tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41613370658691513182024-03-13T23:16:40.191-07:00The Watching PatchThe blog of filmmaker Brian Perkins---featuring his videos, production notes, a comic strip, and random online videos made by friends and strangers.Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.comBlogger517125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-16787751568073412202014-07-09T14:15:00.000-07:002014-07-09T14:15:45.873-07:00Summer Update<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/14635068933/player/fa2fd05cd0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/14428523369/player/86bd21a726" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hello there! I haven't posted here in a while because I'm in the process of moving to my own website instead of using blogger. Also, friends, I had to move the Watching Patch studio. Kind of a bittersweet time. The place I rented where I made Heavens and Speed of Sound was sold and I moved 30 blocks north to the Green Lake neighborhood. A lotta blood, sweat, and tears. But this new neighborhood is soooper nice, I must say. It reminds me of Italian horror movies from the 70's when its dark. And during the day its this ridiculously idyllic neighborhood. I've been busy directing social awareness short film for the university but look out for some more Watching Patch adventures this summer.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/14428616298/player/9681cea9dc" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/14613160754/player/4acfcceed6" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/14615226775/player/024f465263" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com95tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-2230394662193988712014-05-16T17:44:00.000-07:002014-05-16T18:48:32.847-07:00((Speed of Sound)) Diary Part Three<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/8735727352/player/effb2fab7f" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<br />
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part Three. Post-Production.</span></b></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Based on my therapist's suggestion, I went to Whidbey Island to go camping. My brother lent me all the camping gear I needed. I bought a magazine. It was a Discovery magazine with hammerhead sharks on the cover. I also brought some food and booze and a toothbrush. I drove out to the ferry and made the trip, about sixty miles from my house.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It started raining when I got to Whidbey Island. When I got to the national park where I was going to spend the night, the rain let up for a while, long enough for me to pitch a tent. Making the tent was pretty much slapstick comedy. There were too many parts. I wanted to make a simple teepee and get my nature on. </span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wondered off, along the ridge that overlooks the sound; solitary and aimless, feeling crazy. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A wound-up man drawn for the moment into total mindless spontaneity. I walked along the park road. Voices and guitar could be heard from down the ridge, seemingly from the water. I never saw anyone. Rain was coming and going. Sometimes the blue sky would appear with bright clouds on the puddles looked like holes in ground, apertures to some other worlds floating underground.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was feeling good and introspective. The rain let up again and I made a fire. I became a slightly drunk caveman reading about hammerhead sharks into the night. Until it started raining again. The rain got pretty bad and got in my tent. A helicopter flew over head and was shining a light on my tent for a minute. Every sound in the night I could imagine as a serial killer looking for me. I think I fell asleep for about a half hour that night, and in that half hour broke my glasses for the hundredth time, this time for good. These were Malcolm X-looking glasses I bought in the 90's.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the morning there was a long, rolling thunderclap. It was like Wisconsin thunder. We don't get that in Washington much. It began to rain hard. I thought about how,<span style="font: 12.0px Times;"> </span>in the next couple of months, I would get the film together to begin submitting to festivals that November. I left Whidbey Island. It was two days earlier than I planned. I wanted to begin work on editing the film.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before I got to edit the film, however, there was some pretty tedious work to do. We recorded the sound on three different systems, which recorded the sound on one, three, and five tracks. And we weren't labeling them as we were shooting so all that labeling had to be done then. In that summer, I had Chy and two interns helping and yet progress moved at a tectonic rate. By the time I did an artist residency in Pentwater, Michigan that August, there was a cut of the film and a foggy notion of how much work was left to do on it. But it wasn't ready for festivals.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personally I don't know how other writer/directors edit their films. It's hard once you've written the script, then adapted it into the realities of shooting it, to then make it final with a fresh editorial eye. That's really difficult. I would compare it to the Word Jumble in newspapers. Sometimes I can solve it effortlessly, and I feel very smart. Other days I feel like an idiot staring at it. I try different combinations of letters at random, scribbled away from the puzzle. Being a writer/director editing one's own film feels like solving the word jumble before you've had any coffee. So many intentions are wrapped up in what you shot, you could really use a new brain to tackle the final edit. Editing took longer than I wanted.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was back at my day job cooking at a nearby restaurant to my house. I was sleeping too little. I was taking lorazapam to help fall asleep but it wasn't working great. I felt like I was working on the film almost too much, and yet it seemed like I was getting less and less good work done.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It didn't occur to me until too late that the subject of the film made completing it difficult. Stubbornly completing the film may have had some romantic attraction to me, but since the story was about a friend who died young, and the character was named Dave, at some point I felt a little bit like I had painted my daily life with a maybe unhealthy amount of thinking about something that was inherently sad. I had surrounded myself with reminders of a death that I avoided feeling about by working on the film. A cyclical problem. I was turning 33 in September and was becoming more of a hypochondriac because of my insomnia.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in August, and with perfect timing, I did an artist residency at Shared Space Studios in Pentwater, Michigan. It was hosted by a good friend, Eliza Fernand. So it was a reunion as well as a retreat, a productive session of writing, and an opportunity to connect with the community there. There was a costume designer, a textile maker, and a comic/tattoo artist when I got there and we worked amongst each other in a studio with no internet or phone reception. I wrote a scenario for an ambitious film project partially inspired by the Oulipo writers Italo Colvino and Raymond Queneau. I went to the Oceana State Fair and rode the Ferris wheel. I went to a camel's birthday party at a petting zoo. We relaxed at the beach in the evenings.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/94401876@N02/9550325239/player/24a8cfd257" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/94401876@N02/9553115152/player/b9033f365c" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I returned from the residency rejuvenated and working with a couple of new collaborators, composer Matt Pomykalski and effects artist Elijah Tiegs.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Based on the original deadline for the film, I declared it complete and submitted it to three festivals. This was in November. I had a notion about the film being completed within about seven months. It seemed like a way to take advantage of the rock n' roll energy of doing a "no-budget" feature to also edit it relatively fast. It was rejected from all three festivals.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In December I made a trip to Salt Lake City to meet with David's friends and family for the kickoff of the Davey Foundation, a grant for young theater and filmmakers. It was a huge success. And it was so great so see everyone, to be around so much love.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I may have thought the movie was done in 2013 but after setting it aside for a couple months. I got the flu and was bedridden for two days watching Anthony Mann westerns and I had a lot of ideas about reediting the movie. As I got better I experimented with it, and was really pleased with the results.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I took out several pieces of music, did about 200 little edits, moved a flashback thirty minutes further into the movie, and in general made the film more focused and easier to follow. This "Movella", as I've been calling it, about 56 minutes long, is as sharply etched as the Adolfo Bioy Casares novels I was aspiring to. </span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the time of this writing, May of 2014, <b>Speed of Sound</b> is being prepared to submit to film festivals.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-Brian Perkins </span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/10497131945/player/d38ac917ec" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span></div>
Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-62759260308828673612014-05-14T13:11:00.000-07:002014-05-21T12:40:41.666-07:00((Speed of Sound)) Diary Part Two<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/14184356812/player/1d99b2635e" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part Two. Pre-Production and Principle Photography.</span></b></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Thinking it over" often means you're either waiting for your intuition to appear or waiting to see if it changes. Saying "think" is misleading, since it isn't a rational process. If it were, someone might say "thinking it through," like it was a plan. In January 2013 I was thinking it over. Whether to make the movie David and I had been planning, <b>Speed of Sound.</b></span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was relying on David for psychological support. 16 speaking parts. 32 locations. 2 weeks. 65 pages of script. 70 scenes total. And I still thought feature films had to be made with expensive cameras I'd never seen before, with armies of people working on them, who spoke a secret Hollywood language that called clothespins C47's. David was the first person to encourage me to make a feature, and had experience acting and producing in them. He was a warm and creative friend. He was irreplaceable.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the end of January, my intuition hadn't changed and I decided to make the film on our original schedule. I divided the work David would have done for separate people and approached two friends of mine, Chy Chi and Erica Karnes.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chy and I made educational films for dentists. We had a good working rapport on those films and I was surprised at the quality we could get with just one person on camera and one on sound. We like the same art house films. She was already going to be the assistant director.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had acted in Erica's entry to HUMP!, an amateur erotica video contest. I liked the way she handled the large group of people acting in the video. And anyone who can get me in my underwear begging my girlfriend to get breast implants has some great producer skills.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We would schedule and budget the script collectively. Chy and I were focused on where we'd shoot and how we'd shoot it. Erica was writing copy for the Indiegogo campaign and doing most communicating with all people involved.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the screenplay, to keep a quality that was consistent with the original conception, there were two authors I was focused on;<span style="font: 12.0px Times;"> </span>Adolfo Bioy Casares and Jorge Luis Borges. They're both authors of novels and short stories and commentators on world literature. In their books, there is a fantastic quality that's like an ancestor to magical realism. There is psychological realism, lightly surrealistic adventures, and an urbanity to their styles that I wanted to emulate in the style for <b>Speed of Sound. </b>Adolfo Bioy Casares is my hero. He has a very personal style of comedy with elements of science fiction, surrealism, and mysteries. And always with a mordant view of romantic relationships. Jorge Luis Borges, Bioy Casares' friend and collaborator, uses imagery like mirrors, shadows, and dreams that resonated with the concept of <b>Speed of Sound, </b>which is about delayed messages, waves, and mortality. I reworked the screenplay as opportunities necessitated the changes.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writing up the schedule was an ordeal. There was one time at my house that me, Chy and Erica were working with all these post-its organizing for a shoot just two weeks long, with all these locations and people on the post-its, and the power went out in my neighborhood for two hours because of a hail storm, and I lost hearing in one ear. I would later see a doctor about it. It was uncanny because the title of the film is <b>Speed of Sound. </b>It wasn't the only uncanny coincidence. The concept was about a man who gets messages from a friend who died young. I would later regret how close to home it was.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When it came to casting the film, we would ask our friends. There were no auditions for <b>Speed of Sound. </b>There were lunches where we just talked about it ahead of time. And that was it. It's a convenient way to do it but it's also a pleasant way of going about casting that creates an intimate, spontaneous vibe to the performances.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't know anyone for Dave. Dave was the role developed for David Fetzer. I considered taking over the role myself and going Woody Allen-style; writing, directing, and acting in the central role. I thought that one over. Only that time I was waiting to see if it might not be a bad idea, which it was. I didn't want to cast John Kuehne in the Dave role because the part of Johnny was written for him and I didn't want him changing roles. None of my friends in Seattle were suited for filling the shoes of David. I was shit out of luck for a minute there, readers. We were moving forward with the Indiegogo campaign and we didn't know who was going to play Dave, the central character, who's in almost every scene, the guy on the poster.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought of one guy, Zach Weintraub, who I didn't know much about. I'd seen his feature <b>The International Sign For Choking </b>and liked it, and knew he was a Washington or Oregon resident. And I knew that he wrote and directed <b>International... </b>as well as acted as the main character. That was David Fetzer-like.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found out through Adam Sekular, who was then programming at the Northwest Film Forum, that Zach lived in Olympia, that he didn't have a car, and that he might<span style="font: 12.0px Times;"> </span>be down to act in my movie, I should ask him. This seems funny now to me because I think I got really lucky. Zach is a super guy and he was helpful to the whole process because he'd been involved in a bunch of feature films. I think it's funny because I could only think of one complete stranger in Olympia to hit up for the role, and it really worked out.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before production began, Erica and I made appointments to have Tarot card readings. Neither of us had ever had one done before, and a Tarot reading takes place in the script. I didn't know what one looked like. It was a perfectly spooky day when we went, too. The kind of day in Seattle where it rains all day long, and is dark like dusk but at noon. My experience (She took us into private readings separately) was that it was almost like an inkblot test, where she asked questions and I answered them, and then we'd interpret the cards. The card that came up twice in my reading was vacillation. Like a limbo period, not being here nor there. It was there where I bought the prop Tarot cards for the movie.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My hearing didn't get better. I had almost completely lost my hearing in my right ear. There was a lot to do in the days leading up to the shoot, so I was worried I'd have time to take care of it. Only two days before shooting I got in a doctor's appointment, where I received treatment that restored my hearing.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We went into the production with a lot of preparation. We were a small guerrilla unit, which made it easier to micromanage the shoot. And it went smoothly, despite many sudden changes. Parts had to be re-cast over night, for instance, but everything worked out.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The film was shot by Karina Whitmarsh, a portrait photographer from Lake Bay, Washington, who I'd met a year before on a film shoot. Karina was a great shooter for the film. She's very energetic and athletic (she teaches water aerobics on the side) and was resourceful with our tiny budget - which was especially important when time of day and practical locations are determining much of the look of a movie, and we had to travel frequently and quick. Phil Townsend was the second<span style="font: 12.0px Times;"> </span>photographer. Phil works as a sports photographer and he was great for working fast and moving fast.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the house we had rented for the actors, there was a hot tub in the backyard. The backyard overlooked Lake Washington. It was a great place to relax and drink beer after long days of shooting. The shoot was a lot of fun for me. And it was the least stressful period of the whole project.</span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the shoot was over, I made a spontaneous decision to go camping by myself. It was a little like a real-life reference to a part of the movie that involved camping. I thought it would be a good way to unwind and distance myself from things. It should have been a good refresher but not so much.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://thewatchingpatch.blogspot.com/2014/05/speed-of-sound-diary-part-three.html">Read Part 3 Here.</a></span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/8709839027/player/ac25be6beb" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/8703035683/player/52415c59c7" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span></div>
<div style="font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-45899942593388827182014-05-12T11:13:00.001-07:002014-05-21T12:39:17.340-07:00((Speed of Sound)) Diary Part One<br />
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>It's just about the one year anniversary of shooting <b>Speed of Sound</b>, I'll be posting the year-long production diary here in three installments.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13984322637/player/5907f750a3" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></i></span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>SPEED OF SOUND </b>Production Diary by Brian Perkins</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part One. Before Pre-production.</span></b></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I spent most of 2012 working on a project called You Poor Thing, which was supposed to be my first feature. It was a psychedelic monster movie that had some metaphysical ideas and film noir elements, and was going to be potentially so scrappy and lo-fi it could be shot on our phones. At first it was going to be shot in Milwaukee, then in Portland.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was an eccentric project for sure. The script was a mess, a loosely-knitted patchwork quilt of diverse influences. Ghosts and monsters appeared in it, filmed with lots of color but also with a documentary quality. That's what I wanted, anyway. It was myself (in Seattle) and several others in Portland, a small group of creative people but inexperienced film producers.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When David Fetzer told me he was moving to Seattle, the news was fucking delightful. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He was an old friend and I was relatively new to Seattle. He was a profoundly sweet man. He was a homey. He was a like-minded artist. We had been talking about making a feature for years. Around the time I was living in New York we exchanged emails about it for the first time. He thought we could make a feature together for probably, like, only $200,000. I said, "I think making a feature costs a lot more money than that." We were both around 20 years old.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2012, we're both around 30. He had been living in L.A. and was involved with making several feature films, both acting in them and working behind the camera. He'd been prodigiously involved theatre, forming his own experimental theatre company I was distantly involved with, doing some artwork for him and in talks with directing a play in Salt Lake City. So after a decade of talking about collaborating from different cities now we were both going to be living in the same city. Amazing. Just think of all the films we're going to make now.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There wasn't a part in You Poor Thing for David, but he wanted to help produce it. We were making phone calls together, to Portland, beginning to tally up what it'd cost to do this film. Things began to shape up, there were a lot of cool ideas in You Poor Thing and we already had a great soundtrack by Jordan Davis in Milwaukee.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the good ideas always brought the budget up until we were looking at a budget of about $70,000. We began the awkward speculation of what we could bring in<span style="color: black; font: 12.0px Times;"> </span>on Kickstarter. On the day before the third, failed fund-raising party we did in Portland I saw clearly that things were not falling into place for You Poor Thing. As David and I worked together, we were talking about a scripted, scheduled shoot with structure. I could only visualize You Poor Thing as a mess, a mess I was less and less willing to deal with. Though I loved its unhinged qualities. A stronger narrative appealed to me. So on the way to Portland I told David about a different idea I had for a film, one that was truly a "no-budget" project. Seriously this time. No monsters, no ghosts. It's just about a guy whose friend dies, and then a year later he gets a voicemail and texts from him. David plays the central character. The film follows him wandering around the city hearing stories about his late friend. It takes place in apartments and on the streets. It's mostly just people talking and hanging out. And it takes place in Seattle, where we both live. Perfect.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the money-losing fund-raiser, we had live bands, dj's, screenings, a raffle, and an announcement that we weren't making You Poor Thing yet, we were going to make a less expensive film first. It's funny for me to remember now that he told me the fund-raiser wasn't going to work (selling $2 cans of beer to other broke artists really doesn't earn you much money - and that's all broke artists are paying for) but he cheerfully came along and helped anyway.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the train ride back to Seattle we fleshed out the concept a little more. We passed a legal pad back and forth, making lists and drawings. David was fun to work with. He was who you imagined working with in art and showbiz when you were young and romantic about the process. Less ego than your average artist type, just an appetite for creating awesome shit. We both grew up in the time of Jim Henson, whose messages of friendship and creativity were tattooed on our brains as children. And then in high school we both got into experimental writers and art house film directors. He was attracted to doing my story of existential anxieties told with a positive feeling or a positive view of life, but similar in approach to absurdist writers like Harold Pinter.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I set to work on the script for "Speed of Sound" at the end of that summer and worked on it into the fall. The bad news came that David and his girlfriend Ashley were moving back to L.A. Oh my gosh no. Say it ain't so. It's true, David said, but it's not going to change anything. We're still making the film and I'll just have to fly back to shoot it. Okay. I pressed on, burying my panic with work. I was intimidated by being the only organizer in Seattle. I like the collaborative nature of filmmaking and like being in the same room with my collaborators. Now David was going to be another satellite collaborator.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We were going to stick to the schedule we drew up despite his moving to L.A. By December, we had a screenplay we were happy with. David was working on getting fiscal sponsorship from the Northwest Film Forum. We were going to wait until March to do the crowdfunding , calling the campaign "March Madness," and selling my basketball related art prints from the earlier fundraising events on the Indiegogo<span style="color: black; font: 12.0px Times;"> </span>page. And then we'd shoot the film in April. We shot a video for the Indiegogo page as he and Ashley were moving out of their apartment.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The last time I emailed him was in the morning on December 20th. I made a joke asking him about his "dirty thirties" (he'd turned 30 three days before) and I was updating him on the video I was editing. I found out he passed away about two hours after I emailed him. He died of an accidental drug overdose after drinking a couple glasses of wine and taking prescribed pain killers. It'd happened just the night before. A lot of our friends were already making plans to go to his funeral in Salt Lake City. I was flying to Wisconsin that afternoon. It was surreal. And I didn't have a precise response, emotionally or rationally. I went a little numb. Shut down.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David was really a saint. I picture him now as like a character on Fraggle Rock. A youthful, wise man, full of ideas and equipoise. With a dry, absurd sense of humor. And it's an honor to have his personality etched into my consciousness, like a colorful Fraggle, reminding me of the good things about making art. When I got back to Seattle, I wasn't sure if I wanted to make the film anymore. I wanted to think it over and make up my mind in the first couple weeks of January.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1a1a1a; font: 15.0px Times; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: magenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://thewatchingpatch.blogspot.com/2014/05/speed-of-sound-diary-part-two.html">Read Part 2 Here</a></span></div>
Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-42652157581567622802014-05-05T11:15:00.002-07:002014-05-05T11:15:16.602-07:00Ben Driving to Port Townsend<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zYfRdd7QIi8" width="640"></iframe>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-28567099848232989262014-04-22T08:26:00.000-07:002014-04-22T08:26:22.833-07:00Johnny Plays With The Squirrel Disco Ball<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wn2-xd3vup0" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Came across this phone video from just before the shoot a year ago...</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-5049669809122284952014-04-21T13:50:00.000-07:002014-04-21T13:50:36.044-07:00Speed of Sound *new* Trailer<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="393" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/92523992" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="700"></iframe> <a href="http://vimeo.com/92523992">Speed of Sound -- Trailer</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thewatchingpatch">Brian Perkins</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-47588586751249710002014-04-17T12:04:00.000-07:002014-04-17T12:04:09.428-07:00Len Lye -- "A Colour Box" (1935)<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6PgNr0IZRDE" width="480"></iframe>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-77901981657609772222014-04-14T13:39:00.000-07:002014-05-12T10:45:34.684-07:00Spring Update 2<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13855621655/player/65cd03f7d8" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13855622275/player/c80d8846a3" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After some years blogging here, this blog is now the namesake of my new production company, Watching Patch Productions, LLC. New website coming late spring/early summer. I've been hired to do some social awareness shorts for the University here and its because of that that I'm now starting a video production company. </span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-20638095573574385072014-04-07T11:14:00.002-07:002014-04-07T11:17:04.494-07:00At the Northwest Record & CD Convention<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13698331585/player/424c9343c3" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Found these at the Northwest Record & CD Convention at the Seattle Center yesterday. Above, a 45 from the Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr movie, Son of Dracula.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13699106604/player/c988440100" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm a fan of the Sonny & Cher soundtracks.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13699074104/player/42740338f1" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The whole record sounds good until you get to Natalie Wood's song, which has been ruined on this record by its previous owner's overplaying of it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13699116354/player/0351937aa2" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the back: "The story is a drama set in a lower middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn about a man named Nunzio, in his late 20's with the intellect of a 13-year-old whose greatest goal in his dreamlike world was to be a superhero."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13699090014/player/352bf2a114" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of Delerue's best.</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-63309365106993528232014-04-07T10:16:00.000-07:002014-04-07T10:23:40.601-07:00Badass Paperbacks<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13697364155/player/d4d581eb9c" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="391"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13697395403/player/22a7a51899" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="383"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Found these paperbacks at Cinema Books on Roosevelt recently. Hammett is an old favorite. This Ivor Montagu one looks interesting. He covers all aspects of filmmaking, circa 1964. Champion ping pong player, Soviet spy during WWII, editor of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger (1926)... interesting guy. I like how they join an image of Étienne-Jules Marey's photogun with Antonioni and Eisenstein stills.</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-44426294359331940592014-04-04T16:40:00.000-07:002014-04-07T10:18:27.266-07:00Luis Buñuel Makes Dry Martini<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YDKGmW-5nbw" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy Friday. Here's some interesting footage of Luis Buñuel making a dry martini. </span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-53956605365560245292014-04-03T10:07:00.001-07:002014-04-03T10:07:36.399-07:00Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic 1957-1962<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zbjSSyAo9WA" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm finding the legend of Harry Smith increasingly appealing in our digital age. I like being able to watch rare films on youtube, but there's something romantic about Harry Smith, the bounty hunter of cultural artifacts, going to real locations and collecting objects, compiling Folk anthologies, and making animated films that seem to be made from a secret, ancient, image-based language.</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-67388799824042437992014-03-27T10:58:00.000-07:002014-04-07T10:17:47.083-07:00New Facebook Page for (((SPEED((OF))SOUND)))<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13450869985/player/9b0711006c" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="611"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please like the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Speed-of-Sound/522890334488589"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">SPEED OF SOUND Facebook page</span></a> for updates and photos as we enter the festival submission rounds. Thank you!</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-65918360738990027282014-03-26T11:36:00.000-07:002014-03-26T11:36:00.275-07:00Basketball Series 3.27.14<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13431457924/player/3d2919eaa1" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="483"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't do these anymore but I couldn't resist this one, since their doing the anonym.us pose, kinda...</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-70149576423295055142014-03-22T09:28:00.000-07:002014-03-22T09:28:57.714-07:00Spring Update<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13331577274/player/83a25c95b8" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13331188865/player/0909d6ac71" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13331189215/player/e015352375" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13331578334/player/b6c02b5c27" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey it's spring. Time for adventures. Time to get hooked on magic, investigate mysterious places, and navigate minefields of romance. Am I right?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Post-production on Speed of Sound is still going on. I'm happy with this new version and am not making deadlines like I was in 2013. However, the only reason I'm not saying it's almost complete is because I've said it before and I don't want to be like the boy who cried wolf. So I'm not saying it's almost done, because of that. I'll be submitting it to festivals starting next month.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll be posting here a memoir-like five part making-of "diary" on Speed of Sound in the coming weeks. Maybe because of my friendship with David Fetzer and how we were working on the film, and everything else that followed, I felt compelled to write this. It's been exactly a year since our Indiegogo campaign.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been starting some exciting new projects, including Ages Ago-Go, a big, weird concept you'll be hearing more about in the future.</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-22349939782806967242014-03-16T09:20:00.001-07:002014-03-16T09:20:43.795-07:00Of Muppets and Men: the Making of the Muppet Show (1981)<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/eaBmbh3aWk0" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A behind the scenes doc with the puppeteering involved in the making of Jim Henson's Muppet Show. Beautiful stuff.</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-82140287295763254242014-03-15T17:32:00.000-07:002014-03-15T17:32:23.717-07:00Working the Big Works<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="245" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13178803005/player/ab23247833" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="800"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="395" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13179049194/player/7a8b40dc8a" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="800"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="462" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/13178787535/player/fb27e97c72" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="800"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More scans from Independent Video by Ken Marsh (1974).</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-18975440507317671072014-03-12T18:25:00.002-07:002014-03-12T19:01:40.982-07:00A Casual Introduction to Věra Chytilová<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Hey there, how's it going? This is casual. A casual introduction to an important Czech filmmaker who passed away today, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Věra Chytilová (1929-2014)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the last month, I've been thinking and journaling about Věra Chytilová so much that I can spell her last name without checking the internet and sort of pronounce it. She was the Czech film director of "Daisies" and "Fruit of Paradise"-- two feature films with one foot in experimental film and one foot in narrative. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To the American watcher, Chytilová is the maker of three available movies: Daisies (1966), Fruit of Paradise (1969), and the short film, Automat Svet (1966), which is part of the omnibus film, Pearls of the Deep. Since the rerelease of Daisies (beautifully done by Janus Films or whoever is responsible for that) and of it's soundtrack (by the wonderful Finders Keepers), its reputation has been growing in the last five years or so.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">She made a lot more films than that, but I haven't been able to find them even in bootleg fashion. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Daisies stands out. From descriptions of many of her unavailable films, Daisies remained an unusually bold film for the rest of her career, and many of its attributes were not consistent in her following films. In other words, if you've seen Daisies and want more, get in line. None of us here in the line are really expecting Daisies-calibre awesome shit, though. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But there is Fruit of Paradise, a beguiling and at least equally unconventional feature she made after Daisies. Fruit of Paradise is for now only available from a Facets DVD, and it's print quality doesn't look great. Maybe its reputation will grow once Janus and Finders Keepers get their hands on it, please?</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Fruit of Paradise is a great film but let's talk about Daisies. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It's an explosion of creativity and inspiration. It's Chytilová's second feature film. Her first in color. Her husband, Jaroslav Kucera, was the cinematographer on it and was a writer on it. They were expecting their first child while making it. And I think that's interesting. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Another major collaborator was Ester Krumbachová, who worked on the script and design---two big contributions on any film but especially Daisies, since the speeches were the only thing they kept from the script and much of the film plays out in beautifully designed tableaus. Krumbachová was a filmmaker, but primarily a costume designer who worked a bunch of times with Jan Nemec and also did Fruit of Paradise. She's a great, resourceful designer; the more I look at this work the more I admire it. She also co-wrote and designed Valerie and Her Week of Wonders---another amazing film with an amazing soundtrack released by Finders Keepers, and the design is one of the best things about it.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In my readings on Daisies, I haven't found anyone talking about Miroslav Hájek, who edited the film. He also edited Fruit of Paradise and a lot of other big Czech films from the 60's and 70's, like Milos Forman's Loves of a Blonde, for instance. I think it's interesting because Daisies has a lot of razzle dazzle in the editing department. And both Daisies and Fruit of Paradise have Stan Brakhage-esque parts with flash edits and unconventional printing that help define them as experimental films. Which isn't to say Hájek is responsible for them, but it raises some interesting questions.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">If you haven't seen Daisies, it's available bootleg-style on youtube multiple times, and lookin good on Criterion's Hulu page and DVD. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It's a movie that benefits from multiple viewings. It also avoids easy categorization completely. Psychology feels mocked by the film, like consumerism and romantic relationships. So the traditional arch of storytelling, with one event leading to another while the characters learn about themselves and change, is thrown into Chytilová's bonfire. And yet something keeps Daisies from being angry. It magically stays buoyant and wonderful despite trashing everything. Maybe it's because it's so sexy, funny, and unpredictable. It's a dense 74 minutes.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Based on my amateur research, seems like we've got a couple of films bookending her available films to look forward to checking out. Her first feature, Something Different (1963), which Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote influenced Jacques Rivette's Out 1, and The Apple Game (1976), her first film after being banned from making films and the beginning of a more naturalistic style. She made a lot more films after that but its hard to find much info on them. People writing about Chytilová will refer to other things written about her which I can't find anywhere, including something written by Rivette. What I've been able to find was in Peter Hames expensive book The Czechoslovak New Wave, the liner notes of the record for Daisies, and the internet.</span></div>
Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-7348628504140265732014-03-10T14:43:00.002-07:002014-03-16T09:13:19.563-07:00Grazie Zia (1968)<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1a6jIcm52c8" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The above clip is from the bizarre psychological drama, Grazie Zia (1968). The soundtrack for this movie by Ennio Morricone is a cult favorite, and readers familiar with my soundtrack night dj-ing in Milwaukee might recognize the music @:43. This film is the source of the beyond sublime "Guerra e pace pollo e brace".</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I finally saw the movie recently, from a bootleg-ish version from Scarecrow. It's a dissatisfying, sort of angry and disturbing movie about an incestuous relationship. It's full of great imagery though, as this clip attests. I think its probably even better if you know nothing about the context.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-27772449132027176872014-03-03T10:41:00.001-08:002014-03-16T09:07:13.138-07:00A Page of Madness (1926)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="381" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12910077855/player/623e3ae6ac" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This silent film always seemed like an anomaly to me, not fitting into historical groups or genres of silent film. I was reading about it recently and saw that the director made over 100 features, including Gate of Hell (1953) - which is streaming on Hulu's Criterion section. Also, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Yasunari Kawabata wrote it, whose novels and short stories I've read and loved. If you've never seen "A Page of Madness" check it out sometime. It's never gotten a nice release or restoration so this youtube video really is as good as it gets nowadays.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/W4wopkgcvO4" width="853"></iframe>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-49623408846393187602014-03-02T09:31:00.001-08:002014-03-02T09:33:00.253-08:00Technicolor for your ears Part 9<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12882411405/player/0dc8153c88" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="639"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a ninth iteration of soundtracks and library music mixes. This one comes from various sources. You can hear VHS transfers, vinyl-rips, and CD-quality releases hobnobbing together in a volcanic explosion of cinematic sound. <a href="https://www.mediafire.com/?vp6t7g1bzrbrxy4">Enjoy!</a></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
1. I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale - Guido and Maurizio De Angelis</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
2. Run Cheetah Run - Nico Fidenco</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
3. Celeste - Guy Pedersen</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
4. Ah! Mon Cher Hector - Dani</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
5. Watergate - Hugo Busoni</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
6. Bumbling Along - Nino Nardini</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
7. Capriccio - Piero Piccioni</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
8. Motore A Ioni - Piero Umiliani</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
9. The President is Gone - John Carpenter</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
10. Éternels Indécis A - Paul Piot</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
11. Les Levres Rouges - François de Roubaix</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
12. A Blue Shadow - Gianni Oddi</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
13. Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer? - Bruno Nicolai</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
14. Bree's Abandon (Take it Higher) - Michael Small</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
15. Jazz Graphics No 3 - Derrick Mason</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
16. Sei Donne per l'Assassino - Carlo Rustichelli</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
17. Anche Si Voless I Lavorare - Ennio Morricone</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
18. Alice au pays des syllogismes - Antoine Duhamel</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
19. Sililoquio - Gianni Ferrio</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
20. Un Altro Mare - Ennio Morricone </div>
Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-90651561052722440632014-03-02T08:29:00.002-08:002014-03-02T08:29:24.672-08:00More Post-Production Adventures<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12881957343/player/3d1229e6ed" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12881859015/player/e4036b14f7" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More post-production adventures today as Elijah and I put finishing touches on the VFX for Speed of Sound, utilizing the tools of modern videography.</span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-17768220631650999082014-02-23T14:36:00.000-08:002014-02-23T14:37:54.232-08:00The Finishing Line (1977)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/slJyhOEo-SY" width="640"></iframe></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another terrifying British PSA, or public service announcement, about safety. This one might be the mightiest. It is bizarre, surrealistic, long (20 minutes), and excellent. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But a warning: it's violent and scary. </span>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4161337065869151318.post-5775470774228902602014-02-22T16:16:00.000-08:002014-02-22T16:16:12.915-08:00Golgo 13 No. 1: The Impossible Hit (1989)<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="800" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12707388954/player/88ccfdbfa5" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="520"></iframe><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a weird artifact from my childhood. I bought this comic book while visiting family friends in the Upper Peninsula. I remember buying it with change. And it blew my mind while I sat in what I now remember as a haunted, Victorian mansion, but was probably just a slightly older, bigger house than ours. Now I can't help looking at it and thinking of Jean Pierre Mellville's </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name" style="color: #333333;">Le Samouraï. I must have been remembering it, in a way, when years later I loved Mellville's film. </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The comic book format here is interesting because this is basically an advertisement for a Nintendo game, with gamer tips in the back. It looks like they took the original Japanese Manga-size pages and blew them up to comic size, and sold that as tie-in merchandise. This makes it both lame and cool. Lame because, it seems like a cheap way of going about it, in more than one way. Cool because it looks like an 80's bootleg comic version of Manga.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="800" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12707386344/player/1f3a1c844c" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="538"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="800" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" nbsp="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelookingpatch/12706922525/player/6fbca8bb53" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="538"></iframe>Brian Perkinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12053158291602109510noreply@blogger.com0