Here's a quick video that Emily shot yesterday of Devo co-founder and filmmaker, Gerry Casale, critiquing my short documentary about political blogger Steve Benen, Digital Pamphleteer.  The batteries ran out on the video camera in the middle of the talk so we only have a minute of it or so.

Casale reminds me of Lewis Black and Jello Biafra's new wave love child.

Click here to watch the video. 

This is pretty cool.  The Philadelphia Independent Film Festival just phoned me asking if I'd be in Philly on Sunday afternoon.  Emily and I are planning on driving back to Vermont on Sunday so I told them I could be.  It turns out, they want me to participate in a "feedback" interview that day with filmmaker/musician Gerald Casale, the bass player and co-songwriter from Devo.  I don't know the format of the interview or whether it will be a one-on-one or if I'll be on a panel of filmmakers being interviewed or what, but I was told that my film was chosen by Casale for the event, which is great! 

Aside from founding and playing in Devo, Casale also shot almost all of their music videos, and according to his Wikipedia page, he...

"has also directed videos for other artists, including A Perfect Circle ("Imagine") Rush ("Superconductor"), the Foo Fighters ("I'll Stick Around"), Soundgarden ("Blow Up the Outside World"), and Silverchair ("Freak" and "Cemetery"), among others."

As a total aside, one of the first links I found when I Googled "Gerald Casale" was this interview with him on a very mid-90s looking site called The Vermont Review.

My talk with Casale will be on Sunday from 3-4pm, venue TBA. 

I'm teaching a video blogging and podcasting class this month at VCAM and I started a new blog as a demo site yesterday and I think I'm going to keep it.  I've been meaning to set up a site for all of the various students I have (VCAM, CCV, BHS, etc.) to congregate, discuss filmmaking and new media, and to get inspired. 

The blog is called Pictures & Sounds and can be found here.  It's a Blogger blog.  I haven't really used Blogger since we stopped doing the Friday Coffeeblogging podcast and it's really improved since then.  I had fun staying up late last night and designing the custom header.  Check it out...



Between my Photoshopping jags last night, I was also dealing with pain-in-my-ass design issues with Candleblog -- particularly in Safari and the new Firefox 3.  For now, I recommend viewing Candleblog in FF2 (there is also an interface issue in FF3 involving hotlinking in posts, so I'm doing all my blogging in FF2 until I can resolve these problems).

I'm noticing that every year around Daysie time I wind up having serious technical headaches.  I think people vote for me out of sympathy.  :-J 

That is Tom Arnold kissing the sweaty head of my friend, fellow high school classmate, occasional Pants keyboardist, and film sound engineer, Dan Mazur.  That's Full House star Candace Cameron Bure on the other side of Mazur.  They just wrapped production on a Hallmark Channel shoot called Moonlight and Mistletoe.  Mazur writes...

"Hottest shoot EVER with incidents ranging from paranoid schizophrenic homeowners (our primary interior location) to a gun-wielding suicidal divorcee who caused the town to be locked down and a swat team was brought in next to our production office."

Well meteorologist Tom Messner says things are going to cool down this week so Mazur should be able to recover from his ordeal nicely. 

So a few months ago I submitted my short documentary about political blogger (and radio co-host), Steve Benen, to the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival.  I heard nothing and assumed I did not make the cut.  Well I just got an email that begins...

Dear FilmMaker,

Congratulations once again on your selection to the 2008 Philadelphia Independent Film Festival.

"Once again?"  This is the first I've heard of it, but yay!  And Kasten Searles, the lovely and talented artist who won this year's collage challenge, lives in Philadelphia and is part of Lacunae, the band that did all of the music for the film!



So I guess I'm going to Philly, where I'll get to see Kasten, my cousin Mike and his kin and my friend and fellow SXSWer Barnabas.  I'll also get to see some films, meet some filmmakers, tour historical sites of the American Revolution, and Emily will finally get to check out the Mutter Museum!  W00t!

Unfortunately, it means I'm going to have to miss this year's political blogger bar-b-que and hamburger summit at North Beach, which falls on the same weekend.  :(

For those of you in the Philadelphia area (Kasten), my film will play at 9pm on Friday June 27th at the Arbol Cafe -- 209 Poplar Street.  An outdoor venue, apparently. 

Cross posted at The Pants site...

These shots are from July 1993 in Hinesburg, Vermont at Brent Sanborn’s house. It was the second of three annual “Brent Fests.” Tom and Pistol had recently moved back to Vermont from San Francisco and they performed as a duo at twilight before Invisible Jet took the stage. They played as “Pistol and Sandwich” for a short time before forming The Pants.

I took these photos myself. I remember this was the first time I ever heard the song None of That performed.  That’s actually my Guild Madeira that Tom is playing.  That very guitar is sitting four feet from me as I type this post, fifteen years later.

 

Speaking of photos, we here at Pants documentary central have been busy scanning scads of old negatives from the Pants archives.  I've been pulling out some select images and uploading them for the fans.  I'll continue to do this as the scanning progresses, so watch this space for updates.

 

Tuesday marks the 2nd anniversary of the 2006 reunion of The Pants at Higher Ground.  Yes, I'm still working on a film about the band.  In fact, things have gone back into more of a production mode of late.  Hoping to keep interest from waning completely in the project, I've edited together and released a video of Ariel, Dan and Tyler Bolles performing Wounded that we shot at Egan Media Productions last year for the film.  The three siblings missed the reunion show in 2006 because they were at their grandmother's wake.  They actually performed this song at the wake for their family.  Enjoy...

Click here for a hi-res quicktime video of the performance (104 MB).
-or-
Click here for the YouTube version.





 

I spent the morning at Edmunds Middle School in Burlington today helping an 8th grader do his "Capstone Project," which is a short film he wrote about bullying.  It's a Twilight Zone-inspired story.  I'll link to it here when it's done, assuming it goes online.  I'm on the front page of the Edmunds site today too.  I'm not sure how long it will stay like that, so don't be confused if you click there and don't see me.


EMS students work with a VCAM professional to create a short documentary highlighting the impact of bullying on middle school students. The project is a "Capstone Project" being done by an EMS student.  

When I started seeing the marketing for the upcoming Speed Racer movie, it looked garish and totally unappealing to me.  I was a HUGE Speed Racer fan when I was a young boy and I was mercilessly teased by my family for it.  But when the show's opening credits would roll, I was rapt for 30 minutes.  Still, this new treatment by the Wachowski Brothers just looked ugly to me.  But io9 has linked to some leaked scenes from the film and I have to say, it looks kind of compelling -- beautiful, even.

Click here and take a look.