Saturday, August 4, 2012

Added to the shelf

I've been really into watching old horror films on Netflix in my free time, the ones from the 20s-70s mainly. My favorites so far have been a couple by Roger Corman who did a few films based on Edgar Allan Poe's stories, with Vincent Price playing the villain (perfecto!).

The Masque of Red Death



This movie got me on so many levels: the humongous home it took place in, the costume design (especially during the masquerade), the hooded beings wandering through the forest, the occult aspect, the set design (there is a series of rooms they walk through, each one painted and decorated in one color--red, yellow, purple, white), the transitions, the experimental editing and coloring of scenes....I can go on, but it's definitely worth discovering on your own.

The Pit and the Pendulum



What brought me to this film was the mention of a Spanish castle, torture chambers and rocky beaches. This was truly a gem in the set design and costume sense as well as the color used for flashbacks. What I loved the most were the titles and credits--the image behind them was of water with paint being added to it. I loved the effect and the colors it produced.

Obviously, the things that I admired most were purely aesthetic, but that always seems to be the first thing I notice about any film. I loved Vincent Price though, and although some of the acting from some characters is a bit hokey, I still got lost in the world of Poe.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Analog Dreams

"Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks of the contemporary artist 
is not to become swamped by the number of techno-tools 
capable of precision rendering of the visible world (photo, film, video) 
and to create with these systems the 'pure' images of the symbolic."
-Bill Viola Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House 





Here are a couple of stills from the footage I captured off my VHS camera today.
I shot it over a year ago, and while reviewing the footage it came to my attention that I need to use it more often. 
Now that I have a means of capturing, I most certainly will.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Sedmikrasky




Earlier this week, I went to BAM to see my absolute favorite movie in the entire world: Daisies.

I had never seen it projected on a big screen before, let alone on a 35mm print format so I was ecstatic to be able to experience it in that manner. (Opportunities like this remind me why I chose to move to New York City). I don't know if I will ever be able to fully articulate what I feel when I watch this film, but I think the things most dear to someone are usually hard to describe.

When I first saw this movie, I was studying at FAMU in Prague. It was towards the end of our semester there and I remember the entire 10 of us taking that film course were attentive and silent during the entire screening. At the end of it, we all went to the pub downstairs and gushed over how amazing the movie had been. We begged our professor to get Vera Chytilová (who taught at FAMU at the time, I'm not too sure if she is still on staff there) to come talk to us about the film. And she did.

This movie came out at the time when Czechoslovakia was under a Communist regime, so you can only imagine the feedback a film like this received from the government. Vera was banned from filmmaking, along with a few other of her peers, because people didn't quite understand what the film was about. Also because they felt she was wasteful with food.

She came into our class shrouded in black, sunglasses to match. She grilled every male (all 4 of them) on who they thought they were, why they thought they were important. She answered our question of whether those two girls really ate all that food. They really did. And then she told us one thing I will always remember:


'You can't make movies unless you know who you are.'

This was the moment I realized that I really wasn't sure of who I was. What did I want to express and share with the world through my future films? Up until that point, I had spent my last seven years as a 'filmmaker' not knowing how to answer the only question people knew how to ask me: What kind of movies do you want to make? 

I always said 'Weird ones.' 

***

Every time I watch Daisies, I find a new part of myself in it. This time, it made me really want to be a reckless girl with a lust for the unknown. A break from reality. To swing in a chandelier! Every frame of this movie is pure, gold magic and I could watch it a thousand times more if only the DVD I ripped from my professor at FAMU wasn't so scratched up.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

HIATUS


'We cannot drop out of society. 
We can only drop out of social roles and dramas which are unloving, 
contracting and which distract us from the discovery of our atomic, cellular, 
somatic and sensory divinity.'
--The Politics of Ecstacy


Photobucket


I've decided to take a little break.
Check back soon,

Shiny Kid

Monday, March 12, 2012

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

French Lone Ranger


My boyfriend surprised me with this brown leather hat a couple of nights ago.
I wore it today, feeling like I should be on a ranch in the French countryside...or something.
I haven't been updating as much for a few reasons:
My computer is slowly dying and I can't do too much with it anymore.
I'm editing all day so when I come home I don't even want to look at a computer screen.
I've been obsessed with Instagram (@shinykid)
Downton Abbey.
Inspirations and thoughts run through my mind so quickly,
I'm not sure if posting my musings is the best (and smartest) move anymore.

I will never abandon my little shiny thing, though.
See you all on the other side...

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Come to think of it...

I believe I used to be much more interesting.
Or maybe I'm just getting better at hiding my secrets.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

She-who-must-be-obeyed

"But her face is what caught my eye, and held me as in a vice, not this time by the force of its beauty,
but by the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still there, indeed, but the agony, the blind passion,
and the awful vindictiveness displayed upon those quivering features,
and in the tortured look of the upturned eyes, were such as surpass my powers of description.''