the artist is present kicks off the Big Sky Doc Film Fest

Remember my post, the body as medium, Abramovic with a clip from the documentary about the artist, Marina Abramovic?

It plays for FREE (sponsored by HBO), TONIGHT at 6:30 PM at the Wilma Theater in Missoula, Montana and blazes the trail for a fantastic line-up of films at this year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

I'll be posting a few of my own picks on salty snack studios' Facebook page and on Twitter (@TonetteTime) as the fest progresses.

See the schedule (click here) and GO.  You won't regret it. 

double dare

Friday Flick:

Double Dare stars Jeannie Epper and Zoe Bell. The movie shows the strength, warmth and resilience of the women stunt doubles behind characters like Wonder Woman and Zena.  Super heroes of their own kind, watch them totally kick ass and beat new paths in a male dominated industry while smiling and laughing along the way.

More:

The Double Dare website (click this).

Watch Double Dare on Hulu (click here).

p.s. I did my own stunt work for a short movie we made on film. We did several takes that didn't end up in the final bit, of course. It was a total blast but I didn't know what I was doing. I'd like to do more stunts and before I do, I plan to learn about proper stunt work.  Ouch!

shoes; a love story from salty snack studios on Vimeo.

pocket music

Technology pushes everyone around it seems, especially artists I often think because there is so much to keep up with, adapt to and compete with and artists are a culture's innovators. However, in the end I feel artists get the last word.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not but just as the piano evolved from dulcimers, our idea of what defines an instrument continues to change and include what began simply as a phone.   Mobile apps are redefining the idea of a music band and expanding our options to make music.  I haven't developed much of an ear for techno synthesized music yet, but I am pleased with the inventiveness of what people are doing to make music with what they are carrying in their pocket.  In some ways the technology levels the playing field, helping set a beat and letting someone without musical talent 'play' an instrument.  The spread of digital music is an undeniable fact, but for me reveals less about technology and more of the human desire to make art.   

Here is a video (2008) of iBand; two iPhones and a Nintendo D combine to play app instruments (apps by MooCowMusic) much like any band formed by using other instruments. 

What if you are rocking four iPhones?  Then you have the option of a one woman (or man) band like South Korean Kim Yeo Hee (a.k.a. Apple Girl). She can and does play 'real' instruments, too, as she does for "Half" with a full band and backup singers. 

Watch below as she covers Lady Gaga's "Pokerface" with only iPhone 'instruments' using T-Pain, Beatmaker and a fourth app that I could understand what she says (please help me translate if you can).

Here's a bit of Michael Jackson's Black or White on an iPhone using the app iShred. (Video by alychg 2011.)

Here is one more song with irony hopefully not lost, "Life Is Greater Than the Internet," also from iBand using two iPhones and an iPod Touch.

 

If you come across more music produced on the iPhone or the iPad (I didn't even start listing iPad songs but they are out there!), please share ones that you like with me. 

It will be interesting to see how the songs evolve with the assistance of mobile devices and how more artists own (or abandon) the medium.  Besides, I'm inspired by the ingenuity.

glorious 39

Friday Flick:

First of all, the film has Bill Nighy in it. We are fans in our household, so he's enough for us.  The drama has a strong cast overall, led by Romola Garai's passionate performance, but all helping to illustrate the emotionally (and politically) contrasting time for the youthful main characters just before WWII in England. The camera work is lush and gently moves the suspenseful story along through a rich English landscape and into grand vacant interiors.  It's been twenty years since I've been in that landscape, and I found myself wanting to strap on some Wellies and walk through the screen right into it.  While a nostalgic depiction of the setting, the film treats wartime corruption with scrutiny and critique. 

The story surrounds a female lead who's personal discovery takes a dark turn into a conspiracy theory of the English upper class's conspiring efforts with Hitler to buy a version of peace for themselves.  Ultimately the film could have been smarter, I imagine with the cast, and faster like modern thrillers as critics have said rather than the slower, naive old-school unfolding that it is. In the end though, I think it is well done and the departure from common patriotic nostalgia into the shushed decomposition of wartime is worth exploring.