We love the loose narrative.
We love the fancy images.
We love music videos.
MUSIC VIDEOS------------------------>
a visual poem
set to the music of
Franz Kirmann
This place
changes
when the sun goes down.
A sense of otherworldliness
descends.
A dark vision
of an abandoned city.
Then, out of nowhere
and from nothing,
there is a light.
And, the light seeks affirmation.
And, who affirms?
A ghostly figure:
half child
half woman.
She is
Little Baby Eyes.
when the sun goes down.
A sense of otherworldliness
descends.
A dark vision
of an abandoned city.
Then, out of nowhere
and from nothing,
there is a light.
And, the light seeks affirmation.
And, who affirms?
A ghostly figure:
half child
half woman.
She is
Little Baby Eyes.
My mom works for Mr. Joe, and that's how we came to find him and his kitchen. Mr. Joe has let us photograph him many, many times. He has entrusted with us some of his stories about his childhood in Thibodaux, Louisiana over 90 years ago.
Mr. Joe also appears in some of our moving picture films including Little Baby Eyes (in his living room) and in the 2011 short Destiny lives Down the Road (again, in his kitchen).
--------------------warning: technical stuff below--------------------
Because we were using such a slow shutter speed, I could run around virtually invisible while the light remained a constant flow. Pretty neat. We shot this on a compact stills camera my sister gave us and then assembled all of the stills in Final Cut Pro. Each still took around 30 seconds to process during the shoot. This meant Dominique would sometimes have to remain incredibly still for 30 minutes straight. Light effects were created with common flash lights and an LCD light from Walmart.
| From
Patrick's Statements: The idea for "Happy Rabbit" hit me all at once. Out one night in London, I was in an out-of-the-way pub watching a line-up of eclectic musicians. One of the performers was really committed and selling it hard to a few local punters who just didn't give a toss. He was actually doing an awesome cover of Umbrella. It was like two worlds colliding: somehow this guy had ended up in this pub singing his heart out to an audience that just wanted to drink and be left alone. |
| When we
were in film school we shot everything on film and edited
everything on Steenbeck. We digitally scanned the work print, warts and
all, for our show reels. All of the physical labor of actually cutting
by hand was right there on the screen. It lent a tactile sensation to
the whole thing. When I was planning the music video, this experience
was in the back of my mind. I wanted to introduce an analog process to
a digital format. We've used this idea of "trash design" before in our
short "Fragile," but this video pushes the boundaries even further.
Every frame is literally handmade. |
How did you choose this track?
I'm gonna tell you the story in a long convoluted way: during the mid Naughties when we were working in London, Patrick did a lot of shooting for Day for Night Films, a production company run by some fellow LFS alumni. On one particular job, a Spanish dude called Jose was doing the sound recording. Now, Jose is also a musician, and his band is called the Missing Limbs. So, ever curious, Patrick went on MySpace and listened to some tracks and really liked them, and he especially liked Loco. "I'm gonna set some visuals to this music one day," he said to Jose. And, Jose said "O.K."
How did you come up with the concept?
Loco got filed away in Patrick's brain until a few months later when Spencer called him to say that he'd rented a high speed camera and wanted to do some tests with some live chickens in his back garden. So Patrick hotfooted it over to Highgate, and he shot Spencer throwing live chickens up in the air. Well, that triggered something in Patrick's brain, and the idea came to him: he would chuck milk and yogurt and eggs and water ballons at me while shooting it in slow motion. The track would be Loco because what crazy person would do such a thing?
Is there more to the story?
There are two asides, and it will show you how everything is connected. Patrick and Francois cast Spanish Dude Jose as the cosmonaut in Happy Rabbit. And, funnily enough, the live chicken footage ended up being used in the Kirmann Project. Recycle, reuse.
"I
like driving when the landscape looks like this. We drove out to
Rockhammar today. On the drive out there, I was listening to Liza
on the iPod. I am beginning to separate out the fact that Kirmann is my
friend. The music is now standing on its own. It evokes
memory....individual memory. That is, I think that his songs evoke an
individual image in the listener's head...something that is specific to
the listener. The image turns into a series of images...a day dream...a
memory. His songs allow you to go into the inside space. They allow you
to time trip. It is very powerful."
We were in Sweden and looking for an angle. We knew we wanted to shoot the cold Swedish landscape, but we needed something more.
patrick and joe jackson in Libya circa 1982
Nominated: Best Short - Stuttgart Filmwinter
Nominated: Best Experimental Film - The London Short Film Festival
Official Selection - Filmfest Dresden Special Programme
Official Selection - Upshot: British Film Institute Southbank
Screened at - Prospect 1.5 Open Studios, Revel (2010), Bialystok, Poland: Days of Contemporary Art
You can look at Patrick's picture blog.
You can read some of my post modern novel in progress.