In a random meeting at The Masses, I overheard that Grant Leuchtner had dozens of songs that he had written all the instrument parts for himself which made him the perfect fit for the project. In one day, Grant wrote and recorded an entirely original piece for the video.

Then, a few weeks before the project was due, I was told that they wanted all of their submissions to be in 3D. Having never shot in this format, I initially freaked out a bit. After loads of research, and bringing on my good friend Chris Cantey to man the special effects, we realized that in order to stay in the budget ($0) and pull off the effect we wanted, we’d have to embrace a low-fi capture format (not to mention we could not get two Canon 7D’s close enough to produce a clean 3D image.)

We created a super simple, super janky, do-it-yourself rig, lined up two “flip” style cameras side by side and finished through a workflow that was completely foreign to all of us. The cameras had no manual controls and often shut down without warning. Good times.

Find some red/ cyan glasses and have a ball with our little slice of 3D fun.

Click here to view.

For behind the scenes clip, click here.

Click to get tickets for:

Bowerbirds “Northern Lights” (Jun 18th 8:00pm & Jun 20th 7:00pm)

Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros “Kisses Over Babylon” (Jun 19th 10:00pm or Jun 23rd 7:30pm)

The Masses, Blythe Projects and Powershovel/Superheadz (the creators of the Digital Harinezumi camera) are pleased to present the Los Angeles debut of “Imperfect As They Are”, a showcase featuring short personal video pieces created by a diverse group of international artists.

Project History and Description:
The inaugural “Imperfect As They Are” event took place March 19th, 2010 at the New Museum in New York City, NY.  Presenting artists included: Agnes B, Mark Borthwick, Isabel Coixet, Christopher Doyle, Matt Amato, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kim Gordon, Miranda July, So Yong Kim, Harmony Korine, Bruce La Bruce, Patrice Leconte, Albert Maysles, Jonas Mekas, Mount Eerie, and Chan-Wook Park.

April 29th – May 16th, 2010 sees the second installment of this exhibition at the Shower Room in Tokyo, Japan.  Next is Los Angeles. After Los Angeles: Paris, Barcelona and London will follow. Perhaps more…

In each stop of this show, Powershovel/Superheadz invites artists they admire to curate an addition or variation to the show, yet carrying forward the same spirit.

Matt Amato, a founding director of the Los Angeles based art & video collective, The Masses, has been invited to curate the  LA show. Mr. Amato would be honored to request your participation as a contributing artist for this exhibition.

Artwork Goals/Criteria:
The medium for this work will be the tiny Digital Harinezumi camera.  The Harinezumi, shaped like a roll of 110 film or a giant green bean, is a small digital camera that can be used for both photographs and video.  Rather than conceptualized as a forerunner of technology, the camera has been thought of as a kind of imperfect camera, reminiscent of the best aspects of Super 8 or VHS video footage.  At times, the camera takes blurred images and, at other times, the colors are just off. The Harinezumi delivers up to two hours of images (in black & white, or color) and microSD storage capacity.  The hope is that the camera demystifies the use of video so that it becomes a means for personal expression by many more.

You are welcome to create anything you like… The camera is perfect for capturing pieces with a very spontaneous, intimate, and personal nature.  Feel free to make something like a home movie, a view on any given day, or a little film shot with a loose theme and minimal construction.

Powershovel’s philosophy is that one has to be able to establish a personal relationship with the object. The camera is as imperfect as we are; hence the personal, intimate bond and identification between user and camera.

Site/Artwork Location Plans:
The exhibition will take place at Blythe Projects in Culver City in March 2011.

The monitors used for the display of the pieces are small Numark monitors, on a metal stand. One of the screens is used to display the name of the artist, the second screen shows the work, and the third one is black.

Resources:
The Digital Harinezumi is an incredibly simple camera that is easy to discover and navigate.  Although the entire project can be completed on a DIY basis, The Masses will be happy to provide some technical support for the creation of your video work.  Please do not hesitate to contact The Masses should you require editing assistance for your work or have any other questions or concerns.

Requirements:
Completed entries will be accepted until: Sept. 6th, 2010
Please arrange for your submission to be delivered to:

The Masses                                         Ph: 323 428 0499
351 S. La Brea Ave, 2nd Floor            Fx: 323 932 9843
Los Angeles CA 90036

Uploading files to The Masses FTP is also an option.

WORK FORMAT: An uncompressed file of your finished movie is ideal.  We suggest coping the file to a CD or DVD depending on the size.  Any questions regarding your final output or uploading to out FTP, Please contact:

harinezumi@wearethemasses.com

The artist retains full ownership of the video piece created. Powershovel/Superheadz only acquires a non-exclusive, non-assignable, restricted license to show the piece in the context of the “Imperfect As They Are” show series as well as, upon finalization of the show tour, a dedicated website.  All tour stops of the show as well as full list of artists participating will be provided in advance to each artist.

About Matt Amato: Matt Amato is a visual dramatist and a founding member of The Masses. His credits include music videos for internationally acclaimed artists Bon Iver, Dido, Beach House, Broken Bells, The Dodos, Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeros, Grace Woodroofe, Les Corps Mince de Francoise and The Bowerbirds.  Matt is a frequent visual art collaborator with L.A. music collective dublab.com.  He recently lent visuals to dublab’s Linda Perhacs & Friends event at the Redcat Theatre in L.A., as well dublab’s “Tonalism” concert at Reed College, Oregon. At the New Museum in NYC, Matt participated in the Harinenumi show by making a short film starring Mia Doi Todd.  The show is currently on display in Tokyo, Japan.  Matt is currently developing his feature film debut, “The Makings of You”.

About Powershovel/Superheadz: Powershovel/Superheadz is a company of 7 people dedicated to making books, records and cameras. Hideki Ohmori established the company 8 years ago in Tokyo, Japan.

For Additional questions, please email: harinezumi@wearethemasses.com

Harinezumi Show at The New Museum NYC, March 19th 2010

Click here to watch Amato’s Harinezumi movie

Click here to see some pictures from the event.

By the line up of names to which Powershovel handed their superstar camera to do a free-theme movie with, I think there is no doubt: this Japanese company has very good taste. Some of the films were three minutes long, like Kim Gordon’s; some five, like So Yon Kim’s or Jonas Mekas’; some eight, like Matt Amato’s, from The Masses, in LA, ( he is talented blood for the music video business and sooner than later, for the film business too). All of them enjoyed the challenge; wrote verses with light or stories with silent images. It seems quite clear that they had fun.

“The basic idea, which is literally very basic, was to give to our visual idols a very simple, tiny plastic camera and ask them to make a home movie or a fine video art piece for us” Nick Dangerfield said. He is a half Spaniard half British music producer who works as the head of Powershovel in New York.

The company, born in Japan about a decade ago, it’s a niche for photography and music lovers. The eight people who run it choose artists that they like and they produce photography books or music albums of their work. Just a few every year, with care and love. Dirty Three, Matmos or Nico Muhly were part of a double album inspired by the pictures of the Japanese master Daido Moriyama. Bruno S, the old actor that has played in cult movies like Kasper Hauser, will soon have an album and a drawings book. The company is small, and they want to keep it that way. The analog cameras that it sells help with the business. But the Digital Harinezumi, with its Super-8 quality, has been their biggest success, creating a cult follower. It’s first edition had no mic, and it became a best-seller. That’s how the idea to hand the Harinezumi to a few visual idols came from. The last cameras were almost gone and they didn’t plan to produce more. The new generation of Harinezumis was going to have sound so they thought about doing a homage to the silent one.

Judging by the long line of people who stood patiently to get into the New Museum for the Imperfect as They Are screening party, the idea was a total success. It was definitely the place to be last Friday in New York, but it got so crowded that became very difficult to watch the movies in the little screenings they set on the lobby of the museum.  The show will travel this year to Barcelona, Tokyo, Paris and LA and more artists will be added to the line up.

Reported by Barbara Celis

CLICK HERE TO VIEW AMATO’S HARINEZUMI MOVIE

Bands on hand for the free all-night event (6:00 p.m. – 6:00 a.m.) include Portland’s own excellently placid Grouper and drone-steeped Dublab super-group Golden Hits, among others. DJ sets come from the usual characters mostly — ‘lab founders Ale and Frosty, along with Jimmy Tamborello (Postal Service/Dntel/James Figurine) to name a few — and trippy visuals will be provided in part by The Masses director/artist Matt Amato* with local color (nyuk nyuk) provided by the Oregon Painting Society.

Though Tonalism has been slowly working its way up the coast, with last year’s sleepy shindig going down at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, its origins are decidedly Southland.

Dublab offers intrepid travelers a chance to “dream to deep drones and space waves in a stunning surround sound/sight environment.”

Reported by LA WEEKLY

*Grant Leuchtner and Benjamin Kutsko also took the journey which featured a very pleasurable stay in a lofty treehouse.

LA WEEKLY REVIEW

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE GALLERY

In all seriousness though, I think Merrill Garbus has magic powers. Bigtime thanks go out to Merrill, dublab, 826 LA and my excellent crew.

“Hatari” Part I: Pastport Office

“Fiya” Part II: The Time Machine

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

This 30 minute film was made as part of an art installation I created for Andrea Zittel’s High.Desert.Test.Sites. (an art festival held in Joshua Tree earlier this year) and was made with The Masses fearless leader Matt Amato (who served as my cinematographer and editor) and Grant Leuchtner (who took on the role as “The Spirit of Gram”.)

The film played on a small TV set that always sits in the corner of tiny Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn. This is the room where country-rock legend Gram Parsons passed away and the installation was an imagined scene of what might have been left after that sad event. Or perhaps left after a previous happier one? The room was strewn with detritus left over from a night of classic rock ‘n roll debauchery while a cassette player outside near the home-made memorial played a recording of me reading excerpts from the book the hotel leaves for guests to leave messages to the dearly departed icon. Our film features my character, The Time Traveling Hooker, in just one of her many adventures where she pops in and out of cosmic wormholes in search of true love and redemption. Perhaps she will finally find it in the ghostly arms of Gram?

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE PICTURES

The TTH is a character I created some years ago but only debuted at the previous High.Desert.Test.Sites. event a year earlier. In Episode #1, the TTH is born in a typical American suburb but soon finds herself at the “La Dolce Vita” premiere in Rome during the early Sixties. One thing leads to another and she lands in the Wild, Wild American West where she finds she is just another ’soiled dove’ in a dusty western town. This tale was told on the side of Highway 62 in front of the Joshua Tree Saloon and near it’s conclusion the TTH makes her way into the saloon, led by artist Kenny Scharf who was dressed in a cow costume complete with glass udders created by artist Randy Polumbo. The cow leads her to the stage where she proceeds to pole dance to hits by Metallica, Guns ‘N Roses and Van Halen. After dancing herself to exhaustion, the TTH collapses and finds herself lost, once again, in the space/time continuum.

Our film takes up where that performance ended. Besides being obsessed with Tarkovsky at the time, I also revisited the original “Planet of the Apes” and Pasolini’s “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” for additional inspiration. Armed with a camera and an awesome zoom lens from Indie Rents, Matt, Grant and I made our way to Joshua Tree. After stopping at a few local thrift stores for additional costumes and props (and borrowing the perfect jacket and cowboy hat from Texas-born artist Blake Simpson) we made our way into the high desert to make movie magic; eventually ending it all, like Gram, in the infamous Room 8.

After much encouragement from Matt and The Masses I now plan to direct more films, with and without The Time Traveling Hooker. But do expect to see her again sometime in the future (even though she may be somewhere in the past).

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MOVIE

Emma, Mia and Malin

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

The creation of an artwork is a process that people enjoy in different ways. For some it’s painful, for others it’s joyful, but it’s always hard work. The first part of the creation for the “King Rat” video (two weeks of making the animatic with Heath) had been just a lot of fun and discovery. We were both new to this kind of work, and that’s what kept us excited.

A few weeks before starting I made a sketch of a fishing whale character. Heath liked it, so I knew more or less what kind of style I should draw going forward. When I joined him in London, Terry Gilliam let us work in the conference room of his visual effects company (Peerless). It was luxury: we had a massive window overlooking Covent Garden, and Terry’s creative vibrations in the air.

Terry would come to see the progress every once in a while and we were excited to hear his advice. This is why Heath decided to have the “Monty Python trumpets” popping down from the clouds, and also why I proposed to have Terry’s face as “The Sun” in our video. We felt like school kids inspired by our favorite teacher.

Ninety percent of the drawings that are used in the video were intended to be storyboard sketches. This was our working chain: Heath would tell me what happens in the scene, I would draw the shots, then he would edit them with the song. We laughed like children as we looked at the results, the new toy was working.

We started the process from the beginning of the song:

Blue colours are bright and serene, with a tiny tone of green suggesting a possible sinister evolution in the story.

As the video advances, the quantity of green and black increases, preparing us for darkness.

When our eyes have adjusted to the desaturated tones, a complementary bright red starts to appear.

The clip had to be shocking. The fun we were having was less important than the strength of Heath’s message in favour of marine wildlife. The treatment he wrote initially was a bit longer. We had to cut the restaurant scene where the whales eat sushi made with human fingers. It didn’t matter because the pet seal’s close-up was a strong ending.

The powerful song by Modest Mouse was a major inspiration. Isaac’s dramatic voice was driving us towards a deranged imaginative territory. It was great.
At the end of that process, in our high-tech conference room we made a projection for Terry and the Peerless people that saw us walking in and out for weeks (only Nicky Valsamakis knew exactly what was going on all the way, and obviously our Masses colleagues back home in LA).
The animatic was already a roughly functional music video by itself.

After Heath left us, I didn’t have any intention of finishing the video without him. It was Sara Cline who had the idea of finishing it, so Heath’s cause against whale hunting would find exposure. And we would all have the pleasure of seeing another one of his challenging works. I said yes with no hesitation.

The second stage of making the video, with lead animator Norris Houk and animator Jade Taglioli, was about bringing to life the still drawings from the animatic.
My mind was still populated by all the information and details that Heath transmitted me during the London days. I knew exactly what he had in mind for the animation. For example, his description of the whales walking towards the bow of the boat, or dancing during the party, was very precise. We both had a whale dance in the office before starting to work on that sequence.

In fact, the main quality that would have made Heath a great director, in my opinion, was his ability to be contagious with his ideas, and to describe them in a very convincing way, with a lot of joy. Work has to be fun somehow, otherwise it’s not worth it.

Jade and Norris did a remarkable job animating those shots for a month. My duty was to pass the message on, as precisely as possible.

My favourite memory on this video is very far from its shocking and distinctive taste. It’s quite cheesy, actually: whilst we spent long days working on the animatic, listening endlessly to interrupted bits of Isaac’s haunting and cavernous voice, there was another song being played constantly coming from outside the window.
It wasn’t annoying us because its paradisiac nature was having a complementary effect on us. It was Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. Every time I randomly hear that song, I think of how lucky I was to be over there for a few wonderful weeks.