Tuesday, May 5, 2009

A True Outside Event

As I walked into Chelsea's backyard my first reaction was "Wow". Besides the outside screen and projector that she had borrowed from various film school connections there was a beautiful set-up. There were tiki-torches, a tasteful light set-up, blankets for people to sit on while they watch the docs, pizza, cookies, wine, and beer! Most importantly though there was a great turn out of filmmakers and residents of Whitehall Co-op. Everyone who wasn't there (I'm talking to you Kim) should be jealous. Now on to the movies that were screened.

First up was a rap music video titled "Idiotic Robotic". The most impressive part of this video was the original and clever rap song. The lyrics warned us of our future dependence on artificial inteligence and how easily the robots could turn against us. The video quality itself was a little choppy and poorly edited, but it fit perfect with the whole "home-made" feeling of the piece. Sometimes when you can sense the enthusiasm and effort thats been put into a piece of work it makes up for its faults.

The second film was a short documentary by a person that I came to know as a "Gideon". His piece "Different Strokes" was selected for ten under ten and I can see why. The subject material very similiar to Brett and my documentary (see below), but Gideon took in a much braver direction. He was able to make an aesthetic documentary. His message and story was clearly told through unbelievable images of bikers in austin. His movie was what I like to call "anti B-roll" Nothing he shot or showed was wasteful. Every second told us something about the BMX lifestyle here in town. It taught me that those kids are cooler than I'll ever be.

The third movie shown was by Brett and me, "Rollin' on Two. It was genius and recieved a standing ovation. Need I say more? I think not.

Following us (which was hard to do) was Matt's Craiglist movie. This group of people were the first to see the final cut. It seems like he was finally able to pull from the best material he had and order it correctly to have the most effective documentary. Everyone in the crowd was interested in every story and each part got a couple chuckles from the audience. I still adviced to cut the face of the "wedding stuff girl", because she just flat out scares me.

Lastly of course was Chelsea's and Jordan's work. We all know what a good job they did, but what made this screening different was the fact that their subjects were present. For most of the film I just watched all of their faces as they watched a slice of their own lives on screen. Even baby Cider gave the film a round of applause after the movie. It was ridiculously cute. I have to say, after seeing the doc and meeting a lot of the residents, it was a refreshing night of talking to truly authentic and interesting people.

1 comment:

  1. this was an awesome event and i'm sad that most of our classmates didn't get to experience it. it should definately happen more often. being outside with an eclectic group of people watching an eclectic group of shorts reminded me why i love austin so much. everybody is just so friendly and open minded and willing to venture to somebody else's backyard to watch some art.

    anyways, all the shorts were great and the audience definately liked them all. i found gideon's to be very intriguing. it was very technically well made, especially when he had a shot of a bike assembling itself right next to a guy sitting on a couch/at his computer. i don't know how he did it, but it was badass. it was a pretty experimental documentary, blending elements of narrative with real interviews to achieve something nearly unclassifiable. i can see why it was chosen for "10 under 10".

    after all the shorts were over, people actually came up and asked me questions, which i was sort of unprepared for. it was nice to know that people outside of the classroom found it really interesting and wanted to share their own stories about craigslist and their experiences with it. it's a very sublime feeling knowing that your work has affected people in such a way that they feel inclined to share their own experiences with you. humanizing, in a way.

    p.s.- my sincerest apologies to zach for not cutting out the "wedding stuff girl's" face.

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