So of course I no longer live up at LSU and thus in turn no longer get to spend days in Spanish Town and hanging around Studio 151 and the Hopkins Black Box trying to create magic and help others learn techniques and styles and awesomeness.
Well I went back up yesterday to work on a performance piece for Benjamin Haas. The piece is called Tricycling. It essentially combines film and performance into one piece, basically what I was planning on going to grad school for and am still debating. (The reason I pulled out after I sent my letters is a whole different story that I might one day tell). Well Tricycling is essentially working around the genre known as Mumblecore.
Now Mumblecore to some is trivial and worthless. To others it's a genius genre. To me I don't get why people consider it a genre and then I do as well. Given, just as I argue that Chicago was one of the original Ska band, I also like to argue that 'My Dinner with Andre" is one of the original 'Mumblecore' films. While those who support the genre debate this at times, I believe it so.
Let's look at the facts. Mumblecore is an American independent film movement that arose at the turn of the 21st century.[1][2] It is primarily characterized by ultra-low budget production, focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors. While this was taken from Wikipedia we have to acknowledge the fact that it is a great place to start but not a great place to finish. OK so 'My Dinner with Andre' doesn't so much fit this bill exactly. BUT in my eyes 'MDWA' is essentially a higher budget version of this with professional actors, older actors, and a script. So, 'MDWA' while it might not fit the hipster bill of what Mumblecore is, it certainty was a launchpad for such a genre.
People say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, others claim copyright laws against those that claim it's parody. In the end these Mumblecore film makers, and I'm talking about the ones that people want to hold up on a pedestal saying that they started this new movement of dialogue driven character analysis, were simply pulling a relay from films such as 'My Dinner with Andre'. Whether they want to admit it or not it was before this time that Mumblecore enthusiast claim the genre was created and it essentially is a big budget version of what is being done by these directors.
In the end this post started in my head about how I drank a PBR after the shoot. Basically the whole point of this was to document the fact that I have been low carbing it for a while now and have lost a good amount of weight as well while on it and have not had a beer in about two months until yesterday. Why did I have one? Because I was working on a Mumblecore project. PBR just felt fitting at the end of it.
Everyone cracked one open and celebrated the end of the shoot and the start of a new project. We toasted to good friends and great stories. We toasted to thinking outside the box and the ability to be alive and create. We toasted to those that we don't see anymore and the chance for us to reconvine over an artistic venture.
Do I miss these people? Of course I do.
Do I miss LSU? Of course I do
Do I wish I could combine both LSU, Spanish Town, Performance Studies and my hometown of New Orleans? Of course I do.
Would I ever leave New Orleans to go back there for good? Now that would be hard because I realize that the things I like about Baton Rouge are simply the things that remind me of New Orleans. However Spanish Town is not that far away and I do plan to visit more often. It's a shame that I haven't made more trips up there, but hopefully it will all combine one day.
Well there ya go. That's what's on my mind today. I think I'll slide that right in my memory box and store it there for safe keeping.
No comments:
Post a Comment