http://www.specialten.com Specialten is a bi-monthly publication on DVD featuring short films, music videos and exclusive interviews. en-us Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:29:07 PST http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Stewdio Syndicator 1.0 Video 2003-2010 Specialten. All rights reserved. http://www.specialten.com/media/shared/specialten.akkurat.gif http://www.specialten.com http://www.specialten.com/issues/22/Ana_Begins.html Ana Begins is a slow burning narrative that explores and embraces the confusions of suppressed desire. It is a subtle and intricate love story that prevents itself from being defined as such. Ana Begins is Ben O’Connor’s first feature film. As discussed openly in our interview with both he and Cosima the personal commitment to the film was unending. The project being funded largely by the actors themselves taking the parts on a ‘pay me when it succeeds’ basis, their sentiment was that they loved the script and just wanted to work with it. Matching this devotion, O’Connor had invested all of his own personal finance into the completion of the film. The interview appears in full on the DVD in this issue. http://www.specialten.com/issues/22/Micachu_Claire.html The intention was for the plan to be kept as vague as possible. The results from two very interesting characters meeting each other, one in their usual surroundings and the other performing their art, should be very interesting we thought... After immediately asking Micachu & The Shapes to come and play a couple of tracks at the home of Claire de Rouen we knew it would be miraculous if the session were not at least interesting. Claire’s history is fascinating, she is a character of captivating proportion, similarly Micachu is completely absorbing, she has an intrigue that engages you, her charm is so humble and honest that one senses there is a creativity and intense thinking running as a constant in her mind. We arrived at Claire’s place to shoot using a tiny very unobtrusive camera. We wanted to be able to move around, nothing cumbersome to get in our way and also, as much as we could, we did not want the results to be conscious of having a camera and sound equipment thrust into the faces of those being filmed. As well as trying to lose the awkward behaviour created by a camera, we had to overcome the fact that ‘Micachu & The Shapes’ were pretty blissfully unaware of what they were arriving into. Claire de Rouen meets Micachu session appears in full on the DVD in this issue. http://www.specialten.com/issues/22/Fears_Of_The_Dark.html “...Rusty alleyways and vaporous ghosts painted by the masters of dread. Razorsharp images that will slice your eye and nest there forever. Thrilling, Disturbing and haunting...”Guillermo Del Toro Fear[s] Of The Dark is a film project where a clutch of the most prolific graphic artists became the directors of a series of films interpreting inner fears, phobias and nightmares. Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Romain Slocombe, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Gerry Kramsky, Michel Pirus and Richard McGuire, illustrate, animate and tell out these stories. Each is of the caliber that you expect from this level of artist. Charles Burns using his enigmatic clean lines and 1950’s comic book horror, jar and contrast with the suitably dark etchings of Blutch, or Richard McGuire’s brilliant wordless episode of a haunted house, there is unquestionable quality to these illustrations that works so well with the subject. Interviews and extracts appears on the DVD in this issue. http://www.specialten.com/issues/22/Sigur_Ros.html The filming of “Gobbledigook” marks the fourth collaboration between Arni & Kinski and Sigur Rós. The results are superb for a video that will undoubtedly NOT be screened on mainstream television. The work they have created together carries a sense of freedom and love, but with “Gobbledigook,” Sigur Rós’ first single off their new album, the video takes the words freedom and love to a new plateau of expression. From conceptualization on, this project has been like nothing this team has produced before. The visual inspiration for this piece came from photographer Ryan McGinley. A cast and crew was assembled. Key elements included Christopher Doyle, the Director of Photography who is best known for his collaboration with Wong Kar-Wai for the film In the Mood for Love (Currently directing his latest film, Izolator). Arni & Kinski also had the great opportunity to work with Hank Corwin, an editor who has worked with directors such as Oliver Stone, Terrence Mallick and Barry Levinson amongst others. The video appears in full on the DVD in this issue. http://www.specialten.com/issues/22/Arbor_Deforma_Collapse.html We were thrilled sometime ago by the arrival of a letter and three small books from Robin Mackay, the editor and publisher of ‘Collapse’. Each edition of ‘Collapse’ has a theme or a title and is a collection of the most spectacular writings of philosophical interest and importance. By his own description Robin sees ‘Collapse’ as “really more like a book series than a conventional journal. It is to publish pieces that otherwise just wouldn’t find a home. It was conceived as a sort of pre-emptive ‘Salon des Refusés’ for people I knew who were doing exciting philosophical work that they, and I, knew was unlikely to appear in any ‘proper’ philosophy journal except on condition that it was stripped of everything that made it challenging and exciting - and even then, only to be seen by a very narrow readership”. The pages that follow were taken from the edition number IV subtitled ‘Concept-Horror’. The piece of writing itself is called ‘Arbor Deformia’ and the photography accompanied the article.