Monday, February 25, 2013

Project8: Dust (Reprise For Woman)

Subject: Colette Nguyen

Project8 Time: 7hrs

Project52 Time: 48hrs


So I fell in love with last weeks Project but I felt like the topic of dust wasn't fully explored. I asked myself, "What was left untapped?", and I realized it was the object of femininity. I needed a woman! I felt like there was a delicate sensuality that I wanted to capture that I could only get with a girl. So I had this inner turmoil of "Should I revisit the concept?" vs. "Hell no, Billy! Do something new every time!"Eventually I realized that by revisiting the concept with a woman it would be something different. It would be a beautiful exploration of liberty that I just couldn't resist. 

I always get what I want, naturally, so I called Colette and told her to meet me for a shoot! First we took extra care and completely lined our space with painters plastic to be really careful not to make a mess. (Forewarning: We did.) We were aproaching the dust a little differently this round and using baby powder... a lot of baby powder. Like the we-can-powder-all-the-baby-booties-in-China amount of baby powder. So once the space was "secure" we jumped right in. Colette was a real sport since basically she was breathing and eating baby powder over the course of three hours. Once we played with enough ideas of covering her in the dust we decided to clean up. 

I came prepared and armed myself with some cleaning materials. I thought it was only fitting to bring baby wipes... So we rolled up all the plastic and it actually did a pretty good job! Once we cleaned up the three or four spots of powder that got through the plastic we decided to pack up. As we turned around we realized everything behind us was covered in baby powder residue. (I really like the word residue) Basically we spent the last 30 min of our shoot on hands and knees scrubbing everything in the studio with baby wipes... It's not a fun process. Overall, set-up, shoot, and clean-up took 3 hrs. 

I really took a while editing this one. It took me about 4 hrs overall. I wanted it to be breathtaking but hopeful. The hardest part was choosing which clips to use because I really fell in love with all of the footage. It needed nothing. No reverse, no color correction, I loved it just as it was. Once I compiled all the clips I wanted I rearranged them to see how I wanted to present the work. I liked the song I was using but I felt like there was something missing. Hope. It was missing that hopefulness that I so badly wanted. I decided to edit in one of my favorite speech's of all time. Charlie Chaplin's final speech in "The Great Dictator". It was exactly what I wanted. It fit the description of the work perfectly. It spreads unity, and joy. It does everything I wish for my work choreographically, visually, and emotively to do.

I love this one. I hope you do too. 


Monday, February 18, 2013

Project7: Dust

Subject: Joey Arrigo

Project7 Time: 3.5hrs

Project52 Time: 41hrs

This project turned out to be one of my favorites. I feel like I end up saying that every week, but it's true! They just keep getting better and better! I was worried at first with this one because I didn't have a lot of time to commit to it. I decided to step away from the idea of complex project and just really show the body, much like Project1. And boy did I pick the right body!

Joey Arrigo has been a friend of mine for a while and we were working together this past weekend when I had the idea to use him as the subject for Project7. I rented a studio for two hours on Sunday night and we got to work! I decided to paint Joey's arms and chest in a white dust-like make-up I felt like I wanted to give him an other-worldly physical quality to match his unique movement. I also enjoy the dust created a tired look. I gave Joey some improv ideas based on the image of clouds of dust and small explosions of dust and I got the exact movement I wanted. Overall, we set-up, lit, painted, shot all the footage we needed, and cleaned up in two hours.

Editing this one was pretty difficult, mainly because I had so many beautiful shots I wanted to use but my track was only around 4.5 mins. I wanted it to feel very intimate as well (my favorite moment in the film is at 1:15, and pictured to the left) so I wanted to make sure I included a lot of close-to-body shots to see the intricacies of hist muscles, the dust, and the undulation of his spine. It took me around one and a half hours to edit this bad boy (the film). 

I hope you enjoy! As always let me know your thoughts!

Billy Bell | Artistic Director

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Project6: Element


Subject: Skylar Boykin

Project6 Time: 6.5hrs

Project52 Time: 37.5hrs


I wanted Project6 to be special because I was on tour with Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet this past weekend in Dallas, TX. I'm a huge fan of the dance training in Texas especially from a studio called Dance Industry in Plano. I wanted to take advantage of the local resources so I called up Skylar Boykin. She's a really kickass girl who dances with such grace and beastliness simultaneously, that I couldn't resist. 

We decided to shoot outside of the theater the Cedar Lake was performing at, the AT&T Performing Arts Center. It has a really wonderful sleek modern park out front and was calling my name since the day we had arrived. There was a great grass area with a stunningly crafted arts building behind it, resembling a sort of iron-work forest, some long stone bench areas, and the best part... a reflecting pool! As we shot, I felt a little elemental theme going on, which is how I ended up with the title. 

I gave Skylar different very basic tasks per set; a line oriented task for the grass, a falling concept for the  stone, and a circular idea for the water. I tried to direct her on how each element would function kinesthetically. She provided me with way more than I could've hoped. I found myself literally laughing with excitement at points while I was editing. We filmed everything in 2hrs.

***UNRELATED FUNNY SIDE STORY***
We soon realized that we were indeed in the south, as we shot the scenes on the stone. Here we were minding our own business, creating a nice little artsy film when out of no where a representative from the theater comes up. As I've said before not all the places I shoot necessarily give us permission to shoot so we just sort of do it and deal with the situation if it arises. (Art takes no prisoners!!!) I feel her disapproval and turn to take my scolding. I received just that, but not for what I thought. The little lady, in her finest southern accent say, "I hope you know, this is a real family-friendly kinda place here. We don't really find some of the positions she's in very appropriate." Dance? You don't find dance positions appropriate? At a performing arts complex?!? "I would appreciate it if y'all could just tone it down." I politely agreed and she went on her way. For the remainder of the shoot she stood inside the glass lobby of the theater and watched our every move. Praying that the wind would pick up just right and blow Skylar's dress up so she could throw her disapproval stamp right onto our faces. 
***END OF UNRELATED FUNNY SIDE STORY***

I edited this one on the flight home to NYC which is why it took so long. Final Cut Pro doesn't really get along with my MacBook Pro. I had fun with this one since there were so many different looks to edit in. I decided to be a bit more musical than usual with this one and I really enjoy how it turned out. It took around 4.5hrs to edit this badboy.

Hope you like it!


Project5: Vaporize

Subject: McKenna Birmingham

Project5 Time: 8hrs

Project52 Time: 31hrs


Ok... I know... this is late. I've addressed it and now we can move forward. I'm realizing that as my year goes on and my schedule fills up that Project52 isn't the easiest task. Surprisingly it's not the filming and editing that is hard to find time for. It's the consistently updating and promoting the project that gets pushed under the table. But I'm doing it now to catch up! So here it is:

This is one of my favorite projects to date. I decided to shoot my former-roommate, Juilliard classmate, and long time friend, McKenna Birmingham. She's a really wonderful mover and has such an eye for film. She helped me a lot, not only by dancing, but also with ideas of different angles to shoot from and ways to pull off some of the "magic" with the balloons. So this is a HUGE "Thank You, McKenna!"

I had wanted to do this idea of the balloons leading someone around for a while and finally felt it was the right time and place to do it. I had a vision of someone leaving this life, but not necessarily in a morbid, sad, woe-is-me, dramatic way. I felt like the balloons allow the viewer to instantly associate the film with a happy or nostalgic thought, so what better than to use it as a guide to a more serious inevitable event? I didn't want to give death, in this case, a negative connotation so I tried to make it a more surreal, or even spiritual occurrence in this subject's life. 

I let McKenna be pretty free with the movement and asked her to just move where the balloons took her. We had many shots that didn't end up in the Project because the balloons would get so tangled from the wind that I would have to jump in the frame to save McKenna from being strangled. I think she and I both found it much more difficult to film than we had anticipated. Overall, it took us around 4.5hrs to shoot the entire film.

Editing this one was fairly easy since there was a clear narrative for me to work with. I really had no challenges with this one, other than to figure out what music I wanted to pair it with. I took me around 3.5hrs, some Indian food, and two glasses of Whiskey to edit Project5! ;)

Enjoy!