So, in anticipation to the release of my new feature film “whale” i will be releasing a good portion of my body of work on the web, to reuse the phrase, in full view. I will be working backwards, from newest to oldest, one a week(or in small groups), starting later this afternoon.
Of course, some films are already available, so you can go and check them out on here. I will provide a brief history lesson, so that a context is built around the film.
With the climate of the Indie scene, and especially in light of the last few years in the micro-budget world, many artist who have been working under the radar, both on purpose, and out of misfortunes are losing there own past. So, as individual artist and writers, we need to create a history of sorts so that the good work of many do not slip into obscurity, a great possibility.
The funniest thing happened in regards to the democracy that digital video provided, and that became the homogenization of the form. The grand irony of what the possible amateurism of the form offered for so many, a refuge of possible experimentation, advancement and failure with little financial consequence and so much to gain, for the continuation of cinema(in the most humbling sense I say this, believe me) became just the opposite. As festival programmers past the torch of history to largely one group, so did the journalist, which in turn, became largely an experiment of sorts, in micro commerce. The thing is, even though it was feed to the public through great buzz and shrewd marketing, the modest means of the film never got the grand reciprocation from an audience, because largely still, they were experiments, which in term has created a backlash of sorts, which is really unfortunate, especially for other micro-budget filmmakers with completely different methods and goals.
This type of film-making was never the same as something like the movie Tarnation, which had the possibility from the beginning to get that great reciprocation back. The problem being, that the attention for these films should in some ways be equal to the product. Some of the films have been good, some of them bad, which is really not the point anyway(this is not a review, and i certainly am not a film writer), but i want to state that this has created a conundrum of sorts to the larger community at large, which does not belong to the group in question. The directors themselves largely vary in skill, and what they are trying to achieve. In so much, i see them not really as a group concerned with the same aesthetics or artistic concerns, but one, out of marketing, and friendships. But since the press, and surely themselves at the beginning to generate attention created this union, it is what it has become.
Groups and movements in arts go hand in hand, but surely, we are not going to argue that Dogme 95 has any similarities to any recent movement in American Film-making. And the French New Wave, lets take a deep breath, check our egos and move forward. And although not a group, there has been no grosser injustice then the comparison of these types of films to John Cassavettes work. I can continue to write on that subject, but that might validate something that does not exist at all. I question some of the journalist who make these comparisons, and ask if they are being objective, and or realistic?
There is no comparison to revolutions in cinema to what is happening now, in which case only a few hundred people have converted, and this is a reiteration of my point, that these films are not meant for this type of hype, nor are they ready for the types of intellectual critiques hurled there way. The real revolution was the technology and the filmmakers using them, a much larger context with much broader ramifications.
Some of the work coming from the so-called movement is a type of regurgitated cinema, in which case no progression exists, and when it does, only in the slightest increments(a fact that can be attributed by the quickness in which you can make films with no scripts and cheap prosumer equipment), which in fact, conjure up a sort of sketch work, juvenilia that is valid for what it is(it is still my belief that micro cinema has never fully reached its possibility in fiction, though there have been good films). These films have largely been niche work for an audience, largely like the filmmakers themselves. Again, a good thing, but in reciprocal and equal measures.
(My film whale, which is also a micro budget film took three years to make((of course i also made three short films and a couple albums in between)) which might not have been the brightest thing if its tossed aside and labeled because of the perceptions being created by this conundrum. But again, if its not labeled, it might unfortunately not even exist, the conundrum rearing its ugly head again.)
But i want to argue that for all that i have wrote, i feel the same about myself in many ways for the critique is two sided. I didn’t make these small films to change the world(maybe the world i inhabit), but i did because i loved the form, and to possibly create my own history by using technology in new ways and create my own vision. The only thing that’s regrettable, disguised as a blessing in all honesty, is that i have been largely ignored, while working in the same context(micro), because i work individually and don’t fit the homogenized mold, or model (it could certainly also be for lack of talent, but then again, that is a wholly subjective phenomenon, in which case i take full responsibility but would also like to say with full blessings, “fuck of”). I also refuse to keep doing the same thing, over and over, but have decided to continue to try and do different things. To evolve in that same form. Again, in no means am i trying to generalize others, this discussion is mostly how it all relates to what i do.
And with all that said, i like to direct this to all the film writers, festival programmers, and to the blog community, and ask for a revisionist look into the matter. A more thorough look at what has been available, but most often overlooked in the DV years, and what the technological advancement held for many filmmakers trying to challenge the status quo by creating alternatives. The last decade was a revolution of sorts for filmmakers, and it certainly did not start with the M word, but it certainly might die by it.
Certainly it isn’t my job to write about that history, but only to continue in the pursuits of my own cinema. One in which, in truth, seems to be abandoning the micro and amateurism ideals, to a more story originated cinema, a more traditional cinema. Hence the new script I’m writing now. But for a accumulation of nine years, i am offering whale to close a chapter of sorts. And since the film took over three years to make, it seems that the landscape largely has remained the same, and still yet, the press community at large has still ignored a more thorough look at the later halve of the decade.
I call for the return of the individual artist and a rejection of sorts, of collectives, which have turned into a homogenized enclave, a closed structure of which was supposed to be the ultimate film democracy. And for all the years, and in light of the most modest attention i have received, i am most proud of the fact that i have continued to do work, strictly out of love for film-making, and believe that this was a long learning lesson which has brought me out of my own juvenella, and into the next stage of my life as a more involved, technically more proficient, and broader reaching film director.
And in the true words of the 90’s,
Keep it real son….
AM/FM
