"I think that the future for a revolutionary cinema is an amateur cinema. And technology is the only possibility we have of making a popular cinema, the true possibility for the people to express themselves on a screen." - Jean Luc Godard
Hello. Elston Gunn here.
Perhaps you are familiar with Wholphin (website HERE), the DVD magazine published by McSweeney's in an effort to release films that have had a limited audience elsewhere, or experimental contributions from established filmmakers. When my latest issue of Wholphin arrived in the mail about a month ago, I enjoyed a wonderful new short by filmmaker Carson Mell. The film was entitled CHONTO and centered on a country singer recounting a past experience. I found it bitingly funny. There was substance, originality, accessibility, something to say. The style and illustrations of CHONTO seemed very familiar to me, then quickly realized I had seen Mell's work previously in the form of his short THE WRITER, which appeared in the debut issue of Wholphin. Later, I discovered the magazine's third issue featured BOBBY BIRD THE DEVIL IN DENIM, an interactive short boasting the lead character from CHONTO. In other words, every other issue Wholphin has contained a short by Mell since the publication began. And they're all the better for it. After viewing CHONTO I immediately headed for Mell's website (HERE) and explored his other work: shorts, music videos, news regarding his illustrative novel SAGUARO.
If you can, check out the Wholphin shorts, look out for his new short FIELD NOTES FROM DIMENSION X, hop on the cusp of the evolution of a new American original and join in my delight in taking a moment in the middle of blockbuster season -- not to mention my 10-year anniversary (HERE is my first article) contributing to AICN on July 6 -- to shine a little light on the creator of these homemade films.
And I don't mean "homemade" in the negative sense. YouTube and the like may be a wonderful vehicle for anyone with short films of their cat, but what if there can be more to it than that? Godard might be on to something. Sure, people have been making experimental films for decades, but they've struggled to get their work seen and didn't have the new medium to scout.
In fact, The New York Times filed a piece (HERE) last month about Tribeca and Amazon's Reframe service, a digital forum for films with little to no distribution -- not unlike the idea behind Wholphin, who also are currently putting some of their films online. The internet and other alternate means of circulation, such as DVD magazines, are where it's heading, folks. The future of (some) cinema will be a film festival on your lap.
Nonetheless, Mell recently took time to answer some questions for AICN.
[Elston Gunn]: How do these projects begin? They feel like they could either begin with sketches and then fashioned into scripts later, or the story might come first with the illustrations based on the printed word.
[Carson Mell]: Of all the cartoons I made, each started with a script, though some of the writing is done to facilitate something I want to draw. The hard part of working like this is making sure the drawings aren't redundant when you go to do them, or that they convey more information than just the words. I usually write the scripts like short stories, then cut out anything that can be conveyed visually.
[EG]: I like how you superimpose illustrations over photographs. What is the idea behind that and when did it occur to you to try it out?
[CM]: I made THE WRITER for a DVD magazine my friends were making a few years back, and I was up against a deadline to get it done and didn't have time to draw all the backgrounds. That's how it started, and I liked the way it looked so I just kept on doing it. Now it's become a challenge of its own, finding mansions and jungles and things to photograph. But LA, where I live, is great because you can find basically every kind of setting you'd ever need.
"Godard contended that video was a superior medium because editing on film was limited to placing the images sequentially, whereas video permitted superimposition of multiple images, or the incrusting of one image within another, directly in the editing room, without the cumbersome, inexact, time consuming, and expensive intermediary of a special effects studio. He considered the ability to see two images at once, by means of video editing, to be a crucial tool of visual analysis, since it permits 'thinking two aspects together, to think montage, to think mixing.'" - Richard Brody on Godard
[EG]: THE WRITER is like an illustrated monologue. It's entertaining by itself with your eyes closed - imagining it, say, as a surreal radio play - but then you have this whole other world going on visually. What was the primary inspiration for this film?
[CM]: The character just kind of popped into my head as a mediocre but very confident writer. He's self aware enough to know he's not a genius, but he's very proud of his ideas and feels all of his experiences are very profound. While the short is poking fun at him a little, I respect his confidence. Some people have told me they feel like the short is just a portrait of a guy who's a total asshole, but I don't like making movies or stories about people I don't like, so that definitely wasn't the intent.
[EG]: The line "take a movie you like, take your shitty life, mix it up and you see if anything happens" rang pretty true. Everything is derivative to a certain extent. What movies, music, art have influenced your work?
[CM]: When I'm writing I think a lot about rock and country lyrics. I love the way that singers can tell such huge stories in three or four minutes, leaving so much for your imagination to fill in. That's why Bobby Bird's whole life story is only a hundred and fifty pages long.
I'm also really influenced, stylistically and otherwise, by independent comics. I always liked that there's a no holds barred feeling to the content. Working alone on these has given me that same kind of freedom where I don't have an editor or anyone telling me what to do.
"I prefer to consider myself a producer, but in the sense of the Internationale; 'Producers rely on yourselves,' because if you count on others to produce, you are lost." - Godard
[EG]: What kind of independent comics have influenced you?
[CM]: When I was younger I was better about picking through everything and finding lots of stuff I liked. I really liked LAND OF NOD back in the nineties and I still remember the guy at the comic store making me get my dad's permission in front of him before he'd sell me the first issue of Charles Burn's BLACK HOLE because I was 15 looking 12 and there was sex and drugs in it.
I really like anything by Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and I love looking through the any issue of Kramer's ERGOT. And I like Sammy Harkham's new comic CRICKETS.
[EG]: When do we get to see Episode 2 of THE WRITER and/or the character's novel STAR RAPER?
[CM]: THE WRITER 2 has officially been scratched. However, I am working on a new project called FIELD NOTES FROM DIMENSION X that in my mind is co-written by the character of THE WRITER. I've got one episode of it finished now, and hope to finish a novel that expands on it same as SAGUARO did on THE DEVIL IN DENIM.
[EG]: In FIELD NOTES FROM DIMENSION X you've gone back to the character in first-person giving a monologue of sorts, though in a different setting. What inspired this character and story?
[CM]: This character, Captain Rogard, actually comes right out of THE WRITER. I've been rolling this story about an astronaut around in my head for a while, and this is the first manifestation of it. I'm really impressed by the kind of diligence it takes to become an astronaut. This character came about the same as Bobby Bird, just sort of constructing bits and pieces of his history until I'm interested enough that I want to fill in the gaps.
[EG]: BOBBY BIRD IS THE DEVIL IN DENIM is the prequel to CHONTO and you did something interesting with it on the Wholphin DVD by making it an interactive short film. Every tattoo on this naked haggered Americana musician tells a story. How did that idea come about? Had you already envisioned it as separate vignettes? Again, carrying over from THE WRITER they feel like -- without sounding too pretentious -- these poetic lyrical anecdotes.
[CM]: When I was a kid, a friend of my dad's used to turn me on to all the coolest stuff. He brought me to the best Ripley's Believe it Or Not Musuem in Las Vegas, which is gone now, and told me all about the Winchester House. And he was always talking about the movie THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, and when I finally rented it I was really dissapointed in the fact that the tattoos told stories unrelated to the guy who had them.
I thought it was going to be a whole movie about why and how he got each tattoo. So, later I decided I could make that movie, and it was at the same time when I just learned to author DVDs, so I wanted to do something worthwhile with that knowledge.
And speaking of pretentious, when I was working on THE DEVIL IN DENIM I told my girlfriend at the time, "You know, it's going to be like little animated poems." So, I feel validated to hear you call them that.
[EG]: At what point, then, did you decide to take Bobby's story further with CHONTO and the illustrated novel SAGUARO?
[CM]: After I finished THE DEVIL IN DENIM I couldn't get Bobby Bird's voice out of my head. I was always thinking of lyrics, and scenarios he'd get into. I was working on an unrelated feature script at the time, and as a fun break I'd write Bobby Bird stuff. After I finished the script I realized it was a piece of shit, and looked at all the Bobby Bird stuff I did and actually liked it.
So, I worked for a couple of months making it coherent, and then the novel was done. I thought I was done with the character, and then on a roadtrip last May I thought of the first bits of the CHONTO story, and wrote that script. I want to retire Bobby Bird now, but I've already written more and I know he's not quite dead yet.
[EG]: Your humor in the films feel like nothing else out there and you seem pretty plugged into human behavior. Is that something of which you're pretty conscious, trying to keep some reality in there?
[CM]: The main if not only thing I am ever try to stay conscious of when I'm writing is, "is this funny or not?" I feel like that's the only thing I can gauge at all. When I'm done writing something, if the characters and situations don't seem real to me, then I just throw it away. So, that is something that I think about, but only after the writing is pretty much finished.
[EG]: Animals, nipples and erections pop up throughout your work. You're taking these primal elements and presenting by way of these modern ideas. Do you feel there aren't enough animals, nipples and erections in what you see today?
[CM]: I wish there was more nudity in entertainment in general. It stirs up a lot of different emotions, and instantly demands your attention. It's also more fun to draw than people in clothes.
[EG]: What kind of software do you use to put these together?
[CM]: All the drawings are done with a brush and ink on illustration board, then scanned in colored, and assembled in Photoshop. Then, I animate them in After Effects. After that I edit them in Final Cut Pro.
[EG]: How long do the shorts typically take for you to produce?
[CM]: CHONTO is the only one I ever kept track of, and it took me about five and a half months.
[EG]: How did you get involved with Wholphin?
[CM]: My friend Josh Bearman had had his writing published in McSweeney's, and he told me they were coming out with a DVD magazine. So, I put together all the short films I'd ever done and sent them to them saying they could use whatever they liked. They picked THE WRITER and that was it. I said to my friend, "McSweeney's has made me vaild!" and he said back, "Yep, that's what they did for me." I'd never even played in a festival before that.
"Godard saw that the obstacle to his "home movies" was financial. He believed that he would have no choice but to create and distribute them on his own, outside the prevailing system, and that he would have to make them in video because it was cheaper: tapes are cheaper per minute than film, requires no processing, and can be reused. He imagined that his videos could be rented by small groups of people to watch together, and he understood that this was not likely to be much of a business. 'That is why I clearly envision taking a part time job,' he noted." - Brody on Godard
[EG]: Did the Wholphin inclusion lead to festivals? Which ones and what do you think of the festival experience?
[CM]: Because of Wholphin my work was seen by a judge at CineVegas, which was the first festival I ever went to. CineVegas led to Sundance, and once you're in Sundance your work gets a lot of exposure and invitations to other festivals. I've been there twice now, and it's a lot of fun so long as you go up there with the mentality that you're going to watch movies, drink free beer, and maybe meet somebody you could work with later. If you go up there expecting someone to hand you a contract, I don't think that really happens that often. You do meet a ton of other cool filmmakers in the same boat as you, trying to pull a bunch of scraps together to get their projects done, and that's really encouraging.
[EG]: What are you working on next?
[CM]: I just finished a music video for my friend Miles Jopling called "Cold Operator." He acts in it too, and he's my favorite actor in the whole world. Then, I'm trying to get some bigger stuff finished like the sci-fi novel and various scripts. I'm at the beginning of a lot of things, just sorting it out.
"Godard was asked by the master of ceremonies, the talk show host Jean Pierre Elkabback, whether it was important for his films to be successful at the time of their release; in response, Godard referred to a van Gogh exhibit taking place in Paris at the time: 'There are two million people waiting outside in the rain a hundred years later.' - Brody on Godard
Special thanks to my friend Booger Lee for his contributions to this article, to AICN for posting my pieces for 10 years and to you, cinephiles, both gentle and indignant, for reading them.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/elstongunnaicn
[EG]: The line "take a movie you like, take your shitty life, mix it up and you see if anything happens" rang pretty true. Everything is derivative to a certain extent. What movies, music, art have influenced your work? [CM]: When I'm writing I think a lot about rock and country lyrics. I love the way that singers can tell such huge stories in three or four minutes, leaving so much for your imagination to fill in. That's why Bobby Bird's whole life story is only a hundred and fifty pages long. I'm also really influenced, stylistically and otherwise, by independent comics. I always liked that there's a no holds barred feeling to the content. Working alone on these has given me that same kind of freedom where I don't have an editor or anyone telling me what to do.
"I prefer to consider myself a producer, but in the sense of the Internationale; 'Producers rely on yourselves,' because if you count on others to produce, you are lost." - Godard
[EG]: What kind of independent comics have influenced you?
[CM]: When I was younger I was better about picking through everything and finding lots of stuff I liked. I really liked LAND OF NOD back in the nineties and I still remember the guy at the comic store making me get my dad's permission in front of him before he'd sell me the first issue of Charles Burn's BLACK HOLE because I was 15 looking 12 and there was sex and drugs in it.
I really like anything by Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and I love looking through the any issue of Kramer's ERGOT. And I like Sammy Harkham's new comic CRICKETS.
[EG]: When do we get to see Episode 2 of THE WRITER and/or the character's novel STAR RAPER?
[CM]: THE WRITER 2 has officially been scratched. However, I am working on a new project called FIELD NOTES FROM DIMENSION X that in my mind is co-written by the character of THE WRITER. I've got one episode of it finished now, and hope to finish a novel that expands on it same as SAGUARO did on THE DEVIL IN DENIM.
[EG]: In FIELD NOTES FROM DIMENSION X you've gone back to the character in first-person giving a monologue of sorts, though in a different setting. What inspired this character and story?
[CM]: This character, Captain Rogard, actually comes right out of THE WRITER. I've been rolling this story about an astronaut around in my head for a while, and this is the first manifestation of it. I'm really impressed by the kind of diligence it takes to become an astronaut. This character came about the same as Bobby Bird, just sort of constructing bits and pieces of his history until I'm interested enough that I want to fill in the gaps.
[EG]: BOBBY BIRD IS THE DEVIL IN DENIM is the prequel to CHONTO and you did something interesting with it on the Wholphin DVD by making it an interactive short film. Every tattoo on this naked haggered Americana musician tells a story. How did that idea come about? Had you already envisioned it as separate vignettes? Again, carrying over from THE WRITER they feel like -- without sounding too pretentious -- these poetic lyrical anecdotes.
[CM]: When I was a kid, a friend of my dad's used to turn me on to all the coolest stuff. He brought me to the best Ripley's Believe it Or Not Musuem in Las Vegas, which is gone now, and told me all about the Winchester House. And he was always talking about the movie THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, and when I finally rented it I was really dissapointed in the fact that the tattoos told stories unrelated to the guy who had them.
I thought it was going to be a whole movie about why and how he got each tattoo. So, later I decided I could make that movie, and it was at the same time when I just learned to author DVDs, so I wanted to do something worthwhile with that knowledge.
And speaking of pretentious, when I was working on THE DEVIL IN DENIM I told my girlfriend at the time, "You know, it's going to be like little animated poems." So, I feel validated to hear you call them that.
[EG]: At what point, then, did you decide to take Bobby's story further with CHONTO and the illustrated novel SAGUARO?
[CM]: After I finished THE DEVIL IN DENIM I couldn't get Bobby Bird's voice out of my head. I was always thinking of lyrics, and scenarios he'd get into. I was working on an unrelated feature script at the time, and as a fun break I'd write Bobby Bird stuff. After I finished the script I realized it was a piece of shit, and looked at all the Bobby Bird stuff I did and actually liked it.
So, I worked for a couple of months making it coherent, and then the novel was done. I thought I was done with the character, and then on a roadtrip last May I thought of the first bits of the CHONTO story, and wrote that script. I want to retire Bobby Bird now, but I've already written more and I know he's not quite dead yet.
[EG]: Your humor in the films feel like nothing else out there and you seem pretty plugged into human behavior. Is that something of which you're pretty conscious, trying to keep some reality in there?
[CM]: The main if not only thing I am ever try to stay conscious of when I'm writing is, "is this funny or not?" I feel like that's the only thing I can gauge at all. When I'm done writing something, if the characters and situations don't seem real to me, then I just throw it away. So, that is something that I think about, but only after the writing is pretty much finished.
[EG]: Animals, nipples and erections pop up throughout your work. You're taking these primal elements and presenting by way of these modern ideas. Do you feel there aren't enough animals, nipples and erections in what you see today?
[CM]: I wish there was more nudity in entertainment in general. It stirs up a lot of different emotions, and instantly demands your attention. It's also more fun to draw than people in clothes.
[EG]: What kind of software do you use to put these together?
[CM]: All the drawings are done with a brush and ink on illustration board, then scanned in colored, and assembled in Photoshop. Then, I animate them in After Effects. After that I edit them in Final Cut Pro.
[EG]: How long do the shorts typically take for you to produce?
[CM]: CHONTO is the only one I ever kept track of, and it took me about five and a half months.
[EG]: How did you get involved with Wholphin?
[CM]: My friend Josh Bearman had had his writing published in McSweeney's, and he told me they were coming out with a DVD magazine. So, I put together all the short films I'd ever done and sent them to them saying they could use whatever they liked. They picked THE WRITER and that was it. I said to my friend, "McSweeney's has made me vaild!" and he said back, "Yep, that's what they did for me." I'd never even played in a festival before that.
"Godard saw that the obstacle to his "home movies" was financial. He believed that he would have no choice but to create and distribute them on his own, outside the prevailing system, and that he would have to make them in video because it was cheaper: tapes are cheaper per minute than film, requires no processing, and can be reused. He imagined that his videos could be rented by small groups of people to watch together, and he understood that this was not likely to be much of a business. 'That is why I clearly envision taking a part time job,' he noted." - Brody on Godard
[EG]: Did the Wholphin inclusion lead to festivals? Which ones and what do you think of the festival experience?
[CM]: Because of Wholphin my work was seen by a judge at CineVegas, which was the first festival I ever went to. CineVegas led to Sundance, and once you're in Sundance your work gets a lot of exposure and invitations to other festivals. I've been there twice now, and it's a lot of fun so long as you go up there with the mentality that you're going to watch movies, drink free beer, and maybe meet somebody you could work with later. If you go up there expecting someone to hand you a contract, I don't think that really happens that often. You do meet a ton of other cool filmmakers in the same boat as you, trying to pull a bunch of scraps together to get their projects done, and that's really encouraging.
[EG]: What are you working on next?
[CM]: I just finished a music video for my friend Miles Jopling called "Cold Operator." He acts in it too, and he's my favorite actor in the whole world. Then, I'm trying to get some bigger stuff finished like the sci-fi novel and various scripts. I'm at the beginning of a lot of things, just sorting it out.
"Godard was asked by the master of ceremonies, the talk show host Jean Pierre Elkabback, whether it was important for his films to be successful at the time of their release; in response, Godard referred to a van Gogh exhibit taking place in Paris at the time: 'There are two million people waiting outside in the rain a hundred years later.' - Brody on Godard
Special thanks to my friend Booger Lee for his contributions to this article, to AICN for posting my pieces for 10 years and to you, cinephiles, both gentle and indignant, for reading them.
Elston Gunn
elstongunn@hotmail.com
http://www.myspace.com/elstongunnaicn
[EG]: What are you working on next? [CM]: I just finished a music video for my friend Miles Jopling called "Cold Operator." He acts in it too, and he's my favorite actor in the whole world. Then, I'm trying to get some bigger stuff finished like the sci-fi novel and various scripts. I'm at the beginning of a lot of things, just sorting it out.
