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 has 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 KICKinvolved 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.
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...)
I love Adult. A million years ago I spent a New Years with Vanessa Bucella, Dave Dobie, Douggpoundand 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.
I want to say a word about my friend Sarah Weis. Sarah played the part of Joselyn inKick 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 EssanayStudios, 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 tracked her down online 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"
I came across this photo the other day. I was selling my 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.
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.
InKick 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.
This past fallKick 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.
We shot part of Kick in Waukegan, Illinois (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.
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.
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-
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.
