The Shoot the Moon Music Videos

still telling stories from our arts weekend over here…

The Shoot the Moon videos were a glorious disasterous funky pile of amazing. We expected that in doing these projects we’d have at least a 20% non-return rate. That was Clayton’s experience with the Consistent Variable Project’s in the past and the 80/20 proportion appears often enough that there are books about it, so you know. Anyway, for a while I worried that the entire 20% of misfortune and happenstance would fall on Shoot the Moon. All the dvd’s got slipperier, all the teams got later or trickier, I ended up doing a lot of running, and yet and yet…funky pile of amazing.

Tristan Brand screwed with my head to hilarious effects the most of anybody all Indyish Arts Weekend. A dubious sounding title, but nevertheless, Tristan should get mad props (there I said it) because he prank called me for the the making of a music video. Also, he makes a characterized parody about lack-of-follow-through throughout the video, which is something we all can be guilty of, and it’s actually funny. When he returned it, finished, after lying and saying he “didn’t think he could do it,” I was stoked but confused. But when I finally got to watch it I laughed and hollered. And no, Tristan, I didn’t have time to watch it right away when you brought it back in to get the joke, ok?? I was really busy. Standing. Watching over the return of the DVD’s. And worrying unnecessarily about stuff. Other important indyish co-founder stuff, ok?! Sheesh .)

Anurag Dhir is the type of guy who can rally up a highly talented gang of friends to spend 24 hours with him making a music video, and then come to the party, and then to his screening. Just a really nice guy, I guess. He made Concubine’s Lament feel like it was about something entirely more hellish that I had imagined any of the times I’d listened to it or heard it performed, but he’s right, that is a possible story sitting right there in it. The bar, the mask and dog are intensely perfect and the lonely way the devil walks from home to bar and back again is sad but wry survivor funny which also, I’d say, sits well with the song. And there are subtitles! Snazzy.

Lanken/Smith. Ahh, your art making friends. Your friends from potlucks at other people’s houses where you end up often talking a lot and enjoyably, who came out of the woodwork with sweet smiling shrugs to participate in your first ever 24hr Music Video Making. You never can tell which of the people you’ve told about something you’re going to do will manage to pop up, and it’s always such a surprising pleasure. I can recognize you guys through the distortion here and the half pseudonym, so ha!

I’m not sure these video makers are feeling fully delighted with how their 24hr project turned out. I think they set high standards for themselves, which is always good to be around, and I think 24hrs is a pretty insane limitation. Secretly, I just wanted to meet the people who would attempt it, and see what they would do with it. Pressure makes diamonds, as Tim Barnard wrote on his wall at Foufounes Electriques, and the pressure of the MVMC 24hrs was indubitable. What I notice about this video in particular is that there’s a sense of timing in the editing and movement that feels like it knows something about being musical. I find the stark shadow faces, the whole idea of performance and hiding, kind of a cool, non-narrative way to accompany the song. And I find the fact that they quickly taught themselves the notes to play very dear.

Which may be because I feel lucky I get to see it at all, given that um we lost it. Sorry guys. Our bad. The DVD made by Lanken\Smith made it to Shoot the Moon’s Dan Schachter for judging, and then it made it back to us via Dan, and then during the rest of the afternoon it slowly made it’s own way from the pile of returned DVD’s to the pile of blank ones. That’s what I think happened. Anyway, that’s where we found it weeks later after belligerently blaming poor Dan, heaping bile and suspicion upon him, his progeny, and all and sundry. Just kidding. Anyway, but in our major gaffe of the launch weekend, we did misplace it; and we thought sadly of it and then suddenly, with oddly excellent timing, Elran found it again. huzzah!

Nathan and Cynthia turned the story of Concubine’s Lament in a direction far away from procrastinating men, the devil, and distortion, and in doing so they won this contest. Their story features a stuffed owl and teddy bear and yet is fully creepy, and suspenseful, and if there was a word for making me make faces like a super stoked and listening-to-good-ghost-story kid, then that would be it. Anticipatory? No. That’s not it. The video Nathan and Cynthia made, once online, looks very dark because we lost detail in repeated transfers and compressions, but the light is lovely at high quality (as you’ll see, if you come to the Film Pop Screening) and the song feels like it’s being picked up and carried along by kid with a big ghoulish grin. The rolicking, waiting precision of the song loves the deliberateness and pacing of stop motion animation. And the Concubine’s feeling of someone or something else being there, of not being alone, gets to sprawl itself out luxuriously- vocals and the details in the bass and viola and all- into the space made by an incredibly simple but wholly original visual story. Very cool.
Big winners all, and thanks for participating. Watch for the hall of fame from the launch with all videos going up soon. meanwhile, see if you can find all the places we’ve got them online so far…
See you soon!
Risa