CUCALORUSAURUS

As I'm NOT in the film studies program officially, and I didn't get a pass I was worried I might not get to see any of the shit I wanted to see. I was way off. I starred in and helped shoot Russ Roe's experimental surfing documentary Treading Water. Fortunately Russ scored two filmmaker passes, and I split some of the time of their use with Jamie Bibo, who assisted Russ greatly animating. I was also given a festival pass from a family friend, with 15 tickets to spend, of which went to get as many of my friends into screenings as possible, and this Cucalorus experience was all about friends and community, sharing the experience with my peers.
Enter The Void was an absolute brain-melt. Incestuous love was one of the film's plethora of themes, amongst drug abuse, abortion, unprotected sex, orphaned children, prostitution, and an afterlife in which disgusting traumas of past, present, and future are revisited. The culmination of the film's perversion was in a CG, intra-vaginal, ejaculation shot looking toward a thrusting phallus, ending (as in life) with the ultimate culmination. I could talk about the film for ages, and yet I think I understand the film's relevance is held in its innovation. It's, at very least, something I've never seen before. John Dilworth's retrospective-made-improv-show was fucking awesome.
I drank, I was merry, I saw a tons of shit; some I loved, some I didn't, and so it goes. A film I was in and helped produce greatly was received well, and I liked it. It felt good. Leaving Thalian on Sunday a middle-aged, small, attractive woman came up to Russ, Jamie, and myself. She recognized all of us from the film. She said she enjoyed it, more so than the larger film it opened up for, Dolphin Glide. She then said her name was Sharon Lawrence. I knew her voice, but when she told us about her career as a television actress we were all a bit taken aback. She wished us good luck in our careers and lives. We went from there to free booze and an exclusive after-party. I awkwardly made conversation with Dilworth, who seemed more intent to be introduced to young ladies than anything else. My pyromaniac alter ego took hold and I woke smelling like chimney sweep. I enjoyed one more Cucalorus, and so it goes.

Shannon, you have your wiles

I think I have been subverted by the ghost of Nam June.  I mean I always enjoyed the seemingly organic wackiness and bizarre-ity of a cathode ray image machine, as it grows old and its geriatric deformities bend and break its once organized and handsome shape.  The handsome shape become beautifully gruesome; lines of color and noise flitting and fluttering, bright and vicious.  It's as if you can see the true nature of the thing, the facade of a perfect reproduction broken, by time and measure.  The disillusionment is freeing.  I have become enamored with light and pixel and especially singular phenomena in video.  Video in the dark, it's so fun.  You get noise and noise is what I enjoy.

hard days, not end of days

The music video shoot became an experiment.  That's as simply as I can put it.  We operated under the refuse to win, murphy's law train of progress and I certainly hope we all played equal parts in the collective melt.  As a young brie in the hot sun, we oozed at our sides, spreading ourself thin and in any and yet little direction.  I wanted to use a different song.  I wanted to use a song of an artist that would actually cooperate with us.  I wanted a plan and thusly execution.  I didn't get that.  It's not always the result you predict in experimentation.

EXPERIMENTING ON THE PUBLIC AT LARGE

The medium in which the masses are exposed to the most and most greatly variegated experimental film making is definitely in music videos.  Gondry and Jonze may be some of the most famous experimental music video directors but many thrive today.  One of my favorite animators is SO-ME.  He's the artistic director of Ed Banger Records, a Parisian record label, and has a very unique animation style.  Justice's "DANCE" had a long run on MTV here in the states and was a club anthem, the success largely in part to SO-ME's hand drawn animation on T-Shirts as the musicians walked through the video. Some other works of his I enjoy particularly are Kid Cudi's "Day N' Nite"  and most recently, a French electropop guy, BreakBot's  "Baby I'm Yours".
I'd love to animate emulating his style.
IAN 

SYNERGY (In Alec Baldwin Voice)

My idea for my music video involves, at first conception, using the music of local artists.  A music collective, of UNCW acts and fellow local peers, has grown to flourish around these parts and it's called Mix Grotto.  The project is spearheaded by Ben Jamieson, Trevor Brown, et. al and has a wide range of acts; rap to metal.  I want to use a good friend, and clever electronic musician, Danny Devereax's track "Atchafalaya" his latest track from his project Dead Sound.  I want it to be a psychadelic, funk-ti-fied, coming-of-age journey. Some ideas I have involve stealing some of my good friend Russ Roe's animation techniques, but building and branching in my (and groups') own way.

I DON"T KNOW WHAT MY PORTRAIT WILL LOOK LIKE

I feel like I don't know anything.  I feel like I have so many options, and yet so little direction. It seems to be analogous to my life thus far.  Maybe that's simply what it should be; a short film looking outward through my eyes. My life is a comedy and thusly so too should the film. But not silly, and not dramatic, it should be lighthearted and wary simultaneously.  Yeah, I like the sound of that.