MZUNGU "Teaser" Posted to VIMEO

MZUNGU - A Stranger's Dream in Africa (TEASER) from Psychotropic Films on Vimeo.

Premier Screening

2013 Arivaca Independent Filmmaker's Exhibition

March 2, 2013

Africa Reimagined

 

STILL IMAGE FROM

 

MZUNGU

(a Stranger's Dream in Africa)

 

a Psychotropic Films Digital Motion Picture Release

Spring 2013

 

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

 

Premier Screening

2013 Arivaca Independent Filmmaker's Exhibition

March  2, 2013

One Year Ago - A PRODUCE

Ambient music pioneer Robert Rich has a nice page with eloquent words reflecting on the person and music of our mutual friend and collaborator, A PRODUCE (Barry Craig), who passed away unexpectedly 1 year ago.   The link to "Barry Craig - Some Thoughts" from Robert's site is posted below the image.

WEBPAGE LINK HERE

See comment #15 under 'Comments' at the webpage for links to films that A PRODUCE and Psychotropic Films collaborated on over the past few years.

Review

 

Clipped from a movie review post by Jean Jessup on Saturday, March 31, 2012 as she covered the AZ 100 INDIE FILM event.

 

AZ 100 INDIE FILM is a celebration of the Arizona Centennial showing the best of 100 short films made in Tucson.   It was hosted by the Screening Room and featured entries from past years at the Arizona International Film Festival.

 

My film "The Outskirts of Infinity" was selected for this Centennial program.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

A necessary process?

Managing digital files for a film project is a challenge that becomes integral to the efficiency of that process.  If you can set-up a file structure that flows with the structure of the film - you can save time.  If you can use those moments of time wisely.....to experiment further, the result most likely leads to new creative directions, that will payoff and enhance/expand the project your directing.

 

Screenshot of random files for 'MZUNGU'

a digital film in development by

Psychotropic Films

AGT1500 In M48 Test Bed

Psychotropic Films presents the release of...

AGT1500 IN M48 TEST RIG

online at VIMEO 

Prototype AGT1500 Gas Turbine Engine - 1970

Development testing of the AGT1500 in a M48 Test Rig adjacent

to Avco Lycoming in Stratford, Connecticut

Digital Approximation

This image shows digital sound as illustrated by its frequency along time and color to represent intensity of the sound.

When designing new digital sounds, software allows the complete manipulation of digital information that represents the sound.  Individual frequencies can be enhanced or muted.  Effects applied that are limited only by the imagination.  Any sound can be broken apart and analyzed, recombined in new ways, then saved for use as an element in a piece of a larger sound design.

Digital is an approximation of our enviroment, but we experience it as reality.  That is the seduction of our technology.  When we dream, we believe it to be real .  Therefore in a digital environment, we live a waking dream.

An Image Supporting a Concept

                                                      CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE 

Uganda - East Africa

I look for fragments of digital video that support the ideas behind my film projects.  Then I further develop the inspired media to draw-out and express its hidden artisic content.  These artistic elements contribute to the evolution of the film in support of the original idea.

Day Residue to Screen at the AIFF

Psychotropic Films presents a re-crafted version of Day Residue on Wednesday April 18th, 8pm at the Screening  Room in Tucson with other Arizona made short works as part of the 21st annual 2012 Arizona International Film Festival

Synopsis: Day Residue - a psychoanalytic term related to random yet meaningful events in our day that become the basis for our intricate night-time dreams. In Day Residue, random yet inspired video and media images provided the basis for the filmmaker's 'waking dream' of life in Arivaca, Arizona.

 

Background: Arivaca is a rural Arizona town near the international border with Mexico.  I arrived in this place by chance in 1998 and never left. Inhabited by rugged individualists, artists, ranchers, prospectors, counter-culture types and off-grid enthusiasts, Arivaca is a unique cross-section of independents that prefer to live life away from authority.  

Although there was no specific intent in mind as video was captured over several years, the resulting film revealed a juxtaposition of people living an authentic life in rural Arivaca, with a nation's immigration fear, drug wars, a military presence and powerful (Orwellian) surveillance technology - all on the international border with Mexico at the dawn of the 21st century.

Over the years I have captured video fragments of interesting happenings in Arivaca with the intent to create a dreamy visual mystery of this place that the viewer can get lost in and wonder.  Inspired video and media images provide the film's framework.  And the 'psycho-active' ambient-electronic score by musician Richard Bone provides a lavish soundscape that is woven throughout this highly textured digital film experience.

2012 AIFF Film Schedule

Selected Short Films for the 2012 AIFF

Outskirts of Infinity Reviewed in Tucson

"Outskirts of Infinity" was an official selection for the AZ 100 INDIE FILM - commemorating Arizona's Centennial with the best 100 Arizona made short films.  

The Screening Room in Tucson hosted an AZ100 film night in March, where 'Outskirts' was exhibited. 

My film was reviewed by Jean Jessup at 'Movie Reviews from a Spiritual Perspective.'  Her review can be found online here: REVIEW

Creative Destruction

When I returned from 2-months in east Africa in late 2006, my audio recorder's SD cards were filled with sounds and my Sony TRV-38 digital camcorder captured many images on mini-DV tape.  I immediately began trans-coding and organizing these digital files and spent a year on a preliminary edit trying to figure-out what I came back with.  But then I stopped.

  

 The reason why I put the project aside was that I wanted to make this film (Tile: MZUNGU) my most artistic and avant-garde digital film to date.  I knew I was gradually  improving my editing and special effects techniques, but something told me I needed to wait. I wanted to earn it. So I waited.

But the future for this film is now.  I have the computer hardware and software technology in place, combined with the experience gleaned from previous efforts to make it happen artistically.  Mzungu when finished, will mark the completion of a decade-long series of short works that I would like to make into a DVD compilation.

When reviewing the original edit of the film recently that I started in 2007 - the original 'idea' or 'concept' for Mzungu was correct.  I see now that the 2007 post-production effort was only an outline of what the film will become.  Additionally the original edit was not only the blueprint, but significant 'artistic risk' that now I can translate into the style that has established itself in all my earlier work.

The process of deconstructing the earlier version of the film is now seen to have a purpose.  It showed that the concept was sound.  Now with renewed confidence in the project, it can move forward.  Looking forward to it.

Four Variations on a Theme

SINGLE-FRAME IMAGE FROM DIGITAL VIDEO - 2011 PSYCHOTROPIC FILMS LLC

A motion-picture logo for my film company precedes each film.  In a way it's kind of a 10-30 second 'micro-film'.  Most of the time I use an artistic moving image that has no home in any of my current projects.

The image above is a frame from a completed concept using a recently discovered 16mm industrial film and re-crafted ambient sound design riffs selected from electronic musicians A PRODUCE and Robert Rich.

Some of the readers of this blog know of the passing of A PRODUCE this past summer.  Some of the projects we were working on together continue to move forward. It really saddens me to think will not see some of these projects, but I know he was looking forward to getting his music out to an expanded audience.

I created four pre-visualizations of this logo, mostly changing the music and editing the imagery to work with the sound design. From that group I will pick the video-logo that works both artistically and one that meets some personal criteria that these logo ideas parallel efforts that are going into the feature films in development.

In this case, the video-logo will replace an outdated video-logo from the film Man Trap which was selected for this past year's Arizona International Film Festival.  The film has been going through a mastering and finishing post-production process since that screening (April 2011) and applying this fresh video-logo will mark the effort to bring Man Trap to its full artistic potential while preserving the original concept and intent that inspired the film.

As part of the process to decide which of the four variations in the video-logo to choose, I made some notes on what I felt were important considerations in the design of each logo film.  These considerations are not absolute, but each has weight and relativity in the decision.....

> Does the logo compliment (in style and impact), the film that will follow?

> Did I learn something new and/or innovate in the creation of the video?

> What artistic risk was taken in the creation of the video-logo?

> Does the piece work as a 'micro-film'?

> Does the video move the bar forward artistically in the creation of these logos?

> Will the viewer gain some insight on the structure and craft that symbolizes a Psychotropic Film?

When the final version of the logo is decided, a link will be posted to the site hosting the film.

Psychotropic Films Receives Trademark Designation

 

 CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

He Left Us Something Special...A PRODUCE (Barry Craig)

 

Sadly, a friend and musical collaborator on many of my films - Barry Craig (aka A PRODUCE),   passed-away unexpectedly this past Sunday.  My sympathies to Barry's wife Jane, and to his sisters and parents. 
A PRODUCE was a talented person who was prolific in creating unique and emotive music in the genre of ambient, electronic, trance and deep space music.

I will be writing more about my artistic collaborations with A PRODUCE as I collect my thoughts. 

Barry Craig - A PRODUCE

History Without Words

A long-forgotten engineering development film from the 1960's was located. The 16mm footage records the first test of a revolutionary new gas turbine engine for use in land vehicles, being developed at that time, by Avco Lycoming; a division of the AVCO Corporation in Stratford, Connecticut. 

The engine was orignally known as the PLT25; later the AGT1500. The photo above is a frame from the film, showing a test of the AGT1500 engine being conducted in a M48 tank chasis. The AGT1500 engine has a story. I'm working on ideas to put that history on film.

THE AGT1500 GAS TURBINE ENGINE

Short Film Filmmakers

Arizona's Independent Filmmakers with screenings at the 2011 Arizona International Film Festival on April 6th - Tucson. Left-to-Right: Joel Lopez, Brendan Guy Murphy, Bart Santello, Trevvor Riley, and Oscar Jimenez.   For a review of  all the short films screened at the AIFF. see TucsonFilmmakerMagazineOnline

Tucson Review of Man Trap

Here's a link to a review of my film Man Trap with a music score by A PRODUCE.  Man trap was shown at the 2011 Arizona International Film Festival this past April 6th. The review was conducted by Jean Jessup for her film blog "Movie Reviews from a Spiritual Perspective"

Review Link: MAN TRAP Review

I found the review a lucid assessment of how this reviewer perceived her experience of the film. Bart

Man Trap to Screen in Tucson April 6th

Psychotropic Films is proud to announce that Man Trap, a film about industrial landscapes, machines and the humans that tend to them, will screen Wednsday night April 6th, 2011 - 8pm - at the Screening Room, on Congress Street in Tucson as part of the 2011 Arizona International Film Festival's local short-film program.

On Man Trap - From the Filmmaker Bart Santello:  Deep inside the military-industrial complex, humans toil with technology to assist machines in birthing even more powerful devices.  These counter-intuitive symbols have detached us from our natural world.  Yet machines have become our children and technology our new nature.  Our obsession with technology has evolved the industrial landscape - the ‘man trap’.   Profoundly, each day, we enter the “man trap” to tend to the machines of our creation.”  

"Man Trap" was created from the conscious intention to visually exhibit a factory environment through a series of industrial portraits.  The photographic method intended to artistically capture a hidden visual aesthetic - with images derived from a seemingly an uninspired mechanized landscape.

As machines and technology become more embedded in the conduct of our lives, we have to channel more and more of our time and energy into developing and maintaining these complex machines.

Today, we are making a conscious choice to abandon nature and embrace technology as our source of life. Now in the 21st century it has become apparent that we are engaged in a symbiotic relationship with machines; one of co-evolution and perceived survival.

However, in this seemingly counter-intuitive relationship, humans obsessed with technology have become marginalized. At the same time, machines work tirelessly to build more and more powerful devices.

Integral to delivering the emotional impact of the film is a haunting psycho-active soundscape "You Send Me The Message" by electronic -trance electronic musicians 'A Produce' and 'M. Griffin', from the album "Altara".  (www.hypnos.com/aproduce)

Sent into Another World

I was thinking today whether 20,000 years is a short time or a long time to go from stone tools to the ability to travel to another planet......? 

The subject of my current film project: (Valentina Tereshkova) doesn't deal with the answer; just the question. The question of a human's relationship with its machines and the impact of technology on the human spirit. Cosmonauts traveled in the machines of their time. As technology replaces nature as our source of life, I think about 20,000 years ago.  Now we have trained atoms to run our planet. The brain hasn't changed much in 100,000 years. But life is different now.  Where are we; and how will this transition to technology change us?   I want this film to explore those ideas. 

Editing Rooms

I find contrast in the two creative spaces I have established for myself. One in the city, the other in a remote desert sanctuary.  I'm aware at a conscious level the contradiction they represent; because these environments symbolize themes that shadow most of my films: Humans/technology and digital/analog.

Phoenix, Arizona- 2010

Digital: The city conveys the omnipresence of technology, the power of digital technology and the efficiency in production that machines can bring. When I sit at my editing suite in the city, I know I can apply ideas and get things done.

Looking out at this modern city, I can't help but think my life inside an modern-day empire and its place in history.  I always find myself scanning the landscape and observing: All with the hope that from my perch I can watch everything play itself out and adjust as necessary.

As the city illuminates the darkness, I think of the meaning of our place at this moment..... That perception of reality is what my films are all about.

 Psychotrpic Films Studio - Downtown Phoenix

The Outskirts of Arivaca, Arizona

Anasazi inspired 'kiva' editing room (under construction) - adobe, Arivaca , Arizona builder - Bart Santello, creator of Psychotropic Films.

Analog: In another place will be an editing room like no other.  A space literally rooted in the earth - inspired by ancient peoples that made due for centuries in a harsh climate. This space symbolizes transcending back to that time by recreating their architecture, then being able to immerse myself in it.  While constructing this building, now in its fourth year, I want to translate that sense of craftsmanship into my films.  But also I believe that being in that natural structure proven by ancient-engineering, will allow myself to connect with something more transcendental.  I can't think of a better environment to develop new ideas in digital film making.

I like to keep one eye looking toward the future, the other eye back into the past.  Each approach is a balance.  For good reason.

Humans, Technology & Early Space Travel

Left-to-right: Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, Chief Designer Sergei Korolëv, Comonauts Yuri Gagarin and Valery Bykovsky. Image sourced from: Energia, Russia

The conceptual aspects of crafting my film "Valentina Tereshkova", continues my thinking into the dilemma humans face with our advances in technology.  Valentina Tereshkova was a young woman who's desire for adventure lead her to be the (former) Soviet Union's first woman Cosmonaut in space in 1963. Juxtaposed to Valentina was Sergei Korolëv the (secret) "Chief Designer" who lead a team of dedicated scientists and engineers into history with the first working machines of space travel. My film is about the moment in time when their histories intersected.

Having two characters of interest in the same 'story' has really opened both a fantastic opportunity and creative challenge to apply my perception of history on digital film. So far I'm finding that my previous films are providing me a map of sorts - like building blocks of filmic elements, that when combined (like in chemistry) create a pattern which will be the story that emerges from the fragments of film available on the topic. 

While examining scenes of the film completed to date, I'm finding a framework for speculation, of where this film wants to go artistically from this point forward.  Bart

Editing The Unknown

Scott Hellon (back left) / Bart Santello (front right) at the post-production studio of Psychotropic Films, downtown Phoenix

It was a fantastic past 7-days.  Scott Hellon of Point of View Pictures came up from Tucson and in a week of what I would call a video-editing jam session.  We were able to motivate each other and to collaborate on our current film projects.  We also watched some of our own work and provided each other background on the filmic thought process behind our ideas for film.

We did a really cool experiment converting 16mm film to digital using a telescene method of filming and recording digitally.  The film was an old industrial film - the look was beautiful meaning it contained a lot of artistic elements.  It was a great feeling to realize what was just a hunch, is now the basis for a possible new film.

I enjoyed helping Scott evaluate the editing of his feature "Decision to Ask Why".  The film's ambitious independent effort, that is now what I'm beginning to see as Scott's unique filmmaking style.

All week I kept thinking "....I'm having a good time."

Screening the future

Filmmakers gathered at Psychotropic Films 'post' studio this past weekend in Phoenix  to screen several shorts and preview progresss on 'Valentina Tereshkova' a film under development by Bart Santello.

Psychotropic Films announces "Valentina Tereshkova" for release in 2011

"Valentina Tereshkova is not only about a brave woman that wanted to explore space, it's also about the technology it took to get her there."  Bart Santello - Filmmker

I've been curiously researching the Soviet space program while working on another project.  From this process, a film kind of 'spun-off' and birthed itself from ideas on early space travel.  Now it's all I'm thinking about (..how to put this film together).  I'm getting a sense that through the production of Valentina Tereshkova, I'm starting to see how some of my future films can be developed. At the same time, I 'm applying visual textures and themes from some of my earlier films (Intangible, Controlled Bleeding, and Man Trap).  I'm discovering how I can build-upon those previous works in order to bring renewed excitement in the lost art of crafting a 'motion picture'.

I have several more months of post-production to do on this film.  But after viewing the first 'pre-visualiation' rendering a few days ago, I knew I had all the artist elements in place.  It's like a feeling of...."Now I have the roadmap."

I hope to have this short film ready for the Arivaca Independent Filmmakers Exhibition scheduled for March 6th, 2010.

"A Produce": Soundscapes for Film

A Produce in his LA studio (August 2009)

Photo & Artwork by Bart Santello (background image: NASA)

I was in Los Angeles last week, so A Produce and I got together to watch a re-crafted version of my film Man Trap which I plan to show at the 2010 Arivaca Independent Filmmakers Exhibition. The film features the A Produce soundscape "You Send Me the Message" from his album Altara with Mike Griffin from Hypnos Recordings. The 36-minute sonic tome was ideal sound design to imagine the bleak industrial landscape conveyed in Man Trap.

We spent a good part of the day listening to music and sound design that may be applicable to current and future films that Psychotropic Films has under development. A Produce will be providing several songs in support of the forthcoming film "Mzungu" a dream-like journey into the heart of Africa. Also, the future feature-length space film "Echoes of Apollo" will have music exclusively from A Produce.

My philosophy is that a musician should develop a idea independently. What I do as the filmmaker is find a place for the soundscape with the appropriate imagery. The result: A Psycho-active film experience.

Frozen Moment

To A Produce,

I listened to your "Frozen Moment" sonic: I really like it. I would definitley call it a "trance" piece. From a filmic standpoint, some imagery came to mind while listening to it that I think will

EARLY AMIGA COMPUTER ANIMATION

really help to focus the viewers attention to visuals in the film (that's where the 'trance' aspects of the music comes in. I think Loren and you should massage it and add it as a track on the forthcoming Intangible CD. Sonically I think its there. But if you want to take it a step further, I would suggest bringing in some 'finishing' sounds that will add to the spatiality and texture of the piece.

I think I can fit this into a development film I'm working on about the early computer video graphics. Thanks for sending it over and giving me a listen. It's already sparked some new ideas and confidence that the current path is the right one. Bart

Screening

L to R: Scott Hellon (Filmmaker - Point of View Pictures), Brian McLaughlin (Producer, Actor - Good Boy),
Bart Santello (Filmmaker - Psychotropic Films), and Patrick Roddy (Director - Good Boy)

_

Tonight Patrick Roddy's "Good Boy" screened at the 2009 Arizona International Film Festival.
This eclectic new feature film by Patrick was well received. The house was packed by a partisan Tucson filmmaking crowd.

In the film's story, a young man sets off west to start a new life, but on the back roads of Louisiana, he doesn't get too far.

Arizona International Film Festival

Bart Santello and Psychotropic Films announce that Controlled Bleeding - A Nation's Nightmare, selected for this year's Arizona International Film Festival; will show at 8:00pm Wednesday April 22nd at the screening Room (127 East Congress, Tucson).

See Link: http://www.filmfestivalarizona.com/detail.cfm?id=VS_465_2009

Controlled Bleeding is a film about addiction and dreams turned to nightmares. In the case of this film, I chose 'oil' as the addiction. Dependency envokes all the epic human struggles: David vs Golith, man vs machine, nature vs technology. These are the themes I routinely work with in digital. Controlled Bleeding presents my perception of recent history; with the resulting chaos, a familiar consequence of addiction.

Intangible v3.0

Currently I'm working some re-edits on "Intangible". Finishing touches.......Getting to the final-final.

"Outskirts of Infinity" to screen at Arivaca Independent Filmmakers Exhibition

Newly released version 6.0 of "The Outskirts of Infinity" will show Saturday March 7th, 2009 at the Arivaca Independent Filmmakers Exhibition. See website for details: http://arivacafilmexpo2009.blogspot.com/

Version 6.0 came about after the master (software) editing file for version 4.0 was found to be corrupted. A backup of verision 3.0 was used to rebuild the film. However during this re-editing process, ideas to bring this film to its full artistic potential were realized.

New creative 'elements' were added, such as an actual Jaguar image photographed in the Ruby area. The Jaguar tied-in beautifully with artist Peggy Kane's Jaguar Shaman painting in Sundog's cabin at Ruby. The inclusion of these images has now provided a symbolic gateway, linking the past with the present.

Additional film clips utilized from the only surviving 8mm footage of Ruby from 1939 (known as the 'Crabtree' film), were selected to reflect a sense of a time long since forgotten.

Also, precision editing has helped improve the flow, pacing and transitions throughout the film.
Psycho-active effects were added and optimized. The film's texture and color were re-crafted as necessary for maximum effect.

Finally, in post-production, the film was rendered in two-channel Dolby Digital Stereo and enhanced for wide-screen (16x9) televisions.

A poster for the screening of 'Outskirts' can be viewed by clicking here: POSTER

Nurishing the Spirit of the Independent Filmmaker

click on image for portal to the event's website

http://www.psychotropicfilms.com/

Peggy Kane’s – Jaguar Shaman

In regards to the new version 6.0 of my film Outskirts of Infinity; I’ve been thinking about how an art piece can be used and an ‘element’ in a film. Just like elements found in nature that can be combined together to create new compounds, as in chemistry; I used in the film, Peggy Kane’s Jaguar Shaman painting (photo) Ironically, both Sundog (as himself in the film) and I, both competed in bidding for it at the fundraiser for Patti Lopez a few years ago. Later Sundog had the painting displayed it in his cabin in Ruby, Arizona where ‘Outskirts’ was filmed. I was attracted to the painting all along; and now in retrospect, I’m glad Sundog won the auction.

I saw this painting as an ‘element’ making up the structure in my film. And now in version 6.0 of “The Outskirts of Infinity” this artwork helps link Sundog to an earlier time in Ruby’s history through an interdimensional gateway – provided by the Jaguar and the Shaman.
Note: “The Outskirts of Infinity” will be screened at the 2009 Arivaca Independent Filmmakers Exhibition on March 7th in Arivaca, Arizona

A few years back when digital media was becoming a reality, I saw the opportunity to use digital film technology in an artistic way. This has allowed me to express ideas and information as dreams - without a point of view; thus open for interpretation.

Photo: Still image from my film 'Intangible' View film online at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfR_nr6a_TU

email to 'a produce'

A Produce: I just want to let you know that I completed release 5.0 of "Outskirts of Infinity" last night. This new version of the film feels good. It's chock-full of new and improved visual elements. I really tightened-up the film and eliminated all the things that were bugging me over the last 3-years (e.g. opening pan shot of Ruby and uninspired montage of 'Ruby' in the first 1/3 of the film). Importantly....at the same time I retained aspects of the film people enjoyed (e.g. the shovel pile). I added a host of new psycho-symbolic images and visual textures to suggest additional inter-dimensional gateways and reinforce the absence of time.

I added additional scenes of Ruby from the only surviving 1939 8mm film of the mining town.

By the way; I worked on the remaster of your piece "Within Reach", by reducing the mid-range, adding compression and tightening the tonal range to provide warmth. Previously for the film, I felt the song was too sharp and the highs too loud. Now I feel the viewer can be enveloped in the sonic and carried along with the scene of the flying bats, without any subconscious distraction.

I'm plan to shown this new version of Outskirts at the 2009 Arivaca Film Exposition on March 7th (2009).

PS: One last thing. "Outskirts of Infinity" is now even more like being in a lucid dream. When viewing this film I'm feeling like I'm living inside that dream - the dream of Ruby, Arizona.

I'll get you a copy soon.

Regards, Bart