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.