Fellini – 8 1/2

I'd been meaning to watch this one for years because I'd read it’s a great example of surrealism in film and blending fantasy and memory into objective reality. This movie happens to be even a bit more relatable and cutting as it is by a creative person about their creative struggles. I always find this really nice and reassuring that even these huge directors, who's success hinges on their ability to HAVE A VISION and pull that vision together with a team, still struggle with not having answers. or not feeling relevant.

I watched a short interview with Terry Gilliam on the disc talking about the film and he calls out the shot of Guido walking down the hallway in the hotel where various cast and crew are popping out of their rooms needing answers how to execute their jobs. And Guido has no answers... and by the end is literally dancing away from them. Avoiding the responsibility. It’s a really beautiful visual pun illustrating the feeling or issue.

...clearly Fellini was working on a movie, he didn't know how to finish it, it wasn't coming together, and so he wrote a movie about making a movie, about a director who doesn't know how to make or finish his movie.

And funnily Fellini actually tells it a different way, where it was during the production of this same film, a film he intended to be about a creative person (maybe a writer?) who suffers a creative block that he lost his way after the DP was hired, sets built and booked... he visited the set and felt ashamed the he had lost the idea, he had no vision... and in that feeling he found the film.

The crisis came to a head in April when, sitting in his Cinecittà office, he began a letter to Rizzoli confessing he had "lost his film" and had to abandon the project. Interrupted by the chief machinist requesting he celebrate the launch of 8 1⁄2, Fellini put aside the letter and went on the set. Raising a toast to the crew, he "felt overwhelmed by shame… I was in a no exit situation. I was a director who wanted to make a film he no longer remembers. And lo and behold, at that very moment everything fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make".[11]

This is the kind of like, Oscar-bait navel gazing films about films we are all pretty used to seeing in the last 20 years, and that can be a little annoying at times. but I really appreciated this one. Making work is hard, being creative is hard. Leading a team is hard. Collaborating is hard. I appreciate this candor.

AND ALSO somehow about 1:45:00 into the film I thought it just seemed impossibly long. Like is this movie going end? or naw...

And it was very Interesting to see things Tarantino ripped in their original context (the dancing midfilm for Pulp Fiction, the Mia Wallace styling) and what feels like circus music (by Nino Rota) that Danny Elfman must have been aware of when he wrote the theme from Pee Wee's big adventure. It feels also related to Synecdoche New York another meta film which is surreal and funny, but also incredibly brutal.

++++

Anyway, Fellini kills, very fun. Very Style. I give it Eight (e mezzo) Parmesan Wheels.

Walk Like You - Alexander Girard

Alexander Girard was a designer who worked across a wide range of media and disciplines and brought warmth to modern design.

Rutger Bregmen — On Taxes

Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregmen, gave a speech to attendees at Davos earlier this year, calling out the strange hypocrisy of the ultra-wealthy talking about their philanthropy and spending toward the ‘common good’ and in a systen where many of the problems the developed nations face are due to money being pulled out of the system by theses same People. Using tax-avoidance schemes, the rich effectively crippled the infrastructure and social safety nets designed to help society at large; a completely common practice for most corporations and the wealthy. They then spend their riches on philanthropic endeavors like museums etc… which are nice, sure. But funding the opera is maybe not as valuable as a strong free health-care system or robust infrastructure and mass transit to most people.

You can find his book, Utopia for Realists on this subject.

Yaniv Fridman, Creative Director in Mexico City, animated a short section of this speech.

Anand Giridharadas is another writer who has been speaking a lot on the same topic and has a book out discussing the issue, Winners Take All: The elite charade of changing the world. This is on the list to read, and every interview Ive seen with him is very fun and enlightening. He puts the blame squarely on tax avoidance as well for many of the worlds current problems.

Walk Like You – Geoff McFettridge

Produced by DressCode

Director Dan Covert

The fact that most people don’t understand what graphic design means… has that helped you?
Yes, ‘cause if you decide to define something for yourself it helps if other people don’t have a definition for it. I understood early on that if I call myself a designer I can do whatever I want.
I can direct a commercials, I can do an animation I can create installations in museums, I can have shows I can do all these things.

For years I’ve held up Ray and Charles Eames for their amazing ability, as Designers, to do whatever is they want. Direct a film? Yes. Design a typeface? yes. A Chair? A house? Yes of course. A pattern, a bicycle? for sure. Anything. Everything.

This guy gets it. This is my goal, my foil against specialization. If it is ideas, creative, aesthetics, storytelling? Yes, in fact, I can.

The Windshield Wiper

From Vimeo:

The Windshield Wiper is a very personal and particular vision on Love and relationships.
Written, directed and designed by Alberto Mielgo and Produced by Leo Sanchez Studio and Pinkman.tv. Running time : 15min
Key Frame Animation

albertomielgo.com
leosanchezstudio.com
pinkman.tv

Alberto Mielgo, hot off of both Into The Spiderverse and Love Death & Robots, released this trailer last month for The Windshield Wiper.

It’s amazing to see how even as this work is so hard to pin down exactly how its made, it is expertly translated to animation. It is both technically and an creatively astounding.

Both the digital and physical paintings are wonderful and it was hard to figure how any of them were made when I first came across them. Hard to distinguish digital from real paint. The style and execution is so strong. And digitally, his was one of the first artists I saw working from a pure speed perspective, no tricky brushes, no layers, just paint… Gotta go fast.

With the animation, specifically for The Witness (from Love Death & Robots) they make a point to call out KEY FRAME ANIMATION… because its unclear how this film was made. Is it mocap? Is this rotoscoped over live action? The lighting and render quality bridges this amazing gap of realism and style.

It looks photographic, it looks painted. It looks right.

Previously on Alberto from me.

SpiderVerse Concepts:

Love Death & Robots – The Witness

Walk Like You – Helena Almeida

2013_CSK_09383_0015_000(helena_almeida_pintura_habitada).jpg

Helen Almeida is a Portuguese artist and photographer who was active creating surreal photography and collage from the 1967 on into the 80's.

Her work plays with the line between the art and the viewer, breaking the forth wall, acknowledging the medium. Playing with expectations. It also makes the artist herself, the subject of the work. Another boundary to play against.

From Wikipedia:

There is no difference between the work and artist's body. In her work, a woman's image is always present, but the image is transformed in a painting or drawing. Almeida avoided creating self-portraits. Rather, "My work is my body, my body is my work." "I am the canvas."[5] Her work has been described as "halfway between a performance (capturing an instant), and body art (the body itself as the absolute protagonist).[6]

More:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Almeida

http://www.artnet.com/artists/helena-almeida/

Walk Like You – Marilyn Minter

Last year I had the opportunity to see PRETTY/DIRTY at the Brooklyn Museum I had gone to the museum for something else entirely, but wandered into this show and it floored me. These large scale images eight feet, ten feet across. Paintings on Aluminum panel, photoreal based on amazingly lush and layered photographs. Video of high heeled feet smashing glass ornaments, water, paint and pearls.

There’s a lot to go into the sex positive feminism of these works, or the combining of dirty rough grit with beauty, and what beauty actually is. What our relationships are to our own sexuality the artifice of makeup and dress. I honestly should have to read more interviews and more from the artist directly but for now suffice it to say that these works are technically impressive and undeniably powerful.

Walk Like You – Yuri Schwedoff

Yuri Schwedoff is a Russian artist and painter. These works seem to mostly be digital, but they are rendered with a high degree of realism. They are dark and atmospheric. Fantastical stuff. Very fun.

I don’t know where or if photography plays into his workflow, but it seems like it must, at least as reference for faces, poses etc. Or maybe he is just that skilled at knowing how light plays on things. I know for me personally, if I’m drawing from a live model or a photograph, there are always details and features that show up that I would totally miss if I am drawing purely from my mind. Things from my head look cartoony and odd. Its not the same. But certainly with practice you can develop a knowledge of anatomy and color and light that gets you to realistically imagine most anything.

Lusine – Just A Cloud

Director - Michael Reisinger | polyc.tv DP - Jeremy M Lundborg Custom LED Lighting System - Alex Borton AD - Sierra Swan Sound - Phil Ryan Makeup & Styling - Katherine Dawson

This video for Just a Cloud by Lusine, like I’m fond of saying, succeeds as a simple premise well executed. It shows transcendence through a solitary moment, losing oneself as you might do with sensory deprivation or psychedelics…

There are obvious allusions to 2001 and the portal, a cinematic reference that you see over and over again because its so powerful and so well done. I’ve even tried to reference it, its such a huge landmark in effects an storytelilng and cinema.

Reisinger says he wanted to explore the idea of somebody waking up to the realization that we live in a simulated universe…
"In a lot of fictional examples, a character awakens from a simulated world and into the real world, where everything is the same. Color, light, matter—all behave the same as in the simulation. I wanted to put our character through a similar awakening, but into a reality that's overwhelming and incomprehensible. It's the same idea Arthur C. Clarke expressed about advanced civilizations appearing magical to us. If there is a higher reality, experiencing it for the first time would probably be completely disorienting."

I’m not sure I got that message, or if thats what I would have thought without reading that that was the case from the people behind it. I saw it more as an inward journey. The expansion of the of the self, of the mind. But that was just my take. This was a very well done exploration either way though.

There a lot more extended coverage here from Creators Project.

Lusine at Ghostly.

Walk Like You - Simon Stålenhag

Simon Stalenhag is a painter from Sweden who’s work describes a very vivid and compellingly decaying future.

I’ve been really fascinated recently of the idea of a large scene, rather than an intimate one, like a classical painting where there is a full story playing out before you. Stalenhags paintings imply the existence of a complicated and deep world. There’s so much in atmosphere and scale, as well as inference in these images. And it’s that inference, that suggestion without explanation, that is so fascination.

And this world is so intriguing that it’s actually getting its own series on Amazon. The pilot will be directed by none other than Mark Romanek. It will be very interesting. Theres a lot possible in Simon’s imaginary world to be explored.

I’ll be watching.

Walk like you - Charlie Immer

Charlie Immer is a painter. He lives in Maryland.

'My concepts come from my fascination with anatomy and my love of candy and toys. I have so much fun creating the blood and bones of my characters. The contrast of the smooth bodies and the complex systems beneath spilling out is very appealing to me. As I’m painting I also try to assign flavors to my characters like blueberry and green apple.'

From his interview on wow x wow

I love these paintings. There is very creative world building going on within them. A sort of logic of how these undead hordes of candy-coated skeletons exist and co-mingle. They are all cute and some are genuinely gross. Genuinely disturbing. It's awesome. Perfectly crossing fantasy, surrealism, cartoons and like a photo-real still life awareness of materials and color a classic oil painter. Very unique, very fun work. And the colors are just mouth watering.

re: Suicide

Every time we lose somebody it is shocking. It's jarring. And a suicide feels especially surreal. These public people that we all feel a little ownership of even though we may not know them... The ones that touched us. It hurts.

Its hard to have seen it coming. Maybe it's impossible. Even if you know somebody personally, a friend, your family, even if you know they are in trouble. Just look at Andy Spades note on his late wife... They had issues, she had her own as well, like any person does, and they were working through them. But it I'm sure it feels like he's been hit by a truck. Blindsided. How could it not?

For both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, outwardly they seemed to have incredible successful lives. Bourdain was literally globetrotting, eating the best food all over the Earth. Even I had a Kate Spade bag (Jack Spade). Her work touched most everyone. Reading about their family and friends, their personal lives seem pretty great as well. Which only adds to the shock. The people around them, closest to them, often didn't know the truth or depth of their own struggles. And I find it a sort of sad reality of being a person that:

As well as you know anyone, there's a lot you can just never know.

We communicate, some things get through, other things you only half understand. Partial understanding, generalities. Maybe what we perceive is correct, or at least in the generally area, but we never really get the whole picture. It's people misinterpreting or misunderstanding each other all over. Its missed connections all over the world.

My family unfortunately had to deal with a suicide in the last couple years. For us there was an attempt, a close call... And this person had family come to aid them, professional counseling. It was a serious wake up call. All hands on deck for us. And we thought that was the path out. They got help. We were there for them. It was scary and serious but they would be okay. And yet we were wrong. They tried again, and this time successfully.

And so even knowing there was a serious problem, and there was a whole family reaching out, concerned. Everyone trying to help, to offer a kind ear or understanding; This person still left us. We couldn't save them.

I don’t know what the lesson in that is really. I guess just that we should be kind to each other. To know that everyone is dealing with a lot more than we can hope to know. Even and especially people close to us. Even when you've been given ample warning that they are hurting or need help.

++

Be excellent to each other. Take a deep breath of appreciation for those you love in your life. They are all so precious.

And if you need help, if you are having a hard time, know that the people around you care about about much more than you can understand in the same way. Talk to someone. People do care about you. I promise.

--

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-8255

Birth of the New American Aristocracy

Birth of the New American Aristocracy by Matthew Stewart

You can even listen to the whole piece on Soundcloud

Matthew Stewart argues, 9.9% of the population comprises America’s new aristocracy, which often “takes wealth out of productive activities and invests it in walls.” But this group of people is rich in more than mere money, and its constancy poses an insidious threat to the promise of American democracy.

Clara Nova – Echo

Directed by Clara Aranovich

“Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.” -André Bazin

Aranovich writes, “This has long been my favorite quote about cinema; it gets to the heart of the nostalgic power of film, a power that overcame me at a very young age and has led me to pursue it ever since. Celluloid has always carried a mythical quality to me...”

from Booooom

Aranovich uses this simple premise, a sort of lo-fi take from both old and new, to tell a story of place and probably empathy and understanding as well. New mobile technology (instagram -boomerang) for it's premise; meets old film photography for it's aesthetic. It's interesting to see as well, with all the effort put into grading and color for digital film to get back to the tack and grit of old film, maybe its simpler just to go back and find film.

The technique is fun as well, shooting with a camera that has 4 side by side by side lenses. Its a fun idea to see 'steroscopic' in a why that is so immediate and intimate. like a Polaroid. Goofing around with your friends.

The story is simple: have a walk around LA, make friends, enlist people into your art/film/project, make some dance shapes with you dance friends. It's nice. It's wholesome. You can see they are having fun especially in using the fact they are shooting something to share with and meet new strangers along the way.