It's Not For Everyone.

Niki and I at Fantastic Fest

2009-10-02T21:58:00.001-07:00

FF09-Fantastic-Feud-dhill_08D7895, originally uploaded by fantasticfest.

Amazing high-dexterity robot hand

2009-09-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Silver Pines - Psychic Surgery

2009-09-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was working on a video for The Silver Pines, a San Marcos/Austin band I'm friends with. Well, I had been having problems working with the footage I shot, which was essentially me shooting alone with one camera and a couple of members of the band, on one of the hottest days of August, outdoors. I also wasn't doing a good job of cutting what I had to the song that the band reccomended I use.

On Saturday I went back out to the location, with a lot more people, including Nick Smith, who directed the Diagonals 'Clones' video and Thomas Humphries (black magic rollercoaster), who ran second camera and helped with direction (I should pretty much never be allowed to direct action, since I have a hard time being demanding enough). Nick is a really close friend, so I was more comfortable kicking him around and making him do stupid, uncomfortable stuff for the benefit of the camera, which helped a lot.

I'm really happy so far with what we got- it has a much better sense of humor to it, and I had enough coverage that I didn't have to resort to my usual crutch of after-effects vomit to cover up not being able to cut footage together. And best of all, since the tone is so wildly unlike any of the current Silver Pines recordings, they are going to record a new song to the video instead of the other way around. That should be an exciting experiment. I'll post the results when they are ready.

More Bay Area 'Sorry, Thanks' Screenings

2009-09-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

From Dia Sokol:

we are SO excited to announce that SORRY, THANKS will be screening 3 times in the Bay Area. [...]

Information about the screenings below:

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL
Sunday, October 11
9:00 PM
Sequoia Theatre, Mill Valley, CA

Monday, Oct 12,
9:30 PM
Smith Rafael Film Center
TICKET INFO

CINEMA BY THE BAY
Saturday, October 24,
9:00 PM
Landmark's Clay Theatre.
FESTIVAL INFO
TICKET INFO

I'll be at the Cinema by the Bay Screening, and I know that the first Mill Valley screening should have a lot of Cast and Crew in Attendance. If you're in the SF Bay Area, I hope you'll come see the movie and say hello!

MVFF 2009 | Sun. Oct 11th, 2009 - Sorry, Thanks @ Sequoia Theatre - 25 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941

2009-09-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry, Thanks will be playing at the Mill Valley film festival on October 11th.

First rule to becoming a better person: Admit that you are someone of highly compromised ideals. Max (played to wry comedic perfection by Dazed and Confused's Wiley Wiggins) would like to believe he's a good guy, even when his actions, or lack thereof, dictate otherwise. Kira, lost in a sea of self-doubt after a bad breakup, would like to believe in her inner idealist, too. After a one-night stand and a game of shadow puppets, Max finds himself drawn to Kira, despite already being in a long-term relationship. Kira hesitantly keeps the flirtation alive, while juggling both a new career and a burgeoning relationship with someone else. Setting the action in San Francisco's own vibrant Mission District, director Dia Sokol (producer of indie faves Mutual Appreciation and Nights and Weekends) and co-writer/producer Lauren Veloski offer up a terrifically smart, hilariously dry and emotionally honest portrayal of young lives in flux.
—Joshua Moore

Link

Michael Berryhill : Basement States Sep 10 – Oct 10, 2009 | Horton & Liu

2009-09-12T12:18:00.000-07:00

If you are in New York, check out Michael's show at Horton & Liu!

Michael Berryhill : Basement States | Horton & Liu:
The gallery is pleased to present the New York solo debut of Michael Berryhill. Entitled Basement States, the artist’s recent series of paintings invite the viewer to engage in an open-ended dialogue of inventiveness and misinterpretation.

The Windmill Movie - Wed 16 Sept 7:00pm, Alamo Ritz

2009-09-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

From Andrew Bujalski:

Apologies for a mass e-mail. Generally I don't do this due to being either (a) respectful of your inboxes or (b) not supportive enough of fellow filmmakers (take your pick), but I wanted to shill for The Windmill Movie which will be doing one screening only at Alamo Ritz on Wednesday 16th @ 7pm.

Dick Rogers was the first film teacher I had in college, initiating me into the culture & aesthetic of that particular program which continues to be a massive influence not only on the work I've done since but also, for better or worse, on the way I've comported myself into/through adulthood. He died in 2001 just before I began shooting Funny Ha Ha & it will always bother me that I never got to show him that film & seek his approval for it.

As per the blurb description in the AFS notice below, a few years after he died, another student of his, Alex Olch, set about taking decades worth of autobiographical footage Dick had shot & giving it a shape that Dick had never been able to find for the material himself. Without a doubt, my experience of The Windmill Movie was a very personal one, but I'm confident that it's objectively an extraordinary film. A friend of mine who saw it compared it to Synecdoche, NY, and while it's of course a very different species of film, nonetheless after I saw it I knew exactly what he meant--there are levels of complexity and invention and wit to which most contemporary documentaries wouldn't bother aspire.

And so! If you've got nothing better to do on Wednesday evening, I recommend it...

Link

Make: Online : Giant Peggy-based LED display

2009-09-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

Make: Online : Giant Peggy-based LED display

Eyeballz

2009-08-28T20:02:00.001-07:00

Eyeballz
Originally uploaded by weevil

District-9

2009-08-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

To start out, read Scott's wrap up of the current criticisms of the film here: Filmmaker Magazine Blog: District 9

I left my thoughts in the comments to that article. To rework them a bit here, I liked the movie as a goofy-yet-richly-backdropped action flick, but if you'll check my earlier post, the trailers, and some of the director's shorts, really highlighted the use of non-professional, naturalistic performances (I refuse to use the belittling term 'non-actor') in a way that made the SF elements much more immediate and believable. I am always on the lookout for this; Some of my favorite films are Science Fiction by suggestion alone, leaving out sets and special effects, and using narratives solely to transform the world and the people already around us into strange-but believable- new frontiers. Found worlds are obviously more 'real' than fabricated ones, and it generally just takes a few tiny tweaks to turn the familiar into the surreal.

District 9 seemed to lose sight of its biggest asset, those performances, (and that feeling of Jamais vu they create), and fell into a more easily sustainable, standard-SF/action-movie rhythm (that's not to say that there is anything 'wrong' with the performances. Sharlto Copley is very good in the film). District 9 was very competent as the action film it ended up being- But I felt like Blomkamp could have landed some really heavy blows, maybe even while retaining the film's unexpected sense of humor, if he had focused on the immediate realism of non-professional actors, like in his shorter works, instead of letting them clash against his narrative as nothing but scenery.

Interactive goodie updates

2009-08-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Processing and Flixel both saw updates today. Flixel is also getting a workshop event at the upcoming GDC in Austin, Texas. I'm thinking of going, despite the fact that I don't know a ton of actionscript yet.

A stupid thought too long to put on twitter.

2009-08-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

If you were ever going to self-annihilate/disappear/jump in the ocean, it might be an interesting last gesture to re-route all your incoming email, twitter messages, etc. to automatically publish back out in-full on all your various online presences, so that instead of leaving a sudden vacuum, your online identity would still be as active as the energy people put into it. Also, all the information that you kept segregated between different groups of people would all suddenly become open and transparent, but you wouldn't have to deal with the repercussions.

“make visible what, ~~without~~ with you, might never have been seen.”

Device Volume II - Reconstructed

2009-08-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

Device Gallery:

"Featuring 16 internationally renowned sculptors whose compulsive craftsmanship, distinct vision and mechanical fascination makes for an imaginative and arresting collection of work.

Using popular culture imagery and objects to explore such themes as mythology, nature, inner fantasy and technology. Artists featured include Greg Brotherton, Steve Brudniak, Christopher Conte, Nemo Gould, Stéphane Halleux, Tom Haney, Kris Kuksi, Mike Libby, Paul Loughridge, Michihiro Matsuoka, Jeremy Mayer, Rich Muller, Olivier Pauwels, Andrew Smith, Lewis Tardy, and Jud Turner, with the forwarded written by Gareth Branwyn."

My friend Steve Brudniak has 14 sculptures in this beautiful book by Device Gallery.

Canary's Wringing Future-Is-Now Dystopia - Village Voice Movie Review

2009-08-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

In Adams's bleakly comic vision, organ harvesting is an open industry and ad execs plot to position the Canary corporation as 'the Coke of organ redistribution.' If that calls to mind a genre piece along the lines of Parts: The Clonus Horror or Repo! The Genetic Opera, Adams's decentralized narrative elides anything as obvious as kidney-swiping or body-slicing. Instead, the movie concentrates on the world ignored in those films: seemingly random glimpses of workplace behavior, rendered with pitch-perfect realism; domestic scenes in unsubtitled Russian and German; vignettes of conversational one-upmanship—all of which take on an eerie cast whenever a white-jacketed Canary employee (Carla Pauli) materializes wordlessly in the crannies of the frame.

New York Movies - Canary's Wringing Future-Is-Now Dystopia

My thoughts on monster horror movies, or, Why every Alien movie has been exponentially worse than the one that preceded it:

2009-07-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Monster is just an unreasoning external pressure that we cook our characters with, and in doing that we see how they tick. Back when movies were more familiar with people than with monsters, this worked. The less the monster was seen, the more powerful it was. You could make out its shape in the realism and depth of the character's reactions. The creature in Alien occupies a tiny fragment of screen time, but it looms over every frame through the performances of the cast.

Now we no longer populate these movies with humans but with fodder. We've learned how to show the Monster but forgotten how to show people, and they become increasingly flimsy, predictable and mawkish- to stare at them too long is to get bored while waiting for them to be eaten. Instead we fetishize the Monster, and in staring at it too long, it loses its power too- everything has its depth stripped away, nothing means anything, and we've diffused or at least ignored our fears by shining a flashlight on every menacing shadow in the room. These movies have lost the capacity to connect to any real fear, and instead only appeal to our infantile desire to break our toys against each other.

Image by Till Nowak.

Twitch - Nacho Vigalondo Is Coming To America For GANGLAND!

2009-07-30T22:32:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles (July 30, 2009) – Through their co-venture Film Rites, partners Mandate Pictures and Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Steve Zaillian announced today that Pat Healy will scribe GANGLAND, a comedy based on an original idea by Nacho Vigalondo (TIMECRIMES) that Vigalondo will also direct.

The comedy will follow a team of videogame developers who get in over their heads when they promise to deliver the most realistic game of all time - GANGLAND - and soon find themselves having to survive by their own wits in a real life criminal underworld.

This should be really cool. Nacho is extremely talented, and I know Pat Healy (not to be confused with the Pat Healy in Austin who is in the Zom Zom's) and they will be a great match together.

Link

New Octopus Project Video - "Wet Gold" (Stereogum Premiere) - Video - Stereogum

2009-07-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

Wet Gold - The Octopus Project from Zellner Bros. on Vimeo.

Music video for the song "Wet Gold" by The Octopus Project.

theoctopusproject.com
zellnerbros.com

The Zellner's terrific new video for The Octopus Project's Wet Gold is up at Stereogum!

New Apple Pro Apps

2009-07-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

Apple sneaked out new releases of all their professional AV production apps today- I'm still parsing all the changes, but the upgrade price from Final Cut Studio 2 is only $299, which is nice, considering all you get in that package. It looks like they've stopped putting version numbers on the whole studio packages and are instead relying on the individual application versions again, which is smart, since the package numbers were confusing to a lot of people.

Some new features at a glance
Final Cut Studio:

Three new ProRes codecs (ProRes 4444 sounds like it is going to be the one really important thing that comes out of this whole package)

collaborative editing tools via iChat Theater

Reflection and shadow effects in Motion, depth of field and enhanced camera controls

Multitouch Gesture support in Motion, 3d mouse support

Overhauled Compressor interface, Blu-Ray export

New Logging tools that are more suited to working off P2 Cards

Closed Captioning support (This is very different from subtitles, people used to ask for this a lot when I worked in pro app support at Apple

Global transitions- Adding and adjusting multiple transitions at once

Background Exporting - Now you don't lock up Final Cut when you do File>Export to Compressor

Total overhaul of Color's interface. I won't be afraid to open it now. support for three-way trackball devices that don't cost as much as your car

Qmaster might actually work now?

Logic Studio:

Looks like they replaced the Time and Pitch machine with something called Flex Tool. Looks very slick, better math for playing back tracks while variating the tempo.

Quantize audio- now you can fix your drummer's shitty drumming when he records while hungover

Bounce-in-Place: Lets you essentially render your effects etc into a new audio clip in place like you would in Final Cut, sparing system resources. I guess this is different than freezing the track because now you get a bounced clip to hang on to?

Amp Designer: updated amp modeling

Pedalboard: modular guitar effects, support for Apogee's usb pedal interface

Guitar Tabs in the notation view

Some cringeworthy sounding lead vocal jampack loops that I can't imagine anyone I know ever using except ironically, but will probably be the huge new feature for a million dirty-south hip hop producers who are bizarrely the new main userbase for Logic (having displaced angry German house music producers a while ago).

Nothing explosive sounding, but the reduced price upgrades will definitely make me get them in the hopes of backend tweaks for speed and stability, and the extra polish that usually comes with each revision of these apps- some of them dating back over a decade (Logic started out on the Atari ST!)
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/
http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/

The Highball — Bowling - Karaoke - Skeeball - Cocktails & Dining - Events

2009-07-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

Construction photos and blog for The Highball, Tim and Carrie League's insidious plot to make me a fat drunk.

Welcome to the kickoff of the official blog for the Highball….joint! I call it a joint in the true spirit of the era for which this new venue hearkens. I mean, what other adjective best describes a place that combines bowling, a 50's style diner, private karaoke rooms, and the potential to host any type of event that would require a stage? Multi-use is too bureaucratic. So I call it a joint. That’s not official or anything. Kind of like my own personal term of endearment.

The Highball — Bowling - Karaoke - Skeeball - Cocktails & Dining - Events

iPhone + Posterous

2009-07-18T15:40:00.001-07:00

Posterous is a webapp that hosts and reposts to other services anything you send it via email. Their best trick is in letting you determine what services you post to by changing the name in the email you send to. For instance, sending to Flickr@yourname.posterous.com would repost on your Flickr account.

This makes for a convenient way to post video and photos from the iPhone on the fly to services other than YouTube. It doesn't seem to do a video embed on blogger reposts, instead publishing a link to the file on posterous, which I find less than ideal. All in all, it's not what I am looking for exactly, but it's a smart, free service.

Here's a shot of my study sent from my iPhone.

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0146.MOV (3949 KB)

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from wwiggins's posterous

Addendum: I finally settled on using Pixelpipe and Blip.tv to do videoblogging from the iphone. Clips will appear on my main page, wileywiggins.com. I'm mixing stuff shot on the phone with movie clips.

Plusea -The Perfect Human

2009-07-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

Odd wearable microcontroller performance art by Plusea:

Perfect Human is a performance Inspired by Joergen Leth's 1967 short film 'The Perfect Human' and Lars von Trier's 'The Five Obstructions' (2003). The performer wears a costume with integrated fabric bend sensors, which sense her movement and wirelessly transmit this information to a nearby computer.

The performance takes the text from the original film and introduces the obstructions of performance and non-linear narration. The original text is cut up into blocks and the performer is presented with a game like situation in which certain words and segments of sentences were mapped to the movement of certain body parts. The performer has to first learn which movements trigger which spoken fragments before she can try to speak the full sentence. As the performer becomes familiar with the system, she starts to play with the system by intentionally repeating or creating alternative sentences. Once a sentence is intentionally spoken correctly the performer moves on to the “next level”, the next sentence and a new mapping.

VIDEO HEAT: Very Awesome VHS Box Art

2009-07-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

Austin 360 : For Octopus Project, success on way to 10 years of having fun

2009-07-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

Link

Shut Up Child, This Ain't Bingo - we make money not art

2009-07-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

When Norwegian artist Kjersti Andvig initiated a collaboration with someone called Carlton A. Turner who at the time was on death row in Texas, she aimed to expose a system which she perceived as a unjust mix-up of right wing politics, strange religious beliefs and cruelty. When she finally got to meet Carlton after their artistic work had ended, they fell in love and over a period of three months she stayed in Texas until he was finally executed. [...]
Part of the fascination of the documentary comes from the cognitive dissonance of watching Andvig immersing herself in a world of bungalows, barbecues and beer cans while very lucidly talking about the reasons for her adoption of the quasi-religious views that allowed them to cope with the looming killing of a lover she's never been in the same room with. There's almost bizarre sequences where she shows photos that were taken around the execution with a strange normality in them, and there's lots of talk about God and the mystic reassurance in the supernatural that Europeans often find unsettling about religious America.

Shut Up Child, This Ain't Bingo, on We Make Money Not Art

Fantastic Fest 2009 : Films

2009-07-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

Holy crap. The Fantastic Fest list of scheduled films is starting to roll out and there are some real gems in here. For one, they got a real print of Hausu, which is spearheading an unstoppable torrent of Japanese weirdness, including Robo Geisha and Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl. The festival's tradition of deranged world cinema seems to be going strong, including a baffling sounding Estonian film about Pinnochio's son, and Morphine, a new film from Cargo 200 director Aleksey Balabanov.
I'm burning through my vacation time this year with a trip to France in August, but I am going to go ahead and get a badge anyway, if only to get to see stuff at night after work. I've never missed a Fantastic Fest yet, and I don't intend to now.