What a stimulating challenge to design a film poster for another filmmaker's vision! Many thanks to directors Wenting Deng Fisher & Luke Fisher for their guidance and faith in my abilities. The sumptuously shot and heartbreaking short, Empty Skies, coming soon!
Feathers
Not falling asleep by your usual bedtime is a bit like missing your bus home when it's really late at night. All you can do is wait until you're tired again. By that time, opportunities for sleep (much like the buses) only come about an hour or so apart. That is, if they're still running at all. So you just have to lie there and wait until the feeling takes you again. Perhaps you try to busy your mind, tricking it into thinking it's more tired than it really is: "Draw some feathers," you command. "Now open Photoshop." And you do. And still, you wait. Because you already missed your bus.
"Mommie Dearest" Criterion Collection concept art
SACRED SHIT by Machete Bang Bang & Erin Granat
One of microcinema's treasures is the joy of discovering nuance just beneath its surface on repeat viewings. Much like the delight you experience upon discovering a new instrumental flourish buried within your favorite song after revisiting it, the comparable brevity of a short film sharpens its audience's senses, refocusing them to engage with, and pick up, new details. A short film's runtime tacitly demands a heightened level of awareness from its viewers, knowing there's only so much time to tell its story. You can always hit “repeat,” though.
On such repeat viewings, the impishly clever hide of Sacred Shit wears away, its clever skin belying its truer nature: a meditation on friendship, dependency & loss. Filmmakers Machete Bang Bang & Erin Granat (dear friends of mine for transparency’s sake), weave their individual talents together to express their own unique artistic stake in the process, while never sacrificing the volume of either voice to placate the other. Without spoiling the film’s revelatory ending, it’s clear that this sense of mutual collaboration speaks to more than simply the mechanics of making art, but a deeper need for each friend to support the other in the face of mortality and its humorless smile. Life, after all, has a runtime too, though we never know how long we’ve got until it’s too late to demand a repeat button. Now that’s some “sacred shit.”
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Credits:
Starring: Erin Granat, Machete Bang Bang & John Weselcouch as "Friend on Phone"
Created by Machete Bang Bang and Erin Granat
Edited by Machete Bang Bang
Sound Design & Mix by Tim McKeown
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Best of NFMLA Award nomination: "The Duel," Best Short Film - Documentary
I'm thrilled to be counted among the year's best at NewFilmmakers Los Angeles's "Best of NFMLA Awards." The Duel has been nominated for Best Short Film - Documentary, an honor I couldn't be more proud to share with my friends at the RISK! podcast and my unbelievable cast & crew. Now...what to wear on the red carpet?
Learn to love yourself / Before loving someone else
Last year, I began compiling a sticky note on my desktop - a list of ideas for drawings that I've been meaning to complete. The above, "Learn to love yourself before loving someone else," is my first crack at the list. More to come, as I keep chipping away.
I Was There Too by Joey Izzo
A haunting, sharply comedic tale of one man's craven manipulation of public tragedy, I Was There Too is a claustrophobic morality play, or in Darius's case (played by DeMorge Brown), a trap of his own making. Estranged from his daughter Max (Sunni Salazar), Darius is a father on the sidelines. Frustrated. We're introduced to his character arguing with referees at Max's soccer game, his outburst mollified by his ex-wife's new partner, Eric (played Eric Dadourian), with a weary sense of responsibility. "You can't come anymore, you know that, right?" Faced with the potential of being pushed further away from his daughter in an increasingly decaying orbit, Darius fabricates a story of narrowly escaping a mass shooting late one night, breathlessly describing it to Eric and Beth (Beth Lisick) at their doorstep.
Once inside, there's a sublime moment that occurs in-camera during a pivotal scene. Adrenaline still racing, Darius's pulse softens as he recalls a fond memory of his daughter Max's birthday, shared in the same living room he once again finds himself a guest in; Albeit, a self-imposed one. A bead of sweat rolls down his right temple at the exact moment he looks up at Beth for what sympathy he can wrestle from her concerned expression. It's a disturbing moment of serendipity, sweat gathering on the nervous skin of his story. We the audience, after all, know better than his captive audience. Darius wasn't there at all.
Izzo deftly handles the increasing tension by never fully revealing how much is truly believed by Darius's family, nor how much time is left before they discover it's all an act; Or if they discover it at all. Beautifully photographed by Arlene Muller, the film glides through the twilight hours of a man running out of time, and his desperate attempt for a second chance at becoming the father he may have never been in the first place. Reminiscent of Bresson's Pickpocket, Izzo is fast becoming a new master of portraying human frailty, and the tragicomic circumstances that tighten around wayward souls believing they are either too deserving of salvation, or too clever to outwit their inevitable judgment.
I Was There Too is available for streaming on Vimeo and was named Short of the Week.
Portrait of Gustav Mahler
Designing artwork for the USC Thornton School of Music affords me many opportunities to re-work classic portraits of equally classical composers. Gustav Mahler, featured above, was a late-Romantic composer whose works are still strikingly modern by today's standards. In service of this, I re-interpreted a profile etching of Mahler by portraitist Emil Orlik in the style of the great Milton Glaser, similar to his Bob Dylan portrait in the 1970s.
NewFilmmakers Los Angeles / Stage 5 - A discussion about "The Duel" →
Since 2007, NewFilmmakers Los Angeles has been providing a home for artists to share their creative voice in an environment that supports truth in cinematic storytelling. In addition to their monthly film festivals, DocuSlate, a entire day of documentaries, was added to their yearly programming in 2016 to increase awareness and widen opportunities for representation of true stories and personal narratives on screen.
Last December I enjoyed sitting down with NFMLA Board Chair Danny De Lillo for a discussion about my creative process behind The Duel, and the unique challenges inherent in “translating” someone else’s truth. As an artistic custodian of my own family experiences which have been transmuted into past works, making these connections during our discussion was illuminating for me, and helped me better appreciate the delicacy required for handling something as fragile as memory itself, especially when it belongs to someone else.
About: "NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) is a non-profit designed to showcase innovative works by emerging filmmakers from around the world, providing the Los Angeles community of entertainment professionals and film goers with a constant surge of monthly screening events."
2018 Bird City Comedy Festival
Since its inception in 2016, The Bird City Comedy Festival in Phoenix, Arizona has blossomed into a premiere destination for some of the best voices in comedy, improv storytelling & sketch to stretch their wings in the Valley of the Sun. This year, founder and friend Genevieve Rice has trusted me to brand her event, as per our little friend above us. Be on the look-out this spring for apparel and merchandise, as I will undoubtedly by updating this blog with photos of comedians as ersatz fashion models slaying this graphic tee.
The Duel @ Victoria Film Festival
Joined by six shorts from around the world, I'm honored to share The Duel with its first live audience outside the United States as a part of the International Shorts Program at the Victoria Film Festival in British Columbia. Among the dazzling offerings this year are familiar works I've screened with before, such as director Denis Côté's A Skin So Soft, (SF DocFest) along with delightful surprises such as the latest Studio Ghibli film, Mary and the Witch's Flower. (Meari To Majo No Hana)
Though the responsibilities of grad school will bind me once again to Los Angeles, I wish I could visit Canada again. The last time, I was 16-years-old, traveling as a guest of the Toronto Teen Film Festival with my mother. I remember sipping a chocolate milkshake as cold as the afternoon at a Dave & Buster's in the shopping complex of the AMC Theatre where my film was screened. I felt worldly. It's been a blessing to have this film travel across my homeland, and though I wish I could visit each new city it finds a new home in, I'm thankful for the audiences who gather to welcome it in my absence.
"Everytime" by Boy Pablo
I've been experimenting with making cut-and-paste collages from my own illustrations, scrambling them in order to find new shapes or meanings. Music usually keeps me company while I do this, and one of the most delightful songs to do so last year was Boy Pablo's "Everytime." The music video is a delight, sun-dappled friends playing together on a dock in Norway. As the guitars swell and ring, you can almost feel the brisk of the afternoon by the water and the joy shared by all the musicians. Unexpected and effervescent, I highly recommend giving it a listen.
Single Mother Only Daughter by Ellie Wen
At NewFilmmakers LA earlier this month, I was honored to share the screen with director Ellie Wen's Single Mother Only Daughter, a lovingly-crafted portrait of her relationship with her mother. Stitching new connections between analog memories culled from her collection of home movies, diaries and childhood photographs, Wen traces the synchronous orbits of two lives circling closer together with age. As the film navigates through a collage of VHS footage chronicling birthday parties, ballet recitals and impromptu Mother/Daughter karaoke performances, their bond is strengthened by the film’s aural foundation; A recorded phone conversation between the two. Auspiciously, Wen's husband, Greg Katz began filming her end of the line one evening, capturing her moments of realization & revelation with their shared past that would’ve otherwise remained in the dark.
Naturally, I find a kinship with Wen's work, as much of my directorial efforts are traced along similar lines of connecting the past with the present, and the web of dreams/memories that form between its many points. Both my latest film, The Duel and Single Mother Only Daughter attempt to reconcile childhood mysteries with a waking adult life that refuses to shake them free, perhaps motivated by a duty to forgive or better understand their parents. Film is one of the rare art forms in that respect, as it grants the artist the tools to fold time in on itself to form new strength in re-examining the power of memories and the role they continue to play in shaping their lives. For Wen, Single Mother Only Daughter is a beautiful effort in striving for that new understanding.
Face study with green waves
Ticonderoga
Last night I spilled some watercolor and inadvertently created a new state named "Ticonderoga," after the No. 2 Ticonderoga-brand pencil that rested against my desktop lamp. It's a brave new world, and its robust fishing economy is generously fed by three lakes that lap against its magenta shores: Lake Eugene to the north, and Lakes Dixon and Avery, which hug its southern border. Its capital, Moto City, is famous for its wild-caught Cadmium sandwiches, which can be enjoyed along the boardwalks during the Moto Music Festival come mid-November. Cooled by the balmy winds sweeping off Lake Avery at autumn's end, its boardwalks can be heard clattering with the shoes of college kids, some hand in hand, considering the wide expanse of ocean that rolls into the horizon. Last year when Aimee Mann played, the sound of her guitar seemed to skip across the surface of the water like a polished stone, similar to the one Casey, a student home from Cape Cobra, smoothed in her left hand. "u home for txgiving?" texted Brian, her (ex) co-worker from the office supply store she worked at freshman year before she transferred schools. She put her phone back in her pocket. Talking to Brian was like pulling on a loose thread, not unlike the one that swung from the back of her olive green sweater. She knew better than to reply, not wanting for handfuls of loose yarn and quick goodbyes in the morning of his studio apartment. Probably the same one he had since the last time she saw him. "I Can't Help You Anymore" began to play down the pier. Looks like Aimee was invited back this year. This song always reminded her of closing the office supply store late at night after her boss had left, when she could play whatever she wanted and sing as loud as she possibly could. Some nights she would scream and try to shake the stacks of 28 lb. carbon white like leaves. Her pocket vibrated. Probably Brian. Again. As the band continued to play, Casey turned to face the water and rubbed the stone in her left hand, warming it up, waiting for the right moment to let it go. If it wasn't for her mother trying to reach her, she'd throw her phone instead, and wait for it to skip or sink.
New sign
Piano #2
Sometimes, time should escape you.
Johanna Doreen
"Clara" by Jordan Kim
Fine-grained memories about friends cling to me, like sugar on the end of my fingertip. Tiny white dots form a small pattern that speaks to a larger system, an innate mechanism that helps defines their character. For director Jordan Kim, it was his attention to detail. "I spent way too much time on this," he bashfully admitted, opening up a window on his computer in 2004. I was looking at a poster for Bicentennial Man 2, Kim's harder-edged sequel to the wholesome Chris Columbus film featuring Robin Williams as a robot Pinocchio. Adding an intricate, gold cybernetic visor to his face and draping him in a trench coat while an oppressive, Gibsonesque megalopolis in coral pink towered over this new, hardened detective incarnation of the former cyborg butler, Kim confessed to me he should’ve spent his evenings in a more constructive way. Yet, whether it was goofing around or getting down to the business of directing, his impishly subversive dedication to calibrating each element of his vision applied to both the frivolous and more cinematic of pursuits.
Whether it’s his hauntingly beautiful and playful homage to Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu in his Vimeo Staff Picked music video for Toro y Moi, or the cackle of live that vibrates through each magical sidewalk crack in Clara, Kim is still just as fastidiously attending to his craft as he was when I first met him at San Francisco State University almost fourteen years ago. Clara is a deceptively innocent fairy tale full of big bad man-children in wolves' clothing, envious magic spells and jaded princesses of Silverlake locked away in the shadows of their condos. The film hums with softness and humor though, stimulated by a glowing performance from Hannah Kasulka as the timid, titular witch, brimming with hysterical coiled menace that springs loose in hilarious bursts along her winding journey through the banal enchantment of a Los Angeles-esque city dream. I won’t spoil the plot, describing it would be nearly as fruitless as describing the details of Kim’s Bicentennial Man 2 poster again. Just watch this. Pour yourself a hot cup of tea and absorb the patterns that form. There’s magic in them too.
Visit Jordan Kim and see more his work on Vimeo. And be sure to catch his nimble editing work on Portlandia.
"Torrejón: The Art of Emptiness" by Jay Hollinsworth
This past summer at the Marfa Film Festival, I had the honor to the share the screen with this film. Jay Hollinsworth's "The Art of Emptiness," its namesake taken from the song by Torrejón, follows a retired president in Texas who has taken up oil painting. Cleverly using subtle gradient shifts and trembling line work, the film binds together a string of vibrating static shots that betray the bucolic scenery with their sense of unease.
Gathered inside the Crowley Theater, its tin roof trembling against an angry thunderstorm, the audience absorbed the plaintive guitar of the song and the retired president's eyes tightening at the unease of the task before him; What to make of a blank canvas? While raindrops scattered like needles above me, I was thankful for the company of Jay's film, even though it couldn't keep away the storm.