Any aspiring filmmaker would find the content of Thursday’s panel discussion to be enormously helpful in navigating through the mysterious world of distribution among the myriad technological forms it takes.
For “Tomorrow’s Obsolescence” moderator Jonathan Marlow of San Francisco Cinematheque, a premier showcase for experimental film, directed questions towards three experts that filmmakers want to be best friends with: Emily Doe of McSweeney’s Wholphin DVD Magazine, Benjamin Cook of the illustrious LUX of London, and Brigid Reagan of the School of the Art Institute’s Video Data Bank.
Here’s a breakdown of their advice:
Emily Doe views probably more than 10,000 works of video and film per year, and the first step in getting your piece onto the DVD of their primarily subscription-based quarterly mag is to send it to her! She promises that she views every submission, and she also peruses videos online and checks out film fests. “There’s no one channel that our content comes from,” she says. Emily advises the hopeful directors to get their work out there, explaining, “I don’t believe in scarcity as a good thing-don’t be scared of the internet.”
Ben Cook of LUX, which has a more gallery-based clientele, emphasizes more exclusive means of distribution. He advises filmmakers to stick to their work, and “nuture it into the world” by knowing your distributor and keeping funds for distribution instead of blowing every penny on production. “A key point is staying close to your work,” he stresses, as opposed to just throwing your work anywhere without strategy or artistic direction. The DVD biz is seeing a return to the distributable video as the value of interacting with an actual tangible object has become more rare, and consequently more appealing.
Brigid Reagon’s organization represents the more educational institution side of distribution as Video Data Bank works primarily with schools, libraries and galleries. She notes that artists are often conflicted over whether to take a more exclusive route with limited editions or focus on numbers. Like a work in a gallery, video artists with VDB get a substantial percentage from DVD sales. Brigid watches about 50 works per month, so send it to her...make it happen...
They all agree the power of showing your face at festivals and conferences, and find the following to be top spots for acquiring new works and meeting new filmmakers:
- Rotterdam
- Migrating Forms
- Oberhausen
- Media City
- International Documentary Film Festival of Marseilles
- South By Southwest
- Chicago Underground
And of course…the Ann Arbor Film Festival.
-Amanda Scotese
Amanda is the producer/editor of the AAFF blog, and otherwise dabbles in making videos, teaching video production with urban youth in Chicago, going to grad school, and working as a travel connoisseur.
There's no denying that wit prevails. Taking the temperature of the audience at the opening night film program it was obvious that short films with clever jokes, offbeat humor, or quirky ideas elicited the biggest reactions.
Photograph Of Jesus earned laughs from its inventive cut-out animation and amusing voice over, a researcher at the Getty Image Library. His sarcasm and wonder over the ridiculous request they sometimes get (thus the title) perfectly counterbalanced Laurie Hill's punchy images.
Missed Aches, written and narrated by my friend Taylor Mali is as successful a short film as it is a slam poem. Joanna Priestley's tongue-in-cheek animation and willingness anthropomorphize poop won big laughs from the crowd.
The surprise reaction came from Vanessa Renwick's Portrait #3: House of Sound, which juxtaposed an entertaining radio interview with the former owners and employees of Portland's House Of Sound with gorgeously composed shots of the vacant lot that the former barbershop/record store has become. A vital facet of the now-gentrifying black neighborhoods in North Portland, the audience couldn't help but feel the loss of something special... less because the building no longer stands and more because its rich stories probably mean so little to the emerging residents. As a former Portlander who knows these neighborhoods (and the film's terrific cinematographer Eric Edwards) well it was satisfying to see that this little slice of Pacific-Northwest history resonated with Ann Arbor's decidedly Midwest crowd.
Perhaps my two favorite films were Kent Lambert's snarky and surreal Fantasy Suite, (which defies explanation) and Chema García Ibarra's deadpan hilarious El ataque de los robots de Nebulosa-5, which viewed from a more serious angle could be seen as a painful illustration of mental disorder. It's rare to encounter a film that can simultaneously make you laugh and make you feel very bad about laughing.
Finally, there's no denying that Oliviers Hems' "Nous (Us)" hit the audience hardest. Home movies and the self-recorded experiences of a man who found his upstairs neighbor long-dead paint a moving portrait of isolation and loss. It is a film that dares us to contemplate the lives of those strangers who live near to us.
-Jeff Meyers
Jeff is a film critic with the Metro Times (catch his reviews there or on Rotten Tomatoes) and the managing editor of e-mags Concentrate and Metromode. He is also a screenwriter and filmmaker.
"I'm a very ambitious person," states the narrator of Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry. Except actually he spends his time reading phone books and peaking into people's windows.
He's an art school student, and with the word "ambitious" floating images of doll parts and hot dogs appear from the hand-controlled movements of Daniel Barrow. This live animated performance, primarily from illustrations beamed onto the screen via an overhead projector, recounts diary-like self-reflections, as narrated through a microphone by Daniel himself.
My first impression of these children's book-style images, with simple modeling and bright colors, was that they could have been taken from illustrations of other artists, but with the bizarre juxtaposition of innocent faces with bloodshot eyes and bloody scenarios, I soon realize that these are original works of art. Also on first impression I thought, ok, he's got a pretty good schtick, but will the piece stack up to it? Barrow succeeded by far, and even now, as I edit this post two days after the performance, this piece resonates with me.
I imagine it could be contested what aspect of Every Time... truly propels it: Is it the narrative, with chapters of life that reflect the loneliness of emotion, the banality of everyday worries, and an obsessive identification with Helen Keller? Or was it the style of the illustrations, at once fun and simple like a pre-teen book cover of a novella about summer camp? They're primarily flat, with simple highlights and shadows, and a predominance of pink, magenta, purple and green that together creating a sickly mood in a cheery pastel world. Or maybe the strength of Barrow's work is the actual movement of the animations, managed by Barrow's hands, as the layered illustrated sheets trace over outlines like live drawings, or objects floating listlessly.
Artistic ingenuity and storytelling strengths aside, I'm most struck by the irony of an emotionally isolated character intimately divulging to us his eccentricities via Barrow's detached and matter-of-fact tone. He explains his phonebook collection, the blindfold he wore during childhood, and awkward attempts at physical contact. The narrator, an art school failure, wants his work to make people cry, and views emotions neatly divided in a bingo-card sort of arrangement with labeled facial expressions. Coupled with the uncomfortably cheery and weirdly holiday-like score, composed for the piece by Amy Linton of the Aislers Set, the narration and live animation exposes the empty space between expected and actual emotions, and an alienation and discomfort in the personal.
-Amanda Scotese
Amanda is the producer/editor of the AAFF blog, and otherwise dabbles in making videos, teaching video production with urban youth in Chicago, going to grad school, and working as a travel connoisseur.
"Out Night" at AAFF turned 10 years old last night. To celebrate we passed out Hershey Kisses, launched festival tee shirts into lucky audience member hands and
presented the usual mix of documentary, experimental and irreverent humor. Sure to offend or disappoint someone!
City of Borders is an award winning film by Yun Suh, who follows the only gay bar owner/gay city council member and several bars patrons-a Palestian gay youth, a settler activist, a lesbian couple: Israeli, Arab and Jew. Complex, touching, sometimes funny and sad, this film did not fail to challenge its viewers.
...but we are nothing if we are not able to party even after deep cinema, so off to the aut BAR for the afterparty! Snacks, drinks, tunes and outdoor firepits set the stage for the usual party highjinks...lots of talk, laughter and good old-fashioned film festival flirting!
Best not to miss this night of GBTLQ films at A2F2 next year!
-Debra Miller
Debra has curated and consulted for AAFF's "Out Night" for the past four years, in addition to being a screener for Outfest and American Film Institute Fest in Los Angeles. She likes to watch film among many other things. Until four years ago, the only thing she knew about Michigan was that it's in the shape of a mitten, and is now a big fan.
"Out Night" Perspective 2:
The program started with the pleasantly surprising Black Ops Arabesque, made by Detroiter Jared Drake. It's difficult to share the surprise without ruining it, but just trust me that this beautifully shot and suspenseful short takes a fun, Vegas-style turn. You wonder why all these secret agent types are chasing a man that looks like their cohort, and it turns out that he is, but in a very non-secret agent-way. Is that too elusive?
The aut BAR artistically arranged a tasty spread for the afterparty, and as always, sitting around the fire makes for good conversation with new film fest friends. Had some nice state-of-the-world conversation with university instructors Ted and Elizabeth, also from Chicago, and we tried to convince their German intern that it's American custom for foreign people to buy a round of drinks. Some ridiculous banter with a very drunk girl from Detroit included her calling me a wimp for shying away from the fire smoke and me welcoming her to put her face in it and try it out herself. Also had a very long conversation with a very young guy that I thought was gay but was actually not and apparently flirting with me, and then had some Ann Arbor nostalgia when some random girls approached us and invited us to their place for a spontaneous dance party in their living room (never saw them again).
And what adventures shall be in store for this evening, with psychedelic hip-hop laptopper Flying Lotus and some jangly rockin' with Mahjongg at the Blind Pig ($15 at door, $10 with film fest pass). Dr. Strangeloop provides live VJ candy for the eyes, and Dark Matter's DJ Forest will jock the discs.
-Amanda Scotese
Amanda is the producer/editor of the AAFF blog, and otherwise dabbles in making videos, teaching video production with urban youth in Chicago, going to grad school, and working as a travel connoisseur.
I’ve been attending shorts screenings regularly for the past four years now and am thrilled to report that the theaters are only getting more crowded. As I flip through my guide book, trying to decide how to juggle my screening schedule for tomorrow, a programmer arrives on stage to introduce a gentleman from the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society, co-presenter of this program, and already I can tell I’m gonna love it.
The program, “From Honey to Ashes,” features five truly diverse short films, employing a variety of visual styles, from line-drawn and cutout animation to archival footage to live-action fiction, all converging at some point on the topics of existence and self-worth.
My favorite thing about the first short, Jim Trainor’s The Presentation Theme, is the use of repetition. He builds the language and the imagery on top of itself in a way that seeps into your subconscious, the plane on which all of his character’s Freudian issues lie. He suggests that when we are gone it will be as it was before, “as if [we] never existed.” Nancy Andrews’ On a Phantom Limb informs us halfway through the film that this is autobiographical, this story of a woman who substitutes her human parts, mainly her head, with those of a bird. In my favorite scene, she stands naked in a field flying a kite modeled after her new body; it’s exhilarating and yet tragic as this is as close as she will ever actually get to flight. She reminds us: “We are each condemned to contemplate our own skeleton.” Naoyuki Tsuji’s Zephyr employs no words, no text, not even a song lyric. There are only quiet instrumentals and pencil drawn animation where every line is left behind on the page, so it is as if we are simultaneously witnessing the past and present of this story. I find this technique of lingering shadows to be very poignant and appropriate for a mystical story about the wind giving a baby a glimpse at its future. Jesse McLean’s Somewhere Only We Know enters the scene with energy and suspense as we watch to see which contestant will be eliminated next. The film closely captures the participants’ expressions as they transition from anxious to frustrated to upset. I love the way she constructs such a fluid emotional arch with so many different faces. It draws all of our attention to the emotions instead of the individuals. And lastly Jennifer Reeder’s Seven Songs About Thunder follows three different women as they struggle with their feminine identities, whether it be through motherhood, sexual anatomy, or death. In one scene in the film a woman listens to the voice messages of a mother calling her dead daughter’s phone--I find it particularly eerie, heartbreaking and touching.
Walking home after the screening, my friend, an American Culture PhD student here at Michigan, asks me, “Does all experimental film abandon narrative?” and this excites me because I argue that all five of the films in this program are narrative, perhaps non-traditionally, or abstractly, or uniquely, but certainly still narrative. But now I’m wondering: What is it that defines contemporary experimental filmmaking?
-Emily Doe
She's the Associate Editor/Producer of Wholphin, a DVD magazine of rare and unseen short films from McSweeney’s. She is also on the board of LunaFest, the lady's traveling film festival, and has worked closely with South By Southwest and the San Francisco Film Society in the past.
There’s a really great alley to the left of the Michigan Theater that glows with vibrant graffiti art. I started the evening off with Time Machine in the beautiful auditorium inside the University of Michigan Museum of Art. This live multimedia performance merges the talents of artists Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat. Brown’s signature photo-essay style and narration shines as he depicts hotel scenarios greasy and dirty enough to make my stomach crawl just a little bit. The narrative was accompanied by a teleprompter and a slideshow of hotels “where the king-sized beds take up most of the room” and the beds are “marked with expressions of two bodies entangled one on one another." Flash forward in their time machine (manned by Gruffat with live bleeping and blurping video/sound oscillations) to Austin, Texas where he states, "A lot of people he knows moved away, but the taco recipe at this one place still remains the same." He goes on to say, “The past is a place you keep getting farther and farther away from and once the recipe has changed, he will entirely become a stranger to Austin.” All these thoughts flow together naturally and without question as their pace speeds up. A scrolling LED Banner flashes what seems like excerpts from journal entries: “…a couch, chairs, and a coffee table bolted to the floor. These bolts worry me. That means there are days on the ship when furniture needs bolting.” Things start to get more disorienting from here – the pulsing gets louder and Gruffat pumps a brightly colored lever next to what appears to be a deflated beach ball. Brown inflates these structures and places electronic devices inside each that control the audio and video projections. As the objects shake inside these cushy balls, they begin to hum wildly like locusts. Brown and Gruffat launch the balls into the crowd eager to interact with these foreign objects. We safely return back to a normal state once the lights turned on.
Later in the evening, I see Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry, by Daniel Barrow. Strangely similar to Time Machine, this live photo-essay performance combines vivid hand drawn illustrations with bulging eyeballs and knobby fingers on mylar, manually manipulated by the artist on an overhead projector to create fluid animations. The story unfolds in vignettes from a main characters perspective, an art student’s stunningly honest and bittersweet reflection that painfully legitimizes feelings of inadequacy, describes a chosen route of apathy, “not paying attention to trends, not watching news, listening to the same songs as he did in high school, not seeing life-changing movies until they were on late-night television”, and renders himself symbolically blindfolded and with a hole in his soul – directly in his gut. The most sinister moments were offset with biting humor or pictures and quotes from Helen Keller such as, “only through the experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened”. And that that is exactly what the performance was like – a carefully crafted, fragile and metamorphic cathartic introspection.
The interwoven themes of the films during the From Honey to Ashes program bred similar feelings of acute anxiety, self-loathing and critical curiosity. Leading this round was a highly entertaining primal 16mm animation by Jim Trainor that involves perverse accounts of breast-feeding and intercourse based loosely from Peruvian imagery. The Phantom Limb by Nancy Andrews presents an extremely thoughtful, somewhat graphic, and serious film depicting a half-bird, half-human character from which “the center has been removed, and then replaced” and who “sees with eyeless sight and reports nothing.” A long shot of flowing ocean makes my skin hang loose after a pulpy shot of a limb being severed is shown. This film ends in a contrasting playful tone, but exits with a powerful statement: We are each condemned to contemplate our own skeleton. Zephyr, by Naoyuki Tsuji, a gracefully obscure pencil animation that defies gravity, silently captures a feeling through images I am still unable to accurately describe in words. Seven Songs About Thunder by Jennifer Reeder is a psychoanalytic adventure that entangles the lives of a delusional pregnant woman, an apologetic therapist, and a dead girl in a forest preserve. It was on this note that I left with a gratifying feeling of uncomfortable repulsion and a heightened sense of self-awareness.
It was a strange and terrific evening. I am thankful for the people who point out gum “art” galleries in back alleys or put together film festivals to make experiences like this happen.
-Jax Deluca
Jax, a video/sound/installation/performance artist residing in Buffalo, NY, has presented her work in galleries and theaters internationally. She teaches workshops in experimental and strategic sound-making at Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources. Current projects include multi-dimensional sound paintings and immersive noise under the name of Communication Vault and live vocal and electronic sound processing with W ((aa)) ou w, a free improvisational group, and some awkwardly introspective solo ventures and public intervention performances.
After three days in Michigan, it is obvious that the folks in Ann Arbor are about the friendliest you'll ever find anywhere.
I wager it might be their relative geographic proximity to Canada. Or perhaps they're normally a somber bunch and the Ann Arbor Film Festival brings out their unnatural exuberance. Perhaps, instead, it is some combination of the two (or something else entirely).
Regardless, Benjamin Cook, Director of the once legendary and now vitally reborn LUX, ventured all the way over to AAFF from London Wednesday morning to present an assortment of recent works from their collection. He'll also participate in a panel on short film distribution later in the week. For the uninitiated, LUX was created from the 1990s merger of the London Filmmakers' Co-operative (formed in 1966) and London Video Arts (founded in 1976 and, by the time of the merger, more commonly known as London Electronic Arts). It was a remarkably successful joining of two like-minded organizations. LUX accumulated nearly 5,000 experimental films and videos made in the UK from the 1920s to the present. Their remarkable stature in the field of moving-image-arts led to the eventual opening of the Lux Centre, their primary exhibition venue. Then the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards. Ben was (and remains) fundamental to LUX's return to international prominence. Upon his arrival in Ann Arbor, Ben took a more-or-less direct path from the airport to an informal dinner arranged by AAFF Executive Director Donald Harrison (a gathering that included myself and another Tomorrow's Obsolescence co-panelist, Wholphin's charming Emily Doe). A few hours later, Ben was introducing his curated program (or, more accurately, "programme"), "A Sentimental Education," (at an hour that would've otherwise been 3:00am if he'd stayed in England).
His justifiable fatigue went entirely unnoticed by the audience during his concise introduction. Much more unnoticed, I wager, than the minor projection gaffes throughout the screening (presenting the silent Flash in the Metropolitan with the audio turned on, producing an interesting if unintended effect; spending the first half of Born Winged Animals and Honey Gatherers of the Soul correcting and repeatedly re-correcting the proper masking; screening George out of its proper sequence). Admittedly, a festival of this sort is bound to put unusual pressures on its projectionists. The whole team should be applauded for how exceptionally well things have gone thus far. This is the point when you should be applauding.
As for the aforementioned George, the film bears a passing resemblance to the work of Robert Beavers (particularly in its frequent use of a rotating lens turret) with an assortment of split-screens added for good measure. It covers quite a bit of ground (and Glasgow scenery) in its four brief minutes. Other highlights of the program included Stephen Sutcliffe's Despair (named for the Vladimir Nabokov novel of the same name) and Bachelor Machines Part I, one of two films--the shortest and the longest--in the program by the ostensibly talented Rosalind Nashashibi (the other co-directed by Lucy Skaer). In the former, Sutcliffe uses footage from Rainer Werner Fassbinder's identically titled film along with extraneous related materials (such as interview footage with the star of the Fassbinder's feature). I suspect that the viewer benefits from some basic knowledge of the book or some functional knowledge of what is arguably Fassbinder's greatest film (and by "arguably" I mean "I believe it to be so and if others believe differently, they're wrong"). Nonetheless, Despair is playful and positively peculiar. For the latter, saving the best for last, Nashashibi has essentially created a half-hour mini-masterpiece in Bachelor Machines (a phrase, if you're wondering, coined by Marcel Duchamp). It is as if Liverpool was remade and rephotographed by James Benning and then the resulting footage was exquisitely edited by Nathaniel Dorsky into a prologue and twenty-five scenes. The film admittedly requires patience. All great films require as much.
-Jonathan Marlow
Curator, critic, and composer Jonathan Marlow, with 20 short films to his credit, is presently Executive Director of San Francisco Cinematheque. Concurrently, he frequently hosts screenings throughout the world showcasing remarkable and rare cinematic works.
The Michigan Theater is a shining diamond during the Opening Reception. People of all ages fill the enormous space of this historic theater. This non-profit independent theater brags to have “real gold leaf, real butter on the popcorn” and doesn’t fall short in either arena. The AAFF crew have spruced the place up with some strings of sparkling stars dangling from the extra high ceilings on the second floor, cascading around an impressive installation of light boxes and nylon banners. Fun-time music from REAL live turntables (yes, with actual vinyl) is provided by DJ Forest Juziuk, a local resident and cultural enthusiast who runs Wazoo records among many other ventures. I don’t know if it’s just the music, but it’s such a transformative, time-throwback experience upon entering the theater that I forget it’s still daylight outside.
I hit the street and meet some locals. The first person I chat up is a stoic looking man, looking dapper in a fully crocheted suit in multiple colors. His name is Spooner and we chat about his handmade knit-wares and the rise and fall of his garlic garden 20 miles west of Ann Arbor. After meeting Spooner, I meet a guy named Ed Special (or Special Ed, depending on if you follow his radio show). Ed Special is a long-time festival go-er and the composer of the sound score for the award-winning ‘Animation Station’ in the back of the Michigan Theater. Ed fills me in on the history of the festival and introduces me to Walter Bishop, the Head Projectionist of the Michigan Theater. Walter gives me a quick run-down of the theater’s many cultural functions – from concerts, lectures, performances and readings to screenings in 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, and get this - 70mm and rare dual strip 3D projections! How fascinating that this theater had been threatened to become a parking lot at one time, but had been saved by a group of dedicated locals a preservationists. I couldn’t imagine the town (or the festival) without it!
Back in the theater before the first screening I cross the paths of two gorillas parading through the crowd with monkey mischief and assorted hanky-panky. The sounds of a rare 1927 Barton Theatre Pipe Organ, played by a live organist welcomes the crowds pouring into the Main Auditorium Theater. Stunning!
After an impressive introduction by Bruce Baker, Chair of the AAFF Board, and Donald Harrison, Director of AAFF, the first program of the festival is greeted with thunderous applause. The shorts presented in the film program range from extremely personal self-reflections to loose documentations about the lives and actions of others. Nous (Us) by Oliviers Hems of France, stood out for me: it’s a first-person recollection of a somber evening involving the discovery of a man who had remained dead and unnoticed for over a year. Another notable piece, El ataque de los robots de Nebulosa-5 by Chema García Ibarra of Spain, tells a quirky and personal tale of a man trying to rationalize his irrational fears to his closest relatives with no response.
There is so much more to write about here, but now I’m out of space. More soon!
-Jax Deluca-Jax Deluca
Jax is the Director of Programming at Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources, a non-profit media arts center in Buffalo, NY and media arts curator for Beyond/In Western New York, a multi-site biennial art event in Western New York. Current art projects include immersive noise under the name of Communication Vault, live vocal and electronic sound processing with W ((aa)) ou w, a free improvisational group, and some awkwardly introspective solo ventures and public intervention performances.
Warm virtual welcome to the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival blog. This year's log of the web will keep you even more clued into the excitementMy name is Amanda, and this is my second year coming up from Chicago to write and edit the blog (have a look at last year's blog if you like). Pictured here is on of our many helpful volunteers. If you have feedback to share or would like to contribute a post, please do! You'll find me around the festival, or email me at amanda@aaff.org.
Check back to the site often, voice your thoughts on our Facebook and Twitter pages, and most importantly, come down to the Michigan Theater for top notch film and divine company.