Ultra Terra

First and last iamage from oor fairsty wee babby of the year - the 58 second 'Ultra Terra' of the Bayla Laks. John Lennon's in there somewhere, too. Cease and desist, is it?

Phase Two

Enough of vacations. This week we of the Alyce tribe must synchronise our watches and work out how and when to film the remaining scenes, how to co-ordinate the music - content and style - and most importantly, getting the edit finished.
There is no interim deadline, too many things intervened to get the film done before Easter - these things happen - but at the risk of nagging, we cannot let too many more days slip by - sunshine being inimical to editing as well as to vampires. Oops, there, I said it: editors are vampires. Drat, another secret out.

We are risen again

We have been remiss these last weeks, what with holy days and veldt trips und so weiter... but rest assured, the time is nigh... we are back and the wheels, though rusty, are beginning to turn again.
When is a film finished? When I bloody well say so. That's when. Watch this space.

Creative schizophrenia

Here begins a week of split personality. On the following link you can learn about our highly serious and worthy water documentary trip to Louisiana under New Orleans film trip while here, there will be no ALYCE news after today, because we collectively are on the road and INDIE institutionally is closed for Easter, or passover, or pass-out, depending on your religious persuasion. It is spring break after all. The DAM H2O crew (Will, Trevor, Robin and director SHANE MASTERSON) will be gathering the last images for the water film. Meanwhile, a strange existential detective road movie (a beat film) is coming together as we go down. Lord help us and Heaven forfend. You can read about that here, but be warned, we are crazy and off the leash.
So, ALYCE progress is doing very nicely. Joe B. has 'finished' his edit and is starting on the music with Alex Lubinsky's help; Dan C. has done his edit and is tweaking colors today; Becky is done, including a music-box soundtrack; Lillian and Jenna are into their trim edit, and it's looking very good (much better than the hasty rough cut); and Trevor has finished all his animation, including individually costumed sugar cubes. Don't ask.
When we return from NOLA, we'll shoot the remaining interstitial scenes, and start the sound mix and color correction. No date for the world premiere yet, but we are looking at mid May. If we survive, of course, of course.

The Look

As promised, a glimpse of what deadpool is doing with his segment of Alyce. As he said, 'I put all the dialogue together and it lasts 30 seconds'. Remember, an editor is someone with scissors (a mouse) and mirrors (Final Cut).

Traces of time

Now this one is from reality, chosen from a sample of one. If you ever wondered what happened to abandoned train tracks, here's one idea. Further along, they've been ripped up, and a broad walkway has overgrown, but here, the iron is just lying there. For the moment, we will restrict our explorations to rural overland lines, but inevitably we will end up under major metropolitan buroughs, in abandoned tunnels, the subconcious of a nation. Thusly is the planet interconnected, and through the tunnels resound strange musics..

Imaginary objects and their shadows

It's just another way of saying 'films'. The image above is close to one idea for a scene in an imagined narrative. Something to do with hiding inside an abandoned water tower while efficient but unsuspecting military guards patrol along train lines. earlier, the (amnesiac?) gentleman in question had awoken (naked and covered in blood, incidentally) sprawled across the rusty tracks, under rain, in a forest.
So finding this image on google is rather fortuitous. Anyway, that's one way - and a good way - of starting a film. though that scene isn't the 'start', but it's the first image of a story called 'Bl;ood and Blue Skies' which came in 1993. Well, it takes me time to get warmed up.
Here's some reading fun, at least the first half of the article feet are communist
Meanwhile the stormclouds around New Orleans gather, or rather an oneiric sheen masks the future there. Why have I reacted so badly to notions of a trip with a schedule? I think it is because the banal bites. Like some clone of Ian McKellan, though less Queenly, I feel I should just flick the ash off my cigarillo and say, 'Too old to waste time, dear'. Gimme a fast car and a camera & remember what Nic Ray said about lightning over water. Well there's plenty of water. Why, human beings are more than 70% water, Mandrake.
We have an ulterior motive in a trip south, but slice me sideways it is not to gawp at or wallow in other people's misery or past bereavement (of persons or of place) but, if anything at all, to see unmediated image, and to look ahead, see the unsprung traps, and listen to the night noises. This may sound fey or blind, but it's the best defense against condescension and sentimentality. A clean knife, please, Doctor.
Can we (collective) build something visually and emotionally extraordinary out of tattered images and a lack of preconceptions? And would that be a fiction or a documentary or an essay or expmtl?
Trees, trains and water.
I wanted to say more about copyright and systems of propagation, but that must wait until tomorrow when the eyes can stay open. As Bresson insisted, we must always strive to keep them open.