Frazzled! I may not look it here but I am fried! Wiped out! Crashing post-wrap, but surfacing too, to all the tasks that have piled up back at the ranch. O isn’t it fun being an artist? Okay, I’m going to refrain from bitching, whining and moaning. For now.
O my poor blog! One Life is not enough! I’ve neglected it for the past few weeks, along with several other fronts, as I scrambled to finish up production on two videopoems in order to make Monday’s Zebra Poetry Film Festival deadline. How To Remain by AURAL Heather and Bushwhack, adapted from the book with visual artist Tina Schliessler. Both projects have left the building! In the post on their way to Berlin.
My old school punk rock cohort Chris Coon and I composed music and he scored Bushwhack in the 11th hour. We made several major changes in editing and worked through a mountain of snafus, naturally. Woo hoo! Josef and I were just discussing the incredible amount of work that’s gone into the 2:32 minutes of How To Remain and 5:07 minutes of Bushwhack. Lots of hoops to jump through for the application as well including the following synopses:
The audience is along for a wild ride in How To Remain with a compulsive protagonist resolutely heading toward an elusive goal of perfection, perpetually struggling to stay on, to stay thin. How to remain in control is at the heart of anorexia and bulimia. Ubiquitous images of the ideal woman provide pressure and anxiety for us all. She turns to her trusty steed but instead of her body disintegrating, the horse’s body withers away. A symbol of intense desire and instinct, the horse’s ribs start to protrude as it becomes increasingly emaciated until finally disappearing with a *POOF!* Perhaps it’s a warning, considering that the horse pertains to the unconscious and in fable and legend, clairvoyant. Though eating disorders are serious matter, the story is really about facing our all-too-human mortality. Remain is the key word and our secret desire, fueling our heroine’s quest for eternal youth and beauty, i.e., immortality. She is in a race. A horse race. A rat race? Or a labyrinth. Reel time accelerates as it does in real life; time seemingly flying by with advancing years as we move toward our inevitable departure. Of course how we live is crucial and what really matters.
Adapted from the provocative book and unique collaboration by visual artist Tina Schliessler and poet Heather Susan Haley, Bushwhack compels the viewer to see—and hear—the forest in an entirely new way.
All I had time, or brain capacity, to write! Co-director Tina said she liked its succinctness. I will post them both on my YouTube channel and all the other Net outlets.
In any case, I can only post How To Remain today, waiting on a DVD of Bushhwhack. Enjoy!