Post-production on Discouraging Words is getting crazy (in a good way?) because I need to have a screener done by the seventh of May. Here’s where I withdraw into my hole and become an antisocial hermit until the movie is finished, so if you send me an e-mail or Facebook message or the like, don’t expect to necessarily get a reply. Ever. Fair warning—that’s just the way I roll.
Anyway, here are two things that you might find interesting. First, a frame from some news graphics I’m currently rendering out:
Many years ago, back when I was first making films with any seriousness, I helped to make a short film entitled RRRR. I did not write it, nor did I direct it. The movie was—quite intentionally—relevant to nothing. The only comment it received on YouTube was “not funny.”
The central (only?) point of the movie was that you couldn’t play the word ‘RRRR’ in Scrabble.
…until this week, when Mattel announced a new version of Scrabble that allows the use of proper nouns. Since RRRR is the title of the film, it is a proper noun and therefore a playable Scrabble word!
Dear God, he’s finally done it. This is a film steeped so heavily in self-referential in-jokes that even though it’s apparently (and disturbingly) about me, I can’t understand it. It is possible that this is no longer a film, but some different and heretofore undiscovered form of communication. I feel as though I am watching the end of 2001 : A Space Odyssey for the first time, on a screen the size of the universe itself.
This is some of the most astonishing editing I’ve ever seen to come out of Vvinni’s mind, and I think we can safely say that as this project continues, the dispatches become smarter, better and more complex. Vvinni here demonstrates an uncanny ability to parse and deconstruct my previous message, all while building it into a post-post-postmodern photograph on the back of a milk carton. The epilogue that labels me “missing” is particularly chilling, and leaves me feeling as though I actually have gone missing under mysterious circumstances.
I fear I may have been bested here, I’m not sure if I’m capable of crafting an adequate response, but I will try. Speaking strategically, my previous dispatches have been an attempt to ape Vvinni’s style and beat him at his own game. It’s obvious that he is capable on that front beyond my wildest imagination, and so perhaps it is time to return to my old friends, minimalism and narrative. We shall see what comes next.
Last summer, after wrapping principal photography on Discouraging Words, Vvinni and I (with the help of Evan) shot a bunch of footage on VHS tape about a supremely antisocial übermensch named Plastix Ultimate. Back in August I shared an ad for Skin Removal Cream that Vvinni had cut from the footage. Now, here’s something else:
This ultra-condensed version of the narrative we shot was created for the “Foot in the Door 4″ show at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and leaves out a few key plot points, but I think it captures the overall flavor of the piece.
Second, here’s this:
What I really love about this camera (a Panasonic Color TV Camera WV-3320) is the analog smearing—ghost trails and lingering burn-in left by bright highlights traveling across the frame. I realize that I probably only have a limited number of usage hours on this thing before one of the tubes burns out (these are fragile components that have been working for over 30 years, after all), so I have to figure out something really good to do with it. I think maybe I’d like to use it to make a music video.
So if you’re an extraordinarily talented musician and you want me to make a music video for you using this camera, drop me a line.
I recently stumbled upon something I wrote about two years ago. I’m not sure if it’s a short story or a poem, but I like it:
You asked me a question tonight.
You said, “Do you really mean that?“
Well
let me answer that question with another question:
Do you really want to know?
Exploding Goldfish Films, LLC is a production company out of Fort Collins, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota run by Andrew Gingerich, Ethan Holbrook and Parker Cagle-Smith. Since 2003, Exploding Goldfish has produced two feature films and a number of award-winning shorts.
This blog exists to provide information on current Exploding Goldfish projects and other pertinent tidbits.
