique. Kieślowski is my favorite, always.

* Winter *

2012-01-13T23:19:00.000-08:00

Sketch of a snow crystal by René Descartes

2012-01-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

BUIRNT NORTON
(No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')

T.S. Eliot

I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

II

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.

IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?

Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

2012-01-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

Quote from One Hundred Years of Solitude
link White Paper Quotes

Providing, deciding

2011-12-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

Image- More Pictures of the USSR

2011-12-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

Quiet Christmas

2011-12-24T22:10:00.000-08:00

There's always something left to love-

image- Vaughn Teegarden Into the Faerie Wood

This Woman's Work

2011-12-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite Kate Bush songs. In recent years she rerecorded This Woman's Work and I actually like the new version better. As Ms. Bush got older her voice has gotten lower, and I like her lower register. Kate Bush directed the original video and I like how the lights fade down in the waiting room and the coffee machine stays lit. This song reminds me of some personal feelings and memories. Heavy. Even though it's a favorite, I don't listen too often.

I was born in a cloud, now I am falling, I want you to catch me

2011-12-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

Kate Bush is coming out with a new album! It's called 50 Words for Snow. It's an album with snow and winter as a theme. Winter is probably my 2nd favorite season, after autumn. I know people have some issues with winter and I've had a few long time Chicago friends who up and leave for warmer climbs because they've "had it with the winters". I don't blame them. I used to curate seasonal themed video shows at the Heaven Gallery. We would do a "Winter Screening" and serve hot chocolate. Prior to the actual shorts program there would be a group snow installation and different people would submit long form videos that involved snow. Anni Rossi would play too. I miss those screenings a little bit.
Anyway, I love seasonal themed art projects and I love Kate Bush, so I'm excited about 50 Words for Snow. It's a little pared down from her last couple of albums, the songs employ sparse arrangements that involve her piano and her voice. In this song, Snowflake, she sings a duet with her drummer's son. His voice is the higher part. & speaking of kooky ethereal lady singers- Tori Amos also came out with a pared down album recently for the classical label Deutsche Grammophon. Night of the Hunters features acoustic instruments that also rely on her piano and voice. And she sings with her daughter. They perform a song involving snow called Snowblind.

I looked through some of my old files and found one of the Winter Screening posters designed by Lilli Carre and Alexander Stewart. It's really cute, and reminds that I have talented friends :)

How to Be Invisible

2011-12-11T13:23:00.000-08:00

Image z.t. (costa rica) 2005 by Elspeth Diederix

Efteling

2011-12-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

In 1978 Kate Bush performed a few of her songs in and around Efteling, a haunted castle amusement park in Sweden. There's some old videos of it up on youtube. Most of the songs are from the album The Kick Inside, one of my favorite albums ever. The song and the album The Kick Inside, were inspirations for my short film Kick. I even showed a portion of the Efteling performance of The Kick Inside during the premiere for Kick. I used it as a transition during Linda Feferman's Linda's Film on Menstruation. The song The Kick Inside comes up at about 15:09, she has powdered hair and she's doing sort of a Lady of Shalott performance in a boat. (& Wuthering Heights is at 3:10...)

But every time it rains, You're here in my head

2011-12-10T02:29:00.000-08:00

Kate Bush's song Cloudbusting was inspired by Peter Reich's Book of Dreams. Peter's father Wilhelm Reich was an eccentric therapist and an inventor who among other things made a Cloudbuster, or a rainmaker that evidently...worked.

I saw the Cloudbusting video when I was little and I was mystified. I remember Kate Bush's wide eyes and pixie cut and the weird machine she was operating. Like anything pertaining to Kate Bush, the details involved in the production of the Cloudbusting video are interesting. Some facets and people contributing to the enterprise were-Terry Gilliam, HR Geiger, a theatrical distribution and Kate Bush knocking on Donald Sutherland's hotel room door and asking him to be in the video.

2011-12-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

Image Vogue Italia March 2008

Both Ends Burning

2011-12-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

Image Vogue Italia Septeber 2008 via veryverychic

Nausea

2011-12-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

I love Adult. A million years ago I spent a New Years with Vanessa Bucella, Dave Dobie, Douggpound and Eric Fensler. We just kept going to parties that Doug was DJing. And we said that he had to space out the Adult, he couldn't play just Adult, even though that's what we wanted to hear. Jeez that was a million years ago.
The music that plays over the credits for KICK is Mouth to Mouth by Adult (with permission). The song is chilly & "upbeat" with electro elements. There's this whirring sound that plays throughout. Perfect way to end a science-fiction film about luddites. Plus it was sweet to use music that had influenced me way back when. Sometimes it's good to go back to the well, and sometimes the well is in the back of your CD drawer.

Adult have been doing some interesting music and film projects of late. Nicola Kuperus often exhibits her photography. I've always loved her photos.


Dragging 2008 Nicola Kuperus link

image at top of post Self Portraits #2 Gala Collette

Parties used to sound like this

2011-11-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

image- "Annie Shaffus" collage by Tara Sinn via Jules+Nicho

11 11 11

2011-11-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

Mono day

Arithmetic Composition, 1930 Theo van Doesburg

Lesser kind of love

2011-11-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

Image: Catherine Deneuve-Helmut Newton

Sun on the Spree

2011-11-09T09:54:00.000-08:00

I am an autumnal person. I look forward to it all year. After spending time in Berlin I came to learn that the city feels like a perpetual autumn, sort of like how LA is a perpetual summer. I grew up in Wisconsin and lived in Chicago, I'm not adverse to grey weather; but while I was in Germany the cold and grey started to get to me. There's a wet chill that sort of sinks into your bones there. A friend and I would meet by the Spree everyday around noon to get some sun. The sun only seemed to be shining for about an hour mid-day (sort of like that Ray Bradbury story). Our "sun meetings" were enough of a cheer-up before escaping back into the wet atmospheric city.
In my Autumns and in my nights, I can really trip myself up if I don't find my "suns". One of my brightest orbs, my friend Monika, recently moved to LA. I remember when I met her. I had grown frustrated with my surroundings and acquaintances. She was so different, so on, so forward thinking. I'd never met someone so positive, even though she at times readily admits that optimism isn't her first instinct. She's like my sun on the Spree. This year we swapped cities. She moved from my old apartment in Chicago to LA, and I moved from LA back to Chicago. I've been thinking about this as I settle into Chicago more permanently. I used to go, go, go, travel from city to city. It seemed that what I needed had to be immediate and present. But now as I pull into myself, I learn that I can be stilled and what I need doesn't always have to be right in front of me. I MISS HER SO BAD but I can feel her sun all the way from out West.

2011-11-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Yann Serandour, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 2005

To explore its mystery is to venture towards the sublime.

2011-11-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Midnight Party, Joseph Cornell 1938

Beauty should be shared for it enhances our joys. To explore its mystery is to venture towards the sublime. Joseph Cornell

It's just the facts of life, sweet dreams develop into ideas

2011-11-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

image- Kristen McMenamy for Lanvin photographed my Steve Meisel

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

2011-11-07T07:31:00.000-08:00

"A mysterious American love story."-N.Roeg

The Man Who Fell To Earth, Nick Roeg 1976
Images-ilovehotdogs

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. -C.S. Lewis

The wind blows continually in the wrong direction

2011-11-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

Images- Alex Prager, Goldfrapp, Giorgio Moroder

Women and Green

2011-10-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

Images: Luisa Casati by Augustus John, Evening Mood by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jove decadent by Ramón Casas, Charlotte Rampling & Portrait of Frau Feez by Franz von Stuck

Brilliant Pebbles-Time Time

2011-10-28T10:27:00.000-07:00

Yes! New video from Brilliant Pebbles. Shot in my old apartment on Division St.
Sheep Dogs! Polish Sandwiches! Sam Ng & Monika Bukowska!
So proud of xxx Monika xxx, a recent transplant to LA, she is going set that town on fire!
<3

Anything is a symbol of Anything -Casares

2011-10-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

Original dust jacket from the first edition of The Invention of Morel. Like the green.

Study In Green

2011-10-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

Vogue Italia November, 2006

Streets of Fire

2011-10-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

I was looking for films from the 1980s, shot in Chicago, and I found this-

80s Film Noir

2011-10-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

So I've been doing some research on 1980s Film Noir and there's a few interesting titles and I was like, "Oh yeah, Bodyheat & Michael Mann movies." Neo-Noir basically.

-Johnny Handsome

-D.O.A.

-Jagged Edge

-Against All Odds (remake of Out of the Past)

-No Way Out (remake of The Big Clock)

-The Postman Always Rings Twice

-Still of the Night

-The Morning After

-Dressed to Kill

-Blow Out

-Body Double

-Coup de Torchon

-House of Games

-Maquerade

-La Balance

-Sea of Love

-Mortal Passions

-Cat Chaser

-Best Seller

-Manhunter

-Tightrope

-To Live and Die in L.A.

-Call Me

-P.I. Private Investigations

-Kill Me Again

-Someone to Watch Over Me

-The Big Easy

-The Border

-The First Deadly Sin

-Black Widow

-Mike's Murder

-52 Pick-up

-At Close Range

-The Bedroom Window

-Betrayed

-Shoot to Kill

-White of the Eye

-Atlantic City

-Eyewitness

-Union City

-Slam Dance

-Criminal Law

-Frantic

-True Believer

-Year of the Dragon

-Eight Million Ways to Die

-Tequila Sunrise

-Thief

-I, The Jury

-Hammett

-The Rosary Murders

-Out of Bounds

-Bad Boys

-Gleaming the Cube

-The Killing Time

-Positive I.D.

-Impulse

-Blood Simple

-Wild at Heart

-No Mercy

-Breathless

-Hit List

-The Long Good Friday

-The Hit

-Stormy Monday

-Dead Calm

-Blue Velvet

-Batman

-Body Heat

-Blade Runner

-Brazil

-Trouble in Mind

-Angel Heart

-Tough Guys Don't Dance

-The Kill Off

-Repo Man

-Dead Winter

-Angel

-Veronika Voss

-The Moon in the Gutter

-The Fourth Man

-Confidentially Yours

-The Element of Crime

-Mona Lisa

-As Tears Go By

-Monsieur Hire

Image-Blade Runner, 1982 Ridley Scott

Film Noir :An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style -Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward

Greens & Blues

2011-10-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

It's turning into a chilly autumn, and a Midwestern filmmaker turns to the research stage of filmmaking. Jose and I are pouring over stills and photos to come up with the color and lighting scheme for our science fiction noir. We've decided to shoot in color for various reasons. We want to shoot at a higher speed and most of those stocks are in color. Plus something about shooting in B&W may make it feel restrictive. But we may try to limit the palate that we use.

One thing we're looking into are some films from the 80s. Aesthetically you can notice a lot of blues and cooler colors in some of those films. Greens and blues, & especially greens are what we've been focusing on. I want to watch some noirs from the 1980s. There doesn't seem to be too many, even though one of the initial and continuing influences on my script is an 80s noir- Blade Runner.

Images- flickr,flickr, Blade Runner

-Actresses-

2011-09-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

I made a list of my favorite actresses. I wanted to put it on here but it was too much so I made a tumblr.

CLARAALCOTTTUMBLR

A restless man, taller than expected...

2011-09-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

Billy Wilder playing Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot

Billy Wilder, The Art of Screenwriting No. 1
The Paris Review, Spring 1996

Murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle

2011-09-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

What's interesting about noir is the adherence to the style, the formula. In many films the tone, characters and settings stay fairly consistent. Raymond Chandler has said he wrote his stories as a succession of "scenes". Fans of his fiction were familiar with the direction of the story, but it was the strength and imaginative use of the formula that proves to be enthralling. It's hard to craft a good noir; nuance and mood are essential elements.
Lately I've been watching and rewatching a lot of film noir. Some have been very good. And some have been very, very good. Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is an almost perfect movie about imperfect people. He co-wrote the script with Raymond Chandler (Billy Wilder usually worked with a writing partner), and the dialogue is sharp and at times whimsical-"Murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle..." The cinematography by John Seitz is hazy with dark long shadows. There's plenty of the classic horizontal and canted shadows from venetian blinds. Motivated lighting with inventive use of shadows were trademarks of early German cinema. There are references to German Expressionism in film noir, if only because many German filmmakers immigrated to Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. Billy Wilder began his career in filmmaking in Berlin in the 1920s. One of my favorite expressionist techniques is as the drama picks up in a scene, as emotions heighten, the shadows deepen.
Even though there is a lot of expressive methods used in noir, the genre still has a naturalistic feel. I suppose the naturalism comes from the use of familiar settings and locations. Viewers naturally connect to the characters, in that they are not heroes, they are imperfect and human. The protagonists are often seen engaging in a series of poor decisions and "stuck" in a situation which may not change. I believe the mix of stylization and the ordinary is what I find so compelling about film noir.
One of the plot devices that I remember vividly in Double Indemnity was Barbary Stanwyck's ankle. We see her first in a towel, and then her delicate ankle descending the staircase. I remember the ankle playing against the ornate iron rungs of the Spanish style staircase in her shadowed house. Fred MacMurray makes repeated references to the ankle, and her ankle bracelet. Like Claire's Knee, it draws the male protagonists into their fate, towards the direction the story will take.

I love the house in this movie, with all the dust and shadows. It's like a precursor to Sunset Boulevard, John Seitz shot that too. & Barbara Stanwyck is sooo good. A Femme Fatale is probably too tame to reference for her character. Although seductive, she is blunt when she describes her desire for her husband to be killed early in the film. Stanwyck is probably my second favorite actress (she's not The Queen), I do have favorites...

Double Indemnity script
Double Indemnity locations in LA- Dear Old Hollywood

Very

2011-08-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

Helmut Newton shot a series of stories for Vogue in the 90s with Nadja Auermann set in Berlin. They were Fassbinder in feeling. Very transporting. I wondered if Berlin was dark and chic, like what I saw in pictures and heard in music.
It is.

Shooting in an asphalt jungle

2011-08-25T21:36:00.002-07:00

Developing a feature film is like climbing an invisible mountain. The uncertainties far outweigh what is known. The only thing that an independent filmmaker initially has on their hands is time. And then if any kind of financing comes through and a production is viable, there will begin the process of working in the most difficult schedule. & then if creative decisions have not been made, there is no time to dwell on them and things can be lost. So I am trying to concentrate on decisions now, like the look and locations of the film. I really want to make the city almost a character and strong backdrop for the actors. Chicago is hard, dark, concrete and steely. Shooting in an asphalt jungle it would seem. (A jungle is a metaphor applied to Chicago from time to time...) The film noir Asphalt Jungle, was a good place to go for inspiration-

The opening shots of Asphalt Jungle are shot on location. The film does not specify where the story takes place except that it's a city in the Midwest. The opening was filmed in Cincinnati. The author of the novel, W. R. Burnett, was from Ohio before moving to Chicago. The photography is beautiful. Arthur Rosson, the Director of Photography, was adept at shooting a nice tight, B&W noir (he wasn't a slouch when it came to color either, he shot Wizard of Oz and Singing in the Rain). The exteriors at the beginning are open and vast before the film goes inside to the low angles and tight shots that fit the claustrophobic feel of the story. Sterling Hayden is running from the police and the architecture of the city works with him as he ducts behind buildings and into shadows.

The Asphalt Jungle is a nice, dark noir. Directed by John Huston, it has a silent jewel heist that is referenced in later films. Plus there's an early appearance by a young, cute MM.

She's Dope

2011-08-24T19:38:00.001-07:00

I want to say a word about my friend Sarah Weis. Sarah played the part of Joselyn in Kick and now we are working together again on my short film Reds and Blues.

We met when we were seated next to each other at a dinner party. She told me that she was an actress, which I thought was interesting. Even though Chicago has a vibrant theater scene, I really didn't know a lot of actors. She told me that she was performing in a play about the Essanay Studios, portraying a young Gloria Swanson. A year later when I was developing Kick, I was wracking my brain because I needed an actress, any actress really. I remember we were friends on myspace (oh myspace), and I got in contact. I was apprehensive because of some of the subject matter in KICK. But little did I know. Sarah is also a media artist and she runs a production company with her creative partner Arturo Cubacub called i-cubed HYPERMEDIA. I watched some of their videos and there was no need to be shy, rather there was a similar sensibility I felt. Sarah has her hand in a lot of mediums but she is a great actress. She's really, really good and beyond what my expectations were. She has a filmmaker's eye on set and her insights into the story & character are invaluable. Not to overstate it but, my collaboration with Sarah has been one of the most important in my life and I am so happy to have that. I hope we are able to keep creatively associated with each other. & I'm pretty sure we will.

One of my favorite of Sarah & Arturo's videos is Greater Than or Less Than <> or Dollar vs. Euro. Among other things it addresses currency dominance and the relationship between Dolly, a power hungry woman in a powdered wig & Euro, a French maid. Here's the opening scene and a music video from the piece. That's oil that Dolly keeps drinking...

& girl's got some pipes. Sarah just released a tape on the Chicago label Plus Tapes.
Here's a music video for "Stretch"

My Favorite is Pennies from Heaven, she sang it for <>
Pennies From Heaven by Sarah Weis

Sarah is working on this song called Opiate girl, hence the title of the post
-Opiate Girl (pre-version)
http://www.last.fm/music/Sarah+Weis/Musik%2B%2526%2BPlus/Opiate+Girl+%28pre-version%29

Reeling

2011-08-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

I've been discussing shooting my science fiction film and mentioning my friend Jose, who will be the cinematographer on the project. Here is his reel. I had not seen it before, and Nick the producer and I needed to send a copy of it in for a grant. It was even better than we thought it would be ;)

Jose Luis Rios

Scout photos

2011-08-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

This past winter Jose and I did a scout for my science fiction noir script. Al Cohn, a locations manager for "real movies" assisted with the scout, which was awesome. Noted locations were the Uptown Theater and Hilliard Towers Apartments. We got a hot dog break in there too.

Noir-There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in

2011-08-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Film Noir, Chicago, night shooting, etc.

I have been thinking a lot about Film Noir lately. Actually I'm always thinking about Film Noir... What a murky American art form. My feature length screenplay has many noir elements. I'm hoping to keep pushing it in that direction, using a noir framework for the story and especially for the character's through lines. I've always felt that Chicago, where my script is set, is very noir. It can often be grey, dark and bleak. And it has always been my opinion that Chicago as a city is very undershot. A lot of film production takes place mostly on the North East side. I don't think the city has been well represented on film. Most times I don't feel a connection or familiarity with what I see on screen. The Fugitive and The Dark Knight are exceptions, I thought both of those films look like Chicago.
I'm excited to shoot around Chicago on location. Shooting a noir potentially means a lot of night shooting, which is always hard, but there's the basic issue of light. My hope, my hope is to at least shoot the short version of the script on film. Jose Luis Rios, my good friend and cinematographer on the project, and I have been having a lot of discussions about the photography. We would like to shoot on Super 16mm for the texture and the grain. I want the film to have sort of a distant "displaced feel" which S16 could provide. If I'm not able to swing film (still crossing my fingers), I'm not adverse to shooting digitally. Never have been. I'm currently shooting a short called Reds and Blues and we are shooting on the Canon 5D. I love the footage that's coming back. One thing that the 5D and 7D do well is shoot in low light. The image below was shot at about 8:30pm with only street lights providing illumination. It's dark but when Sarah turned her head towards the light she had a decent exposure on her face. It was nice and very noir.

Photo at top of post by Jack Delano link

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

poetry in motion

2011-08-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

This is seriously one of my favorite poems-

Julian Donkey-Boy, Harmony Korine 1999

A pause for the traveler

2011-08-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

At times I have this image of myself standing by the door with a suitcase in my hand, unsure if I am leaving or returning. In past years I have lived or stayed in and come back and forth from Chicago, LA & Berlin. And in prior years New York was another port of call. There are legitimate reasons for travel as I work in the film industry and am an artist. But I know now that it was "the motion" the need to move and the anxieties that would catch me if I stayed in one place too long. Wanderlust in the truest since. There is a chaos or unrest in my head and motion subdues it. Either I have grown older and things have settled in my body & mind or I may be confronting that unrest. The questions I needed the discipline and the maturity to answer. The notion of "home" has for so long been unclear to me. I felt at odds with settling into my apartment. I've kept friends and relationships at an arms length. But I have felt a change and it feels positive and peaceful. I have been thinking about Chicago a lot, and realizing that in many ways that was a home for me for many years. And not fully connecting may have been a fear of a stable life that I could not see myself in. On my last return from LA I was surprised at how natural it was to reconnect with my crew to make another short film. I had not acknowledged that the years I had lived here had fostered support for my work. It could be that the "motion" I needed was the activity and progress of my projects. So I want to take a pause, welcome the present and see what an anchored environment can do for my work. This is not to say that I will not return to my other "satellite homes". I have true and dear collaborators in LA and my favorite city is a grey, chic city in Europe, but for now it feels good to feel still.

Image Sarah Maingot

You Must Have Chaos

2011-08-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

you must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star

Gif Bright Star

I am not afraid of storms

2011-08-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

—Louisa May Alcott

Wrigley Building, Chicago

I have dreamed in my life

2011-08-08T22:04:00.000-07:00

"I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind."
Emily Brontë

Pena National Palace

Building Blog

2011-08-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

In my research for my Sciencefictionarchitecturenoirfilm, I tumble into this undisciplined rabbit hole of research. I should be getting back to the actual script, concentrating on structure and writing. Initially I was self conscious about writing for characters as architects when I felt I knew little about architecture or design. I grew up in Wisconsin where every art teacher was quick to remind that Frank Lloyd Wright was from our home state and that architecture was something that was genius and dramatic. When I began my script I knew that I wanted my characters to be artists which led me to think of the most visual and firm art form I could think of. And over the years of writing and researching I've just fallen love with architecture. I love buildings. I get sidetracked as I delve into different styles and eras.
Often there is a Brutalist bent to some of the architecture in science fiction, like in this still from Blade Runner.

Brutalism in real life can often feel dreary, I think of the UIC campus in Chicago. It's grey upon grey in a grey city. But I came across the work of Paul Rudolph, his work has a lighter touch to the brutal style. And speaking of architectural heritage he is from Elkton, Kentucky, which is where my father is from (a rather random place for an architect to be from as there's not a lot of buildings there or anything else for that matter). He designed the white blocked building at the top of the post, the Milam house in Florida. It reminds me of Michael Mann. Like a house that would be in one of his movies, airy white and stark. Someplace where the guy that's been a bank robber his whole life retires to before he's pulled into one last heist. Or where the well-connected dealer stays. Or the house where William Petersen lived in Man Hunter.
Speaking of Man Hunter, THIS is awesome. This is my favorite scene from the movie. There's a lot of great things going on (like the ripping of the nylon off the dash), but I love how the door glows behind Joan Allen's head.

More stills

2011-08-06T14:15:00.001-07:00

Here's another still from the camera tests I did for my Sci-Fi Noir. Ruth Barabe was the beautiful and emotive model who interacted with the buildings and skyline.

The one that I hold closest

2011-08-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have been working on one thing for so long. Friends and family ask about it in vague tones wondering where it may be at and if it's still of concern. It is. Within the last couple of years I have been wading back into my craft. Something that is familiar but takes work and diligence.
I wrote a feature length script just out of film school. A science fiction noir that deals with architects in Chicago. Many years have past. It has sat in drawers, I've had to transpose it into different writing programs. At times when I couldn't sit down and work with it, the screenplay became loveless, a weight. But I still feel for the story, I am still drawn into it. But I have to work with it and practically reassemble it to bring the piece into the present. But it is still here, it's with me, and I am making footprints with it. A short has been written based on the feature length draft. Actors have been contacted. I am readying a film order (yes, film!), and camera tests have been shot. I am bringing the project that I love the most into the world. I'm thankful, delighted. And I'm scared.

Find Beauty

2011-07-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Reader, I want to tell you what I have learned. Learn of where your anger is. Anger can hide in your head and in your heart and can grow. And never make decisions based solely on anger. Never do it. I found it, a presence that I had sealed up but had kept a part of me in stasis. I wish I could light a match and burn it up. But it's dark and deep, like a reservoir, I will have to siphon it out slowly.

image Ophelia-Julia Margaret Cameron

And then this.

2011-07-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

I came across this photo. I was selling the camera the day the photo was taken and I asked my friend Ombeline to take a picture. This was the first Prosumer camera I ever bought, a Sony VX2000. I hadn't used it for awhile and technology had moved on but it was a special piece of equipment to me, my electronic baby. I sold it and put the money into the production for Kick, a short film about a robot baby.

Remembering, now

2011-07-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Recently I've had some conversations about KICK and where some of the inspiration came. It's interesting to reflect on now, since I am involved in writing stages on different projects, especially the short that's in production now. Kick seems like something faraway, a burst of energy that has fulfilled itself. I wrote Kick as a short story, some time after I finished college. I remember mostly trying to craft a story that fit together. I posted about the Add N to (X) cover, but another inspiration was the Tori Amos video for Spark. The song references her miscarriage and I read in an interview that she had gotten in a pick up truck and drove herself to the hospital to try to save the baby. In the song and video she's running "but she couldn't keep baby alive". I liked the music video, the urgency, the woods and her red hair. In Kick I wanted green, green woods and running with green blood coming down the woman's legs. Running trying to keep a baby alive. That's a theme I'm working with more and more, urgency- and trying to save something unseen and fragile.

In need of repose

2011-07-12T05:04:00.001-07:00

I want to be somewhere like this-

and possibly read something like this-

Anything for a respite from this hot cheerless morning.

Old Ghosts

2011-07-12T05:01:00.000-07:00

Favorite, always

2011-07-12T04:56:00.000-07:00

This album cover was the inspiration for the machine baby in KICK

Add N To (X) On the Wire of Our Nerves

Debbie Harry on Sesame Street

2011-04-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Langham

2011-02-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

When young hopeful artists or twentysomethings move to LA without a trust fund, they often have to live in a layover neighborhood. A stopover before they get their bearings and move somewhere with a better zip code. I lived in North Hollywood but a few of my friends landed in Koreatown. K-town is pretty bland. Highrises, few trees, and a lack of anything else to do besides Korean BBQ. It's a little sketchy but the sketchiness doesn't make it more interesting (strangely). I have lived in many an emerging neighborhood and I've learned that there can always be little discoveries & places reveal themselves, especially if the neighborhood had anything to do with "Old Hollywood".

This past summer I was house sitting for my friend Jose while he shot a documentary about the banana trade in Central America. He lives in an apartment off of Wilshire Boulevard, converted from a 1920s hotel called The Langham. During the 1930s the Mid-Wilshire region was a pretty fancy neighborhood. Ritzy apartment buildings and hotels, department stores and restaurants. Although not as grand as it's neighbor the Ambassador Hotel, The Langham is still pretty ornamented by contemporary standards. So in the middle of Koreatown I was staying in an old golden gem. Though converted to moderately priced apartments and by no means lavish anymore, the building has maintained a lot of character. My friends eyes were like saucers when they entered the lobby with two story ceilings, a Kane-like fireplace and carved brass plated elevators. Most units still have a dressing room and built in vanity area-where, I am sure, one would primp before heading to the Oscars at The Ambassador. There is a penthouse on the top floor used for (many), film and photo shoots. And my favorite was the rooftop pool, allegedly LA's first. When Jose and his girlfriend broke up I asked if he was going to move and he said, not yet, "I'm not finished with this building." So for a couple months I was able to hide away, pad the floors & work on my script. I swam and took phonecalls by the pool. I often would hear sirens, but at times I could tap back into the fantasy, the echos of the old dream city.

photos by me and by Jose of -the lobby, stairwell, pool, one of the shoots in front of the building, Nick & Natalie's engagement photo & Wendy Rose.

Avant-Guarde Time Machine

2011-02-05T15:59:00.001-08:00

Anita Berber

Nancy Cunard

Djuna Barnes

Lilya Brik

Emmy Hennings

Heart Placement

2011-02-04T17:17:00.000-08:00

In Kick the women experience changes in their bodies, including anomalies in their menstrual cycles. My friend Andrea Park did the graphics for the film and we had a good time with the design for the tampon boxes. I was very thankful to work with someone so proficient and talented. Presently she is working on much more important things, like the designs for her wedding invitations and programs. I hope we can work together on some pill bottles for a horror melodrama that I am writing. I hope we can take our feminine heart aesthetic "to the wall" as I like to say.

You start with nothing

2011-02-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

You start with nothing. That's always fascinated me. There's nothing. You start with only a few people around you. You can be drinking, talking, laughing, happy or unhappy and you think, 'Ok let's do that.' And then something happens. You have another life for a year or two. The process is so hard. People don't really like to work this way because their lives are important. Above all, you need to break away from your experience of the industry, from the idea of commercial filmmaking. What you discover is that any idea that you have - if it's a relatively original idea - suddenly become courageous. It carries itself; there are always some people who have some hope. We had all grown a little older, a little more mature; but sometimes it's necessary for your own sanity to go back to where you started from and find out whether you really have it or you don't have it or if there really is something to say or not. We put ourselves on the line for whatever it is we've said: 'Here we are, this is the best we can do.'

When I decided to write and shoot it, I came home and said to Gena, 'Are you willing to go without all the luxuries for the next couple of years so we can put everything we've got into the picture?' She said, 'Yes - except for getting my hair done. I insist on that!'

Cassavetes on Cassavetes

My Take on Cassavetes

2011-01-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

A few years ago my mom gave me a copy of Cassavetes on Cassavetes. I pick it up and read portions of it and then put it down for months or years. And then pick it up again, like when I find it buried on my desk or in my suitcase. It's a little drawn-out and tedious (like his movies). I'm not sure if I'm a fan of all his films, and I'm not even sure if I like him half the time (others have also felt divided). You can get an anxiety attack reading about the frustrations he went through to fund his projects. He was always putting out fires, wheeling and dealing. But he never gave up, and there was an emotive sincerity that he thought was important to convey. I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in making independent films. Although many, many things have changed and are changing in the world of independent film- the attitude, the delusional idea that, "I'm going to make this movie anyway" still resonates.

The Cassavetes family is pretty rad. His kids all went on to direct. Xan's Z Channel documentary is awesome, I had to start a whole new movie list after watching that. I thought Zoe's Broken English was good and I hope she makes more features. Nick made a little movie called The Notebook. It doesn't get better than THE NOTEBOOK.

& then there's Gena. I love Gena.

Out of the Past

2011-01-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

Out of the Past is an exceptionally archetypal noir. The photography is excellent. The customary high contrast black & white interiors are effective, but I like the exterior shots. In general I like exterior action shots from 1930s and 1940s Hollywood films because most pictures were shot entirely on studio lots. Many film noirs were shot off the studio lots because the "A" pictures usually took up studio space. One of the reasons I like East Hollywood and Echo Park so much is because those houses and streets were the settings of many noir locations. But Out of the Past opens in Northern California, the natural setting and small town feel cheerless. Robert Mitchum works as a gas station owner, a circumstance that is instantly wistful. As the story begins we know that whatever he was able to build for himself would soon be lost. His past comes back to meet him repeatedly as he travels to deal with the characters from his former life. But it is not an emotional journey, the film's desolate tone stays constant until the end. That's what I remember about this movie, that and Robert Mitchum's tired eyes.
Out of the Past

What if more movies opened this way?

2011-01-25T10:50:00.000-08:00

The Hunger

Video School-Nam June Paik

2011-01-24T14:52:00.000-08:00

Kick Screening at the Echo Park Film Center

2011-01-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

This past fall Kick screened at the Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles. It was a great night. I love microscreenings, I love Echo Park & I love the Echo Park Film Center.

Echo Park Film Center.

Chicago 1965

2011-01-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

Chicagoans are back and forth about how they feel about Bertrand Goldberg's cylindrical Marina Towers. Evidently the apartments are "pie shaped" with the widest portion being the window. I worked on a commercial that involved a car driving off one of the Tower's parking garages and into the river. The Towers are definitely interesting to be in. There are below-street-level shops that cater to the residents, the whole place seemed like it's own world. Sort of like a frozen modern dream.

Marina Towers postcards

Elizabetes Iela 10b

2011-01-22T17:46:00.001-08:00

I've seen pictures of this building before but I assumed that it was from a film set, not an actual building. Referenced by the address, Elizabetes lela 10b is an apartment building in Riga, Latvia. Evidently Riga is an Art Nouveau hub. The building was designed by Mikhail Eisenstein in 1903. Eisenstein's son Sergei was also an artist but he worked in a different medium.

Past/Future Pulp Fun

2011-01-22T17:30:00.000-08:00

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Sci-Fi Spectaculaar

2011-01-22T15:34:00.000-08:00

We shot part of Kick in Waukegan, Il (the ravine and stone bridge shots). So we decided to do a screening party in downtown Waukegan. Sort of an after party for Waukegan's Ray Bradbury Festival. The night was called "Sci-Fi Spetaculaar". It was spectacularly, hilariously awesome. Aleks and the Drummer, Joe Mason and Marc Riordan performed.

Order in your imagination

2011-01-22T15:02:00.000-08:00

image Cedric Bihr

Fashion explores "the violence of the spirit"

2011-01-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

Vogue Italia ran a Persona inspired photo shoot in their November 2008 issue
alla moda!

Photos by Steven Meisel
Vogue Italia
Styles of Radical Will

Anxious Idyll

2011-01-21T19:02:00.000-08:00

Bergman emphasizes that "necessary illusions" enable us to live.
Persona

Behind the scenes on Persona-

Heaven Gallery KICK Screening

2011-01-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

photo by Ray Pride
Ray Pride- Clara Alcott shows her new film, "Kick" at Heaven Gallery while cheers rise from Milwaukee Avenue as the Blackhawks win again.

Heaven Gallery

The Hopeless Dream to Be

2011-01-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

images: ?, Caroline Roitfeld via jak&jil, Ren Rox

Winter Stories

2011-01-20T22:57:00.000-08:00

Ein Liebesthriller?
A Love Thriller?...! : )

painting

We dressed up and sat in the dark to see what we'd made

2011-01-20T22:01:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to the Chopin Theater

Kick photo by Adam Hoff, premiere pics by Drew Wilson

Time Outside

2011-01-20T19:31:00.000-08:00

image here

Kick Premieres at the Chopin Theater May 11th.

2010-04-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

Kick premiers at the Chopin Theater May 11th, 8pm.

In the midst of things

2010-01-05T14:45:00.001-08:00

In a round about way I found myself on a jury for some final presentations at IIT. I am doing a lot of networking (don't say networking) and research for my feature length script. My script deals with architects in Chicago and the story begins in the classroom. As the script opens the architects are still in school and preparing for a final project. So I had been angling to sit in on an actual presentation for awhile. My experience was great and strange. Great because I thought the students were talented and it's reassuring to know that I sought out useful information for my research. I studied the student's characters and responses to criticism, as well as the practical details like what materials they brought to class. It was a little strange to experience something that I had written about beforehand. I was able to talk to some of the students afterward and they gave me some of their paperwork and research materials. The presentations were in the middle of Crown Hall. All around us were students working at tables piled with paper and cardboard finishing work for other classes. I was surprised to learn that the students work communally. Their work stations were so cluttered but also expressive and active. It was great to be a part of it and then also actively being a part of my own project too.

images: top-flickr, the rest my own

A Luddite's Lament

2009-12-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

Before I begin a film project, I usually see the images first in my head and then go to work to figure out how to execute them and many times that includes developing a story to go along with the images (if a direct story is needed).
For KICK, I had visualized a woman running through the woods, the images were so saturated in my mind that I had to look behind them and see what I could develop to define them. At the same time I was going through some interesting feelings about my video camera. Years ago I bought my first three chip video camera. It was a very, very expensive purchase for me at the time and probably my first "adult" purchase. When I was finally able to buy it, the feelings I had for it were greater than proud ownership. The pride I had for it was more precious. I wanted to protect it and keep it close. I was in my early twenties and as with some artists and professionals at that age, I was not interested in having children. I felt no instincts and was unsure as to if I ever would want to have kids. But I knew women my age were starting families. My passions lay with my potential as an artist and instead of a baby I had a brand new camera (which was basically the size of a newborn). I remember those conflicted feelings and I wondered if I had refocused my maternal sentiments into art work and cinema. I wanted to touch on these ideas someday in my work and then they showed up in KICK.
I have always approached things through an emotivity. Even as I go through a myriad of technical steps, I know I rely on my instincts and emotions. I came from a performance background before my interest began with cinema. When you are in theater or singing there is nothing separating you from the audience. When I got into film I was aware of the distance and objects between myself and the viewer. When making a video, even the most basic project, there are various instruments of production and post production that are used. So it's not just me and my body; there are machines, wires and computers that separate me from the viewer. I have always thought of creativity as being organic and if I think I am creating with a machine I feel disconnected and less in control. But control is the important part. Initially I believe that a part of myself firstly sees the the complexities of the machines I am using and not an inanimate tool that I can control. I subtely remind myself that the camera is in my hands and soon the camera integrates into the organic process that is natural to me.

photo by Larissa Zageris

Briefly

2009-12-21T11:17:00.000-08:00

I thought of the idea for KICK a few years ago.

I had a vision of a woman dreaming about another woman running through the woods. The woman in the woods was pregnant with a machine. The women could "sense" each other and share physical symptoms.
Over time I pieced together a story to go with the images. The story concerns two luddites, Joselyn and Josephine. Josephine is the woman running through the woods and Joselyn has a recurring dream about her. Without having ever met, both women go to see the same psychiatrist. Joselyn and Josephine have a fear of computers and machines and they seek treatment to address anxieties with technology. Through therapy, the psychiatrist, Dr. Griffin, finds that both women are particularly maternal. In an attempt to help the women adapt to a world that depends on appliances and gadgets, Dr. Griffin secretly impregnates them with a baby that is part machine. Many other things happen but that is the central thread-

PHOTOS FROM KICK

2009-12-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

KICK

2009-12-18T10:35:00.000-08:00

For the better part of this year I have been working on a narrative short. The piece is called KICK and deals with two women who are terrified of contemporary technology. The title references a pregnancy in the story as well as an allusion to the creative spark or "kick". This was the first narrative film I've made in a long time. I've been involved with experimental work for the last few years and going back into a narrative framework felt welcome. What I have known and am learning about myself is that Surrealism (which can mean so many things...), may be the truest place for me. I only need the basic frame of a story, solid character and practically everything else can be pulled with, played with, turned over and examined. With KICK I like to refer to it as Science-Fiction Melodrama. The women follow a story throughout but their the universe is enchanted and undefined. I will be discussing KICK for the next few posts.
We finished shooting the film this past week and here is a preview.

Kick Preview from Clara Alcott on Vimeo.

"Is this cinema? Am I right to go on trying?"

2009-12-08T20:59:00.001-08:00

Hello. This blog goes along with the website I am currently building. It is my hope to use this as an informal place to share and catalog creative elements that affect me. I am in different stages on a few different projects and I would also like to chart my progress here. There are many interests, passions, delightful distractions, ambitions, dreams, loves--but my attentions will almost always come back to cinema. The overwrought quote is from JLG, 1968.
Special thanks to JoeHahn and Andrea Park.

best,
c