the years have wings

Someone was asking me for images of storyboards today and it sent me routing through the archives, more specifically the cabinets under the kitchen sink, where I found piles of them! The ones for Gravity are white paint on black construction paper that sort of plot out the words with brief glimpses of key images, which appear to be the way a lot of Brent's storyboards take shape. I remember him animating these papers into a sort of visual storybook at some point, I'm not sure why but my only guess is it would help actually watch the structure better since it was the longest film he's made yet, seeing if the string of events & the length of events felt patterned right...I wonder where that storyboard-animation ended up?

By the way the nice folks over at Daily Serving (which is a great arts resource!) have a write up about the gallery show! I can't help but get goosebumps when I read someone who really sees this whole film project in the same way that I do, it feels absolutely amazing to be able to be a part of something that people can see and understand and be a part of too, I think I now understand how cults work! Drink the Nervousfilms juice! No, really, drink it! It's just juice, Brent loves juice...sigh...

now showing

So...let's see...screenings! This June we have three scheduled screenings of Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then! The first is a live performance of the film at the Hammer Museum in L.A., the next is a screening at the PFA Archives in Berkeley California & the last is another live performance at Rooftop Films in NYC. Whew! For the live versions we are planning on screening the film with just the dialogue track as Brent provides the live narration, musicians create an improvised soundtrack based around musical themes from the film, and I bang out some live sound effects! The density & fragility of this film is going to make it challenging since I think those very same qualities are inherent in live productions but at the same time I know that the end result is always a unique, beautiful experience (lol, I think I just describe life there?)! I can't wait! I also can't wait to see L.A. for the first time?! And the Pacific Ocean for the second time! Now onto practicing my live foley skills!

zoetrope

It's finally starting to feel like we're back home! You know how I know? The sounds of drills & screw guns and the power flitting in and out are the best indicators! We have some Gravity screenings scheduled for the upcoming months (which I will post about soon) but for now...Brent has begun building some art pieces for the edition-ed versions of the film.

Like a lot of video artists, he makes elaborate "cases" to house the files of his pieces for collectors. I've heard of artists who include props from films or specially ornamented/painted boxes housing film reels or even cases with self contained screens & mini disc players. Brent's approach is a little more on the sculptural side, usually made out of wood and more recently with an occasional mechanical movement, he tends to place his films inside carved wonders. Here is a picture of the one he just started working on- a zoetrope depicting a scene from Gravity of Leonard hammering against the pouring rain. It's pretty amazing and also kind of funny that the "case" for the film is also a tiny moving picture in it's own right...

the one hundred blows

How on earth did I make 100 posts on this here blog? That seems impossible given the many crazy, time consuming things we've been doing but the internet doesn't lie (hehe)- 100 it is! I just came across another review of the film on the website Film-Forward, here's an excerpt:

Green employs live actors and an intricately built set, but shoots them frame-by-frame. The result is a stop-motion effect that at once adds a storybook feeling, and when combined with Leonard and Mary’s delicate, reserved relationship, something very tender is created. They scuttle around the space in the syncopated rhythm of animation, and they are able to achieve such beautifully supernatural behaviors like swallowing a whole fish during dinner or pulling tiny guardian angels out of the air. Green never forgets about the beautiful optical qualities of each carefully composed frame. Something about this type of cinematography, though, is inherently creepy.

The stop motion we used the in the film really does have an odd effect. It's so eerie- breaking down actions into fragments...each thing that makes up each action had to be thought about in advance defining the character shot by shot- like a moving phenomenology of sorts! When people say things to me about my acting being good or bad in the film it feels insane- was that acting? Who knows! I do know that I made myself actually cry in two scenes and in another scene I cried tears of clay! Either way if there is ever an Oscar for "Best Female Stop Motion Acting" I think I might be on the shortlist...but I don't think I should be picking out a gown anytime soon!

cleanliness is godliness

Yesterday began the first day of post-film clean up. I began by taking apart the indoor graveyard set; lowering the curtains that cordoned it off from light, moving the miniature baby coffin to a different location, unscrewing the wooden headstones from the barn floor, you know, the ususal...while moving stuff about in the barn I came across this though! This is the original scaled down balsa wood model that Brent built to model Leonard's set house off of! This was the beginning of the entire yard! Right here! This little fragile framework of a home! Why do I have a feeling the "Do Not Throw Out" pile is going to massively (& emotionally) outweigh the "Trash" pile here?

art i love

I completely forgot to post about this! Brent did a series of drawings that were turned into a series of prints for the site Art We Love. Being that Gravity has taken over our brains for the better part of two years the prints are Gravity themed- one of Leonard accidentally causing a flood that he thinks is communicating with God, one of Mary hovering, giant with a lightbulb halo over a small, dark house and another that has one of my favorite lines from the film "I wish I lived in the late 19th century when inventing and stealing was easy. I'd get you all the best things." When Brent was working on these he had them taped all over the cabinets and walls in the house, drawing on them in between editing and filming..it was pretty wonderful to see them grow and pretty wonderful how vibrant & celebratory they are despite the bleak, sad sentiments & figures...I really do love these pieces!

smashing

You know you are back in rural Pennsylvania when you are driving around and you see a buggy. But in this case it wasn't just one and it wasn't the typical Amish horse-drawn affair- it was the Horseless Carriage Club which consisted of dozens of antique autos convened in the parking lot of a hotel which we happened upon when geting lost on our way to a diner! You also know you are home when you hear the rumble of a truck in the yard. 
A truck that is here to take away the cars we used in the film. Take the crashed cars away to the land of....DEMOLITION DERBY! Ironically, when we had so much trouble getting cars to crash in the film which led us to using our own half working cars, we came across many people offering us shells of cars that were used in demolition derby races. It seems fitting that our film cars will now perpetually be smashed for all to see in another form other than Gravity! And yes, I will definitely post pics/videos of the cars in demo action if I can convince Brent to attend the smashing local celebrations! (O, and for anyone interested I posted a few pics of beautiful Northern California over on my photo page...maybe I should make some nature docs next? Hmmm.....)

California Dreaming

Here's an awesome video overview the lovely people of the Berkley Art Museum put together of the show we were out there installing! The sound coming out of the horns isn't quite audible in the video but the soundtrack they provide is definitely a fitting thing (I think it may be from the soundcheck of the mini-live show we put on while out there..?). Nonetheless, in this video you also get a chance to see what Brent looks like on very few hours sleep running solely on the fumes of San Francisco's coffee! Look at him go! (pssst, if anyone knows how to make this video embed smaller I am totally up for suggestions?!)

have your tickets ready

We are finally home! Home where we no longer care about the wind speeds, or inclement weather or if the daylight will seep into stop motion shots! Well at least these aren't our concerns for now...who knows what will come next film making-wise though... I'm going to keep blogging about wherever and whatever comes next for this film. We might even be fixing up our own house to live in in the near future which would be a fitting next step in this project I think...! Especially since today Brent had me googling "tools to cut curves in glass" in anticipation of functioning, homemade windows. Never a dull moment!

masters of megaphone

My friend Kevin Regan, part of the genius behind the Bushwick based space Famous Accountants & a pretty damn fine artist, went to see Gravity! His description made me mad I didn't write it! 

I went to see "Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then" last night. It's a tender Southern Gothic love story, a wail of spiritual pain after the death of God AND a quirky, experimental film. It's really great! And it's showing for only a few more days at IFC Center. Go!!!

Kevin is one of those people who I am always interested in what he's up to, it's exciting to me that one of the things he was up to was seeing the film. 

It's also exciting to me thatVariety  (which I don't know too much about but I think is some sort of Hollywood bible type publication? Right? I picture it folded under the arm of everyone in L.A. even though I've never actually read a copy. Or ever been to L.A. for that matter.) reviewed the film too! What a weird place our home movie is in right now...!

airplane

Our friend Drew got to see the film yesterday for the first time! He wrote Brent describing what it was like and I really really like his description:

I remember you were worried about "pacing", and the film kinda takes off like a rickety old bi-plane, but after that you're up in the air in the world of this film and words like "pacing" couldn't be further from your mind. Instead you've got a 360 degree, open air cockpit view and everything looks so different that you almost feel like you're dreaming. It's at first an uneasy immersion, and then somehow very relaxing. It had the characteristic lyrical denseness of your work, but was also balanced by visual beauty (a new frontier in your work it seems) that made it light enough for you to float through it.

I couldn't agree more! Before Brent's images were little pinwheels supporting what he had to say and now they are giant, beautiful propellers keeping everything evenly afloat! 

Have any blog readers gone to see the film? I want to hear what you thought?! Here is another pic of the yard at the start of building for the film which I thought was nicely fitting to Drew's description- the actual beginnings of our rickety bi-plane!

stars for eyes

Still in New York running around on errands while trying to maintain some post-premier sanity. It is difficult to decompress in New York especially when you are walking down the street and Bjork (I kept waiting for the mailbox to spring legs and start dancing with me when I saw her)& Matthew Barney (which is extra odd because the  Cremaster  trailer is currently playing before Gravity at IFC) are walking in your direction with their kid in tow like it is just another normal day! Reality in my life is not around lately it seems...For example in this picture I am holding ticket stubs for a movie I helped make?! What?!

I started laughing a few days ago when I suddenly imagined people going to a movie theater and saying "One for Gravity please." In an hour a bunch of people will be saying that and then all of us strangers will sit and watch it together....but I am expecting a lot of familiar faces tonight too! Can't wait! I feel excited, exhausted and kind of naseous!

American Eccentric School

 It's an odd thing to read other peoples interpretations of this thing we've been making in the woods! I can't even imagine how Brent must feel as the captain of this ship reading how other people feel about his ship steering abilities! The Village Voice, Slant & Time Out NY wrote some things...some good things, some bad things. I find it extra strange to read film critics reviews of the film since it's not a standard film- there is a story being told using a camera but that is the only thing I think relates to most other films playing alongside Gravity! I think the NY Times reviewer understood the place of the film the best so far "A tinkerer’s ode to a tinkerer, and a romantic’s tribute to a romantic, Brent Green’s Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then radiates an oddball homemade charm." Yay! Now..we eat birthday cake!

modern man

Tonight was the screening of Brent's short Paulina Hollers at MoMA. I did foley for this. It felt kind of wrong to bring a box of junk to a world famous art museum. It felt even weirder to have a special sticker pass with my birthday emblazoned on it. Either way...I think the show went well & the band was so great- Catherine McRae, Missy Liu,  Drew Henkels, Brendan Canty & John Swartz (who I never met before and don't know much about but what I do know is that he is an super nice guy and an amazing cellist!). So now, the film premier....

O, and by the way, when sound checking for the show today, sitting in the lobby of the museum offices Brent opened the door for a dashing older man in a white suit and heavy sunglasses. That dashing older man was Mick Jagger! Is it good luck to open the door for a member of The Rolling Stones? Hope so!

untitled film still

The film premiers Friday in New York (tickets available here), which is where we are now to do some pre-show things including a live performance of one of Brent's shorts at MoMA tomorrow (which also happens to be my birthday!). Reviews of the film are slowly filtering in...it is a little strange for me to read what film people think about this thing that I feel so close to especially since I don't even see it as a film anymore. I imagine it would be like if you put your child or your well loved family pet (Speaking of which, we saw a woman wearing what looked  like a hamper on her back in California but it turned out to be a back pack bird cage. You know, for walking your well loved bird? Yes.) on display and then let people post their thoughts & criticisms of it for everyone to see. 




















Even though people are seeing it and writing about it, I can still have the memories of this special thing that no one will have- like splinters, the fear of falling from giant wooden legs, the cold long night shoots of stop motion acting- it makes me sort of feel bad that everyone can't experience the film in this way, well, maybe not so bad....Here is an early shot of the set- Leonard's house to the left, some of the facade frames to the right, the abandoned farmhouse full of sets in the background and our own barn living space peeking out of the right.

verse chorus verse

Whew! It was a long hard trip...a fitting description of both SF & the install I think! Perpetual & Furious refrain is now up and running, a haunting chorus of figures stationed in front of an Edison inspired cylinder slowly hurling itself in a circle over and over again inside a steel frame with copper pipe reaching out to the mouths of the eerie singers with a few Gravity vignettes echoing in the back screening room- including one that is specific for this show!

I did eventually make it outside the museum too- the ocean! the cliffs! a baby owl staring at me face to face! the red woods! Unbelievable. I can't wait to head back for the PFA screening in June....but now onto other things...like the premier of the film on Friday!