Happy Makes Me a Modern Girl

I did take an animating break! And I went to the movies! And I saw the newest Lars von Trier film Melancholia! Melancholia maybe shouldn't have an exclamation point after it though it being an ancient humor associated with depression and also the name of the planet (hiding behind the sun?) that could potentially destroy all life on earth that is discovered in this film. I went into this film knowing very little about it, other than about von Trier's gross display of enfant terrible-ism (I've never, ever used that phrase but it seems like it was coined with von Trier in mind!) at Cannes (where Kirsten Dunst also won something for her lackluster performance in this film) so I had no expectations at all.

The opening of Melancholia is one of the most beautiful cinematic displays I have ever seen. I am not sure how it was shot (I think it was one of those hi-def digital cameras that shoots a bazillion frames per second which was then slowed down to an almost imperceptible movement, maybe even tracked or shot in stereoscope somehow? making the shots have this bizarre movement and depth even in their stillness...it could also just be a lot of computers! who knows!) but images of a looming, oozing destruction slowly flicker out setting you up for the rest of the film which is broken into two sections about a few intense days between the lives of two sisters, Justine (Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg- who is incredible in this movie!).

Each sister represents a different way of life: one is struggling with a deep depression, tending to favor a more immediate side of things (peeing on a golf course in the middle of her wedding, changing the images of modern art books on the walls for pictures of folk art and primitive cave drawings), living in a fog of unreal sadness while the other sister maintains a life full of manufactured frivolities, her days consumed by making things "nice" (taking an extra moment to pick out a chocolate to adorn a pillow, planning a highly scheduled wedding no one really wants), actively destracting herself from any sort of reality.

As an audience we watch the latters life unravel because of the impending doom brought on by the approaching rogue planet and the former easily accept her potentially ill fated future. I don't know what von Trier wanted to say with this film.  I kept feeling like there was something on the tip of the films tongue, wanting to issue forth some nihilistic manifesto or a compassionate hug- but it never quite got there? Maybe he wanted to show us that whether we have everything or feel like we have nothing we all meet the same end and that the true connections between people- the love, the compassion, the caring (not just in the form of presents or things)- is what matters? In the end the film left me sort of idolizing the primitive, wanting to make scientific instruments out of sticks like a little boy in the film does, but I can't help but feel unease that this feeling was brought on by one of the most highly contrived, distracting, unreal things we have created as a cultured society- a film. But possibly, that is what von Trier wanted to say, and is constantly saying: it is feelings (even those towards the film or the film's director) that make us human and these feelings are something so foreign to the natural world that life within these feelings can never be real but our actions (even in the form of filmmaking and most definitely in terms of survival) can keep us going until nature takes over and we are actually gone. (Photos of the PA sky)

A Frame by Frame Winter

I do so apologize for the lack of posting! Animating is a very time consuming process! And we are fully in the midst of it right now! The 10 minute long animation we are pushing to finish for Sundance (yes, I know it is at the end of January but... the laborious joys of animating!) is also part of a piece that is on display down at the Miami art fair madness this week. A 2 minute preview excerpt from the hand drawn and paper cut out film in sculptural form,  To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given, is being shown on a smaller scale at the Pulse Art  Fair! Complete with polarized hacked LCD screens, a welded metal frame and a beautiful old phonograph horn- making the preview version amazing in it's own right!

If you aren't familiar with the art fair scene in Miami (which I covered a bit before when we were lucky enough to show the Gravity preview down there a few years back at Basel proper) let's just say it is like a big indulgent party with lots of art all set on the beautiful beaches of Florida! My highlights there included walking next to real live gators in the Everglades, having a giant iguana narrowly miss me as it fell from a tree, seeing an amazing array of art (ranging from the most contemporary to the downright historical) and getting to see insanely good music as my feet sank into sand & pink coral! But...there was also that guy in the large red Italian sportscar with a 2inch gold cross (!!!) hanging from his ear as he cut us off to get into the sprawling golf course that seems to occupy much of the city...?  It is a weird microcosm for sure! Hope the crowds down there get to see the beginnings of the piece we've been animating like crazy! Booth E-200 at Pulse! Woohoo!

There are other things going on over here in Pennsylvania too: Gravity has been nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation" over at the Cinema Eye Honors awards event (along with A TON of other AMAZING films- what a line up in all categories!), it is deer hunting season (and TERRIFYING sounds of large ammunition begin at 4am and just seem to keep going! I loved that the deer started migrating back onto our land but...) and I just found out that there is an independent movie theater about an hour away from our barn over in Harrisburg PA!! If I can ever get away from this animating I am so going to go there! O animating! (rubs weary eyes, hands, neck...) Here are a few pictures of our current winter of lightbox, cutting board, frame by frame days! Just realized my camera is shooting in a 16:9 aspect ratio! Also due to animating! It is taking over EVERYTHING! Ok now, back to it...! Stay well & warm folks!

Culture Vulture

When I was reading up on the Anilogue Film Fest that Gravity is currently a part of I did a doubletake when I saw a familiar logo come up, flashing on the side of the screen. The logo was for none other than the Goethe Institute, the New York branch of this organization probably being one of my first real encounters with cultures other than my own! In college a friend of mine was studying German and he would tell us of the wonders of this place, a sharp building nestled in between skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan, so we all decided to go and see what it was all about. And what wasn't it about?! I saw so many films (one of my first big screen Herzog experiences was there! another an animation composed of thousands of picture postcards rapidly in succession like a dizzying flipbook of places!), experimental art (a music piece composed of turning on and off flourescent lightbulbs, the buzz and hum creating a weird atmosphere of sounds and lights!) and even my first brush of installation art/intense modern design (a recessed kind of fabricated hole that people were urged to lounge on and converse!). The events held there, free or nearly free, helped me see a variety of things that I had no idea existed. At some point after this experience I started paying a little more attention to other International Cultural Institutes hidden throughout New York too. Which led me to my first Maysles encounter!



A film screening with an introduction and Q&A by Albert Maysles was being promoted at the French Insitute: Alliance Francaise years ago so I decided to go! But it wasn't a Maysles film they were showing, instead it was one of Maysles favorite films Pour La Suite Du Monde. Every frame of this film has stayed with me since it was first reflected onto my eyes that very day! Pour La Suite Du Monde is a (highly led, sometimes even categorized as "ethnofiction") documentary that tracks a Canadian Island as it reclaimed it's tradition of Beluga Whale hunting in the early 60s. It is hard to describe both the beauty and the people captured in this film as they follow their ancestral footsteps in the snow- you just have to watch it, which you can above!!!!! (Thank you National Film Board of Canada!)!!! After the screening of the film Maysles took the stage where, in his trademark Eastcoast drawl, he talked of his love of documentary film, the social responsibility of documentarians (outraged that young filmmakers weren't entrenched in the political atrocities and wars that were springing up everywhere in the then recent post 9/11 landscape), and, in keeping with the film he had just screened, about how documentary films can do, say and encapsulate any message for the betterment of mankind! Another indelible film moment for sure!

Now that I think of it, even when we were in the Netherlands the Czech Culture Center hosted an art exhibit of Jan Svankmajer! Where Brent met the legendary stop motion, grandfather of pixelation! (street that the Czech Culture Institute is on in The Netherlands pictured here!) I guess what I am getting at is....cultural institutes are pretty much the best! I'm not too familiar with the landscape of them but if you live in a major city you should see what they have to offer! Also, does anyone know if the U.S. has these centers abroad? Given our current reputation I hope we have something worthwhile to offer/show of our culture out there...

Budapest!

Gravity is screening at the 2011 Anilogue International Animation Festival starting today in Budapest Hungary! Upon writing that sentence I realized I know absolutely nothing about Budapest...let's see, internet, what can you tell me...hmmm...Oh my goodness it is an incredibly beautiful city! It looks like a breath taking combination of Slavic and European (and vaguely Middle Eastern?) architecture! With spas! And the Danube! And a rich history beginning with Celts, Romans and a barage of conflicts that have lead to the rebuilding of this place making it the strong, gorgeous nation that it is today! The best resource (in English) I could find about Hungarian culture was this one! It seems to cover everything from the current complicated & historical outrage about Gypsies to the adorable Cog Wheel train that has climbed the nearby mountains since 1874!


The festival seems very fitting to this region too,  animation has a tradition that runs deep here, a tradition that is definitley moving forward and beyond as evident in this fests programming. I somehow have gotten sucked into the festival website where film after film description sends me on a wild digital journey into a completely different animated vision- WONDERFUL! Posted here are a few trailers from short pieces and some entire shorts that are screening at Anilogue, each reminding me that animating is such a totally immersive, self expressive artform- every single piece of an animation is a controlled act forming it's own creative world all stemming from the mind of one single person! A tiny moving microcosm of a single, giant idea! AMAZING!


Ok, I should stop praising Budapest and the festival and these superb animatiors now...but they make it so easy with all of their awesomeness, no? Have a great time at Anilogue everyone who is lucky enough to be there and please, I beg you, drink whatever this official festival drink of bitter honey beer is for me (drools all over keyboard...)! O, and check out this interview in TimeOut Budapest that Brent gave, conducted by the lovely Kreet! (Hey Kreet! Are you reading this? Hope so! Hope everything is going well over there at your beautiful festival!)

For the Love of Film

Film. I don't think Brent's ever shot on film? A lot of our friends are film purists though, recently mourning the loss of kodachrome and the decreasing film developing locations all over the globe, so when I read this article about an artist who was so outraged by the lack of film developing studios she published a letter in a major British paper I definitely knew where she was coming from. The artist Tacita Dean loves film. Based in Berlin but British born, Dean shoots lush depictions of people and places usually focused on the complexities of time. I actually saw one of her pieces, called Stillness, awhile back at The Walker when we performed a show there. It was unassumingly incredible! Multiple nearly invisible screens hung throughout a low lit room, projectors loudly clanking and beaming from all sides, film spinning forever on large mechanical loopers, and images of the aging dancer Merce Cunningham seated nearly still in different ways quietly reaching the silent white scrims. It was so simple yet so moving, the film projecting process exposed while still maintaining the intimate, slow, hushed, personal experience of film watching- a weird voyeurism through such an overbearing artificial process! Time moving fast and slow at once! Everything suspended in the air! I Loved it!

Now, Dean has taken over the cavernous walls of the Turbine Hall (pictured below empty/possibly filled with a sound piece? also pictured, some bridge near there?) at the Tate Modern. Her piece here involves giant, looped projections of images she made using old, mostly in camera or hand made special effect techniques like color tinting and image bubbles! She wanted the sprocket holes to be exposed too, further showing the medium, so she had someone make a masking device (which was created with 3D digital printing technology!) that mimicked the holes that were then fastened onto the cameras her & her team used to shoot tons of footage that would later be spliced into the giant films filling the giant hall. I understand her passionate love of film, her love of a medium that has so much beauty in it to begin with, the history, the feeling, the timing but I am not too sure if I agree with her inability to move away from film...

All artists should be able to express an idea or emotion through any medium really. Part of being allowed to be an artist is to have something to say, something to speak out for or against, and use whatever you have to do so. Film is an important substance but those using it should either take up the means of production themselves if it is that important to them or find another way to express their message...but, maybe that is the problem that a lot of art has nowadays- the message is only the medium? Anyway, I wish i could see Dean's piece out in London especially since the other work I have seen of hers is not done justice in still photographs and I guess that is her point in the end: film is an action, a process, a living world unto itself that we should create not destroy like all of the other worlds we let slowly fade away and make further digitally distanced. Film for thought? (That's right: ends on pun.)

Yes Alternative!

When I mentioned that Gravity was screening at the 18th edition of the Barcelona Independent Film Festival L'Alternativa I forgot to mention the film was in competition! And it just won! Best Fiction Feature Film! There is always a weird disbelief that people all over the world not only want to watch the film we've made in our backyard but that people believe in it enough to applaud in this kind of way is nearly unbelievable- incredible! Still in shock!

Especially since we were up against some stunning films: Grimunho has such a vivid trailer (I covet the image of the woman by the waterside embracing the colored lights reflecting and bouncing in a twinkling world!) that deals with a mix of reality and fiction in a tender way pushing the boundaries of genre through the true lives of the older women it follows, Han Jia seems to be described as a humanist film quietly expounding on the malaise of China through a poetic portrait of the people whose lives are inherently effected by the politicized state, Las Marimbas del Infierno looks like it is downright spectacular- struggling marimba player meets struggling metal head/doctor who combine their forces for good, how could this not be wonderful?, Mercado de Futuros explores money and memory through visions of the present physical financial landscape, there isn't enough information on El Premio on the web but the trailer is exquisite and (if what I could find is correct) it is a politically inspired story of a child's clandestine life during wartime and, lastly, La Vida Util is a glowing black & white film about a man whose film entrenched life might be forced to change- a seemingly perfect mirror of the reality of all film artists and the world in general! Now who doesn't want to watch all of these films?

 Thank you L'Alternativa for programming some of the most progressive, personal, artistic stories out there in this huge cinematic world! I have no idea how you were able to pick a winner...! Here are a few pictures of (!!!Film Festival Award Winner!!!) Gravity in it's earliest stages of becoming a movie in our very own Pennsylvanian backyard!

California Dreaming On Such a Winter's Day

California is a magical land. It's not just the wonderful people and near commune like mind set. Or the absolutely amazing landscape. Or the thriving and sparking film industry. Or the brisk, clean ocean. It is a culmination of a lot of things. A lot of things that, as I make the journey West each time, always comes down to a feeling of some sort of American pioneer-ism, following in the footsteps of others dreams (of gold, land, sea, stardom, freedom, all kinds of things). I love it. So much possibility and so much beauty. So, when Brent & I headed out to Monterey on Monday all of these things came rushing at me at once in this awesome wave that continued for the whole, inspiring trip (even after the airplane's best efforts to ruin it with one of the worst movies ever made)!

Brent & I headed out to the California State University at Monterey Bay to present some of Brent's short films and host a screening of Gravity for the students and local community. The location of this campus is kind of insane, nestled on the edges of agriculture, beach$ide development$ and an extreme miltary presence, CSUMB draws in all kinds of students for all kinds of reasons. I gushed about the school's TAT (Teledramatic Arts and Technology) program earlier but, after seeing it in all of it's glory in person, I am going to again! Especially since, aside from specializing in all things film, the program really does a ton of incedible outreach.

The first screening/talk Brent did was mostly to a group of students from a local alternative/at-risk (which is a distinction I hate making, these kids are strong and beyond!) high school that are all involved in a teen filmmaking program sponsored by TAT that urges them to tell their stories through creative not destructive means. The students were all seriously awesome and, after the screening, when I heard a tough little girl in her snappy Latina accent say, "They are always trying to recruit us for the military, we should shoot movies not guns, man," It was like a crazy scene from some bad 80s movie that, like those 80s movies, made me tear up a bit! The idea that a few kids were able to see a new kind of future from some cartoons Brent made in our little room in Pennsylvania and a group of dedicated teachers urging them that they can be more couldn't be any more fulfilling! (Tears up a little bit.)

Apart from the social work TAT does the program also acts as a regular film school too with such highlights as holding fests at the end of the year schowcasing graduating student's work, broadcasting a tv & radio station on campus running student made work, making equipment readily available and offering up great facilities (green screens! a black box theater! editing rooms! oh my!).  All this plus the fact that they cover your standard Hollywood fare in addition to things like Gravity & Travis Wilkerson- amazing! A college department with heart and creativity providing experiences above & beyond most film schools? Hell yes! I hope this program keeps on thriving like it should and more and more people start to recognize this place as a destination for studying film! Also: did I mention the school's mascot is an Otter since wild sea otters live nearby in the Bay? O yes. There were otters. Adorable, nimble, teddy bears of the sea! Go Monterey Bay!

Wild and Crazy Nature

Recently, in an effort to try to be a little more involved in the tight knit local community, I've joined a few Schuylkill (skook-kill) County internet groups. So far it hasn't yielded much...the occasional sad yet true headline ("Divers sent in to rescue flood victims. 3 wanted to be rescued. 2 did not."), bittersweet classifieds ("Looking for home: fatally ill dog abandoned at local cemetary.") and a constant barrage of car show events is pretty much all they have had to offer. So, when I saw the words "film" & "festival" come up on the local calendar of events I was a little too excited!

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival is an organization based in California that cultivates films about the environment, nature and geographical issues with a socially moving conscience. A feature film about a  man's journey to the ends of the earth to a short claymation piece  with polar bears in melting igloos wondering if your furnace is too hot (brought to you by Creature Comforts!!! YAY! ), are good examples of the range of films screened, each piece focusing on the importance of nature and ecology. The fest features a traveling component too where different organizations can sponsor a screening in their own town. The nearby Schuylkill Headwaters group, mostly dedicated to preserving our anthracite region's waterways and helping to solve water problems surrounding abandoned mining operations, sponsored a short film screening of the Wild & Scenic kind in the very nearby city of Pottsville in the quaint little Majestic Theater (a place usually reserved for Raymond the Amish Comic! Not kidding!).

The sweet, chilly brick theater had a small crowd and tons of other things to offer besides the tiny heroic films (my favorites of which being delicious beer, the freshest of cupcakes and a giant map pointing out all of the local farmer stands/markets)! The series of films screened were quietly touching, making environmental standpoints but not in terms that are too dramatic, sensational or overreaching, a great feel given the fact that audiences and issues can vary so so much from place to place. The opening short, Witness, was really, really great exploring the relationship between nature photography and conservation efforts. It told a stunning tale of how simple images can create National Parks, spur governments into action and drastically change our relationship with nature. It had some magnificent pictures in it too and, as artists, it really spoke to me about the morality of images and the duty of people creating them.

There was also a film about plastic bags that began small but ballooned into a larger statement about our social responsibility to nature, nicely leading along with jokes and vintage dawn-of-the-disposable-60s film clips, that I think will really impact the way a lot of people think about that disposable cup they are drinking from (it also told me about the Cradle to Cradle movement led by a German chemist who is trying to get people and industry to rethink their ideas of product life: cradle to cradle not cradle to grave. This massive problem so poignantly and simply stated! Amazing!). I truely wish more people had been at this event, it is so rare that people in our area try to do something progressive and it is kind of a bummer that there were only a handful of attendees...but, I am personally grateful to everyone who put this on giving me some faith in my community members and finding a few people out here who appreciate their wild and scenic landscape just as much as I do! Now, back to admiring the deer out the kitchen window! O, and animating....still animating...

Filming vs. Farming

 Every so often I forget that we made an entire feature film in our backyard (and that we constantly are making tiny little films all over the place out in our corner of no mans land) and then someone will send along photos of being here and it will suddenly (re)occur to me how strange and wonderful our barn film life is!

Here are a few recently unearthed photos sent along by our friends Drew & Martha that are pretty accurate descriptions of a normal day of work out here on the farm....! Which is way better than actual farm work... I think? All of this animating is a bit tedious? And Gravity did involve a lot of heavy lifting....? hmmmm....farming vs. filming? The debate continues!

Submarines, Surfing, Sharks etc.

In other news...Brent & I are heading to Monterey California next week to present a screening of Gravity and talk to the students & community members at the California State University at Monterey Bay! The TAT (Teledramatic Arts & Technology) program at CSUMB is a perfect mix of filmmaking, producing, media history and all things tele- a pretty unique area of study that seems to be a little underserved by a lot of places. The program, with the lovely filmmaker (and awe-inspiring mom/artist/artist nurturer) Enid Baxter-Blader as a main attraction, had Brent out there before when we were traveling through the Westcoast moving around giant giant chunks of art and it was an incredible, beautiful place filled with incredible, beautiful people (both inside & out- I really do love surfers!)! Apart from incredible, beautiful sunsets (pictured) Monterey is also home to The Monterey Bay Film Society (an org in it's infancy but seemingly headed for greatness and I am not just saying that since they are partly sponsoring our journey out there!), the Steinbeck Wax Museum (a terrifying, terrifying place!) and (O no!) sharks! Stay safe surfers, stay safe beautiful, beautiful surfers..!

O, and in more news... Gravity is screening at the 18th Barcelona Independent Film Festival 2011, L'Alternativa in Spain in the next few days! Out of all of the stuff I have read about this fest the thing I like the most is the Hall Screen. It seems to be a strangely curated ongoing screening area that features shorts put together by programmers, other fests and even a series of open call submissions where people can bring their own shorts to the fest for everyone to see! All of the stills from the Hall Screen section seem interesting, intrigueing and gorgeous in their own way!  So, Spain, go see Gravity! And other amazing looking films! And tell us all you know of Monturial! We love Monturial!

Cels

I know you're all sick of hearing this but....WE'RE ANIMATING! Which is why I've been a little light on the posting over here lately...even though the premier of the new piece isn't until the end of January the amount of troubleshooting for each scene is astounding.

In a moment of triumph we put a few finished images into the sculpture last week only to learn that the see through screens can cause certain colors to clash leading to a negative reaction, literally, all of the the black lines turn white and the white lines black! This adds another layer of complexity to an already layers deep process! So, without further ado, back to animating....!!!!

Why Are There So Many Hummingbirds?

Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Werner Herzog? It was a free screening of Grizzly Man at the Natural History Museum in New York. I read about it at the last minute and, with no time to spare, I dashed off by myself in search of the haunting voice I had come to worship. A line formed around the corner outside of the museum and into the space, winding around the Native American wing, passing through looming totem poles, wax figures eagerly rowing nowhere in a stationary canoe and huge, shadow casting bears flanking passage ways all ending at an enormous IMAX theater. The film, as everyone should know, was a breathtaking vision of a man in pursuit of something greater than himself, a curiosity, love and desire that eventually led to his death. After the lights came back on the stage was set for a Q&A where (and I am not making this up!) Herzog, a preeminent bear researcher (donned in a genuine eye patch that he got in as the result of a real life bear fight!!!!!!) and an aspiring actress (whose closest brush with acting also involved an eye patch, as part of her waitressing costume at a pirate themed restaurant where she worked alongside the films protagonist) were seated in front of heavy velvet curtains, gently lit up on display in the massive theater like the little dioramas scattered throughout the museum.  Herzog answered questions with such poignancy, caring and humor adding to the whole dream of the event (when a hippie audience member asked if Timothy Tredwell, the ill fated self proclaimed bear whisperer of Grizzly Man, was a vegan Herzog replied in his draconian way "We both have a passion for Butterfingers.") . The whole experience was surreal and beautiful, the perfect backdrop to a perfect film, redefining what documentary film is and can be. So when the power flickered back on earlier this week and an invite to a screening of Herzog's latest film, Into The Abyss, was sitting in Brent's inbox I instantly RSVPed and awaited traveling from my chilly barn adventure to almost the opposite: the warm theater seats of New York.

(more about Herzog, Maysles & the New York City Skyline after the jump!)
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The Snow Visits Us

I thought about scanning in the posts I've been writing down on paper...what do you think? Can you even read that? (Here is where the cat declares war on the pen! It's decided, I must type as well!). Maybe I should get a typewriter? Eh?

All this time without power made me pick up a few books I've been meaning to get to. First, I started reading the new Rin Tin Tin book, given to me by a publishing friend of mine from my old days at the office! Thanks Laura (Laura, who can apparently be seen being held at knifepoint in this goth rock opera film by alt-horror lady Lisa Hammer!)! The book is by Susan Orlean (author of The Orchid Thief who was lovingly? meta-ly? satirized? universalized? in Spike Jonze & Charlie Kaufman's amazing film Adaptation) and as a film nerd I am loving the way she describes early Hollywood! A place of dreams, opportunities and canines where stars were plucked from crowds (or like Rinty, plucked from a WWI battlefield!) and hundreds of movies were churned out of studios at record pace! Even if you don't like dogs (and you should like dogs! Look at them!) this book is also a great cinematic journey of the early film industry, complete with flowery descriptions of silent film productions! Can't wait to finish it!

I also started reading Gravity's Rainbow, did you ever notice how filmic Pynchon's writing is? He edits like a movie- so vivid you can almost envision a shot list for every single word! This book is so dense with, well, everything, I can't even begin to describe! I wonder if this rumor about the first film adaptation of his work is true? His writing is so thickly cinematic I don't know how it can ever translate to the real thing? I am also reading a lot of backlogged National Geographics too! Who wants to know about the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum? Anyone? It was an era that naturally released as much carbon dioxide into the air as we are about to! Resulting in drastic environmental warming & species alteration! Spooky....Ok, well, there are my film related (not including the science magazines!) readings for these times of no power and little else to do! Note: I will keep reading despite the sudden return of power!!!!

She Will Clean Out The Barn With A White Boa Thrown Round Her Neck

The whole not having electricity thing was slightly charming at first but....after day three of dim light and daytime inside temperatures hovering around 40°F the charm wore out! Brent is residence-ing it up at Penn State (I don't really know entirely what he is making there but communication includes: "I just finished the chair legs! And the face! And I bought some mugs from some students!" which leads me to think a ceramics studio is involved in said face and chair? We'll see!) so my adventures in the wilderness are a lone battle, complete with baying coyotes which scared the cold right out of me last night!

In efforts to mostly stay warm (our little barn runs solely off of electricity- heat, well pump, stove- all of it! Which, after this debacle, the debate over getting a woodstove is settled!) I decided to spiff up the larger, non-living section of the barn where I found tiny little Nervousfilms milestones covered in sawdust (and regular dust) in every corner! Like a hand painted VHS copy of the 2nd film Brent ever animated called Francis, and (Holiday relevant!) gravestones that were props in Gravity, and this tiny window- what could this tiny window even be from? Anyway...more warming activities to be had! Like building a fire! No, really. I've been building small cooking fires outside and, if I do say so myself, I have gotten quite good at campfire cuisine! But that could be the campfire warmed spiked cider talking! Remember when I lived in a major city....? (picture of one of many neighboring barns slowly melting in the snow)

A Feather Thrown Into A Canyon

Being without power for days has made me unable to officially announce the fate of the sculpture....! (...drumroll please.....) To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given, a multimedia sculpture by Brent Green featuring a new hand drawn animation, is to premier at: The New Frontiers section of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival! YAY!!!! This marks Brent's fourth? fifth? time with work at Sundance and my first time ever to go to this awesome American legend of a film fest! Woohoo!

We drove through Park City Utah, the home of Sundance, awhile back on one of our long art hauls and I can't wait to see the beautiful, majestic, inspiring, mountain ranges covered in snow in the last few days of January! I also can't wait to cover the fest on the blog, a thing I find I like doing more and more with each film fest we attend! I wonder if there are any outside sources looking for someone to cover festival goings-on....? Hmmm...any leads on someone who needs a correspondent who just happens to already be there? We'll see! Until then, animate, animate, animate to have this thing ready for it's big Sundance premier! So  exciting! Here is a picture of an almost entirely unrelated giant bird that has been living near the barn! Also exciting!

A Dime Found in the Snow

Right now I am writing this down on a piece of paper to type into a computer (which I am obviously doing- right now!). Why, you might ask, am I reverting to primitive technology? Why don't I just write a blog post on a computer like a normal blog-type person? Well, I'll tell you why: there has been no power for 1 2 3+ days! All thanks to an early season snowfall weighing down tree limbs still full of leaves, knocking out a tree and then knocking out an entire telephone pole! Being a film/art studio without power is no way to be a film/art studio at all! It is especially fitting that my only analogue task here at Nervousfilms, screen printing t-shirts, has recently been dissolved along with our webstore. Too much traveling and not one working laptop DVD burner made the promptness of web order delivery shaky at best leading to one too many angry customer e-mails, a thing that wasn't exactly our intention with our (barely breaking even) webstore!

Speaking of which, since we abandoned t-shirt and DVD sales we have a bunch of t-shirts lying around! Which I want to share! I'll send along a Nervousfilms t-shirt, free of charge, to the first few people to e-mail me (donna@nervousfilms.com)- sizes are limited but I'll try my best to find the right one! Just a warning: it might take awhile...! Ok, more posts to be typed up soon in the warm glow of electricity!