For some reason it was required of me to make an applebee's commercial in my experimental class out of footage shot at applebees. Here is what I made. The teacher hated it. At this point that's a compliment.
Another thing I have to do this year is make a legitimate documentary. The topic I have chosen is pretty nebulous: abandoned landscapes. Originally it was going to have something to do with hauntology, I guess it still does. Basically what I do is go film poignant abandoned landscapes, which is fairly easy since I grew up in one (backwoods upstate new york). It's also going to include stories from people about their experiences with the sublime/haunted. I am still figuring out exactly how I will integrate that element.
But this weekend I went to the greenwood cemetery in brooklyn which is extremely large and picturesque. My friend who was meeting me at the cemetery picked an unfortunately long and out of the way route to get there so I and my other friend had to carry fairly heavy equipment for a fairly long time up a fairly large hill. The sidewalk running along the cemetery was very strange in itself. It was covered with broken glass and weird memorabilia that had blown out of the cemetery. Unfortunately, after the hike up to the graveyard as soon as we got inside cops started to scope us out. Before I could even get the tripod out they came over and said they'd take the camera if I went any further. The cop brought me over to his car to show me a small, crumpled piece of paper that had their photography policy on it. Then he gestured to a near by black mercedes and told me to pack my stuff up in my car and leave. I explained to him that was not my car. I don't know why he thought a 22 year old state college student would own a black mercedes, but anyway I complied and left via foot. I still got shots through the fence though. haha.
I have decided for the film described below I am slightly changing the script. Now the bee will fall in love with a venus fly trap, but be too shy to approach it. He will stay in his house slowly going insane with unrequited love. He will have terrifying nightmares. and then he will eventually, in his crazed state, fly to the venus fly trap and be eaten. He will be satisfied.
Other updates:
I have decided I will not create a bee puppet, but rather hotglue a dead bumblebee to a piece of string. I find this to be funnier than an actual puppet. I have found a place where you can order dried bumblebees online. They come in units of 70:
And also I have decided to order an actual venus fly trap for the movie. You can actually order living venus fly traps on amazon. It's blowing my mind. And they're only 5 dollars.
This year of school I am expected to produce a legitimate film of the experimental variety. As in it has to look like I worked really hard on it and it's 20 minutes long. The film that I have in mind at this point would be described as such, "A docu-drama about the life of a bee". You're probably thinking isn't that like all those disney pixar annoying bug movies? No because this is better. Let me describe it to you:
The movie starts off as a straight nature documentary, with a soft spoken narrator narrating the daily activities of the bee. The bee itself though will be a poorly constructed puppet. and it will be "flying around" (aka attached to peice of floss) to pollenate the flowers which will also be poorly constructed on a minature set. I might use projection for the background. So I still have to write the narration, but essentially the bee is mad boring and everything it does is repetitious. This part of the film repeats day after day with the bee flying around and this narration going on and on. Everyone starts thinking, is this it? This is so boring it's absurd. and then BAM 2ND PART OF THE MOVIE STARTS.
2nd part of movie:
The narrator is like saying his usual thing about the bee awaking at sunrise or whatever but then the bee is nowhere to be seen, the camera does the regular movements to go along with the narration but NO BEE. This is when the film switches to ~LIVE COSTUME THEATER~ aka poorly constructed costumes and sets (luckily i have no experience constructing costumes or sets, so achieving the poorly constructed aesthetic will be easily achieved). The bee (now a person in a bee costume) will be sitting in his house staring longingly out a window (most likely a flat with a window in it). He will be staring longingly at a beautiful flower (person in flower costume). This is when the music is cued. The music is very important in this film because i will be singing all of it. The song that is cued is a crude approximation of the flower duet which I will sing unconfidentally. Here's that song if you were wondering:
Alright so that song comes in and the bee is staring at the flower. The flower has this dopey look on her face, shes like batting her eyelashes. The narrator realizes whats going on and describes the rare occurence of "bumbus obsession" or something which means the bee is totally in love with that one flower. Okay, so I haven't really solidified the rest of the movie yet, but essentially what happens is the bee tries to like get with the flower or whatever but the flower closes every time it's touched. The bee goes crazy from unrequited love and has all these cray dreams which are basically an excuse for me to smash a bunch of glass stuff with bats and shoot b.b. guns. and in the end of the movie the flowers life is threatened by a grazing animal, and the bee stings the animal to protect the flower and sacrifices his own life even though he couldn't ever be with the flower. (bees die when their stinger falls out if ya didn't know). And then it's sad. and the end. I'm not actually that in love with the end of the movie and I want to come up with something better. and also it'd be cool if this movie were more gay and less hetero (always a good aim for your films btw). So yes that is the basic outline of the movie. The inspirations are the following sources:
1) Jean Painleve, I looooove these documentaries because they are so beautiful visually, and also funny and make science seem poetic. There is not a good version of his famous Le Vampire on youtube so here's one he did on seahorses instead:
2) I have been obsessed with 50's instructional videos screened in public schools for a number of years now. There are a whole bunch on the internet archive. I would need like an essay to write why I love these but here's a great one on "ways to settle disputes"
3) and lastly looney tunes because I find their olden time humor to be charming.
I will post more about this film I am making as it progresses into the production stages.
A thing that I was really into in high school was trying to become a legitimate musician and songwriter. Over time I got less serious about it and started doing a bunch of other stuff too (film and whatevs). I still occasionally record weird stuff though under the name "suggestion" and post it on my "suggestion" tumblr. All the stuff on here is mostly trashy/lo-fi covers of like the ramones/g.g.allin, digital manipulations of olden times pop, and then some original recordings occasionally. I might post some of my older stuff later if it's not super lame.
This here is a short film I made last year. It's mostly an atmospheric place film. Shot at the rye playland theme park at night. Coincidentally the set of mariah carey's music video for the song fantasy.
Here is a video installation piece I made for one of my classes. I made the soundtrack, it's all manipulated music or things I composed. The images are all found and not my own. Description below.
The memory box was an installation piece. The viewer puts their head underneath a cloth attached to the front of the box and watches a looped movie through a small hole while listening to headphones.
The memory box is an attempt to explore the idea of collective memory. The image inside the box is purposefully restricted to a small portion of what is actually there. This manipulation is done to raise questions about the nature of memory. Specifically it's recreation, it's inability to fully recapture the past, and the feelings that evokes. The images and sounds in the box are a mix of home video, 90's children's programming, and subconscious fascinations. The images and sounds are meant to show the connection between memory, idealizations, and the influence from the media. The memory box itself is meant to be a physical barrier which represents the separation between the conscious self and memories.
Here are some screenplays and a short story I have written within the past year. I am in the habit now of creating stories based off of a picture. Below each picture is a link to the story which you can download.
