Open Channel Content
Screenwriting

Screenwriting

by | Aug 21, 2021 | HD: Screenplay Excerpts

I wrote my first screenplay “Uncommon Bonds,” by candlelight, on a battery powered typewriter, while living in a 100- year-old miner’s cabin and being a carpenter during the day.

Upon completing my second feature length screenplay, “Coyote Paints the Town,” I submitted it and was admitted to the Aspen Screen and Play Writer’s Conference, with William Kelley (academy best screenplay co-winner for “Witness.”) With the personal encouragement of Mr. Kelley, I helped form the Aspen Screenwriter’s Roundtable and was a regular attendant until moving away in 93. In 94 I met  crashed numerous parties at Telluride film festival 94, in an attempt to drum up interest in “Coyote Paints the Town.” This led to a look by Columbia Pictures. Later that year I pitched it to a development exec with ties to Warner Brothers. Both attempts stalled out and just left me hanging there wondering how to play in that world.

After numerous attempts, I grew disillusioned with trying to find a place in the movie business. At that same time, I was beginning to feel like 100 pages was a rather confining limit. I wanted more space for a story to stretch out and allow for deeper character development, subtler plot dynamics and loads more detail, of the kind I admired in the novels of Saul Bellow, Lawrance Durrell, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. I studied the collected works of women writers as well, beginning with Anais Nin, Isak Dinesen and Ursula Le Guin. The devotion to writing long form fiction took me on about a 20 year, three novel, detour before I got back down to the art of screenwriting.

In 2008 it was my pleasure to study the craft, four days a week for 9 months, with Tom Musca, of “Stand and Deliver” notoriety. Tom was adept at the art of story structure. In addition, I was able to attend a number of lectures and a screenwriter’s weekend with Emmy award winning writer-producer Kirk Ellis. A subsequent 10 year commitment to writing screenplays led to another bout of frustration with breaking into the industry. Each year, I would apply with a new original feature to Sundance Screenwriter’s lab. The best I could manage was a second round nod for my social drama, “fathersfailure.com.” 

The best screenplays disappear from our attention, while they achieve an intricate clockwork of connections that turn simultaneously on every beat.

Honoring the Ainu Ancestors

by | Aug 21, 2021 | HD: OCC films

Ape Huchi Wacka Ush is an original song written and performed by Madi Sato. In it she honors her Ainu ancestors. Her performance, the setting, weather conditions and documentation all come together in this music video, which is the most recent OCC HD project. It has already been shared across the Pacific to the relatives in her Ainu homeland. Now we are applying to festivals.

The experience of making this movie was exceptionally rewarding. It began when cameraman Kevin Jones told us he was going to rent a Sony FS-7 and do some test shooting for a couple weeks. Fortunately, at that same time, our friend Madi had been recording her latest album. Rather casually, we dropped the suggestion to both parties that perhaps the timing is such that they could help each other out. Everyone was ready. It came so easy, like the planets were aligned for it.

Pre-production was minimal, consisting of a locations scouting session, a walk through and agreement to commence shooting the very images that Madi was dreaming up on the spot. So, contrary to the way we usually work, there was neither script nor storyboard in print when we commenced our two-and-a-half day shoot, up in the mountains in winter.

The simple premise of a medicine woman praying to her ancestor and her ancestor answering in a parallel dimension , was what we tried for. The ceremonial prayers, chants and gestures provide adequate content, and the humble grace of the celebrant is inspiring. Earth, wind, fire and water are the elementals through which this mysterious contact is transacted.

Frequent collaborator James Becker made his skills and experience available for assembling the footage, in-sync with Madi’s singing. In the process he also created a host of marvelous dissolves that convey the parallel universe perspective effectively. 

David Jean Schweitzer was generous with his skills and experience in the fine cut and color grading. It was David that bore the majority of the brunt of our abbreviated pre-production period consequences. David has been a frequent OCC collaborator. We honor him for all his many contributions to our movies over the years.

Couple Studios in Boulder is another frequent collaborator. Ed Kaufman has engineered our final output to optimum industry standards with a personal touch that comes from long experience.

We look forward to its premiere at a film festival near you.

Shrubconscious Basket Hut

by | Aug 21, 2021 | 3D: Shelter

The basket hut came as a result of my lifelong passion for shelter, beginning with studying adobe building construction after high school. The art of shelter developing more deeply when I was employed full-time in the construction trade for ten years, and also by my experiences with living close to the land for most of my life, in tents, tipis, cabins and shacks.

The inspiration for this shelter grew out of my desire to explore indigenous plants as a source of raw materials. At the same time, I’ve grown increasingly concerned with the needs of the growing homeless population. The third world is rife with examples that exhibit incredible ingenuity. As homelessness becomes more widespread, it is conceivable that making shelter from indigenous plants will become more commonplace even in the developed world.

This hut utilizes what are known around here as latillas – roof and fence poles fashioned from pinion trunks. We drove them into the ground about 16 to 20 inches in an ovular shape then began weaving apache plume branches in and out. Meanwhile the floor was smoothed out and layered densely with aromatic plants to make it soft, inviting, and insect free.

The process of working out the roof took awhile to decide on. I had originally envisioned a type of whirligig design. I made numerous models and in the end, we sourced renewable bamboo canes from a local nursery and lashed them to the upright pinion latillas and settled for a simple sloping shed roof. Then the thatch for the ceiling and roof was furnished by weaving green chamisa branches, in-between the bamboo gridwork. A woven willow trellis serves to surround the structure and line the walls, with salvaged privet stalks braced vertically as ribbing inside and out, for added character. The little broom at the front door makes me think some wee little witch lives in there.

Life Drawings

by | Aug 21, 2021 | 2D: Life Drawings

The Argos Gallery maintained by Eli Levin in Santa Fe, NM is the location where most of these drawings were produced. I attended the life drawing sessions twice weekly, for a number of years beginning in 2003. The management of that drawing group was impeccable. The lighting was simple, the models were placed impeccably on their marks and the room was always full. There are many drawing groups that have come and gone in Santa Fe, this one has met every week, continuously since the 1960’s, even on holidays. Eli also hosted the Santa Fe etching group which has a similar pedigree.

That group was always attended by a number of gifted artists. It was a privilege to draw along side them. We were all there training our eyes and hands, like musician practicing scales. The radio played whatever was on the public station, usually classical, sometimes jazz or show tunes. Conversation was allowed, even with the models. It was a salon like atmosphere, with both casual topics and deeply nuanced subjects embraced. Eli had been trained at the Art Student’s League in Manhattan. His father had been an art critic. Eli also had degree in the classics and he is a learned and gracious conversationalist. He paints with egg tempera that he makes with eggs from his own chickens. He’s in his golden years now and still working. When not painting he is drawing or etching, constantly honing in on something, like a hound chasing a hare.

While Eli’s level of focus and commitment to figurative work may be beyond me, it certainly inspires me. I find drawing the human portrait and figure endlessly interesting. The longer I’ve done it, the less I need to have an actual model in the room in order to draw one. The act of drawing connects senses with motor skills. It is a form of active relaxation. This collection represents dozens of hours of therapeutic engagement with simple materials and primal subject matter. Drawing from life has been an enjoyable way to train my powers of observation and appreciation of nature.

Graphics Lab Showroom

by | Aug 21, 2021 | 2D: Graphics Lab

As each project spins off more and more possible outputs, there is no time to bring every new iteration to full fruition, so this gallery documents important watersheds of novel results, framed inside a moment in time in the studio, for potential further examination and exploitation.

The earliest influence for my 2D graphics fascination goes back to my childhood in the 60’s, which birthed an explosion of highly influential graphic content. I mimicked some of those memes to create popular posters for my friends running for school government positions. In the house in which I was raised, there was an enormous illustrated Bible featuring those epic etchings of Gustave Doré. I find them just as mesmerizing now as ever.

Later on, when working at the Penrose Library public information office, not only was I there to design and make all kinds of posters, pamphlets, fliers and signs, I was spending extensive periods in their art, film and fashion stacks, absorbing more influences than I can list here, but Albrecht Durer’s and Rene Magritte’s output have remained favorite artists of note, as have Annie Leibowitz, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon and Phillip Halsman’s photography.

Also, for three years I worked as a magazine and paperback deliveryman, where the the power of word and image were front and center in my day-to-day life. I delivered everything from TV Guide and Sporting News to Vogue and Playboy, paperback novels too. Print media was a primary way that people got information.

Frank Frazetta was a graphic artist that captured my attention during my youth. His contributions to “Heavy Metal” magazine, as well as numerous popular LP covers, got my imagine fired up. The underground comix of the era were hugely influential beginning with those published by R.Crumb and his contemporaries, also the LP record and book cover art of James Grashow, the brothers Hildebrandt, Bengt Nystrom and Robert Giusti.

Later on, our attention was significantly drawn to Paula Scher, activist collectives such as Gorilla Girls and let’s not forget Polish film poster designs, especially those of Andrzej Klimowski.

The evolution of print media continues to be a major area of interest. Cooper-Union at the Smithsonian is a wonderful resource. The art form is so compelling, we can’t wait for the next gig. Need a poster, flier, zine or logo design? Let’s talk.

Attempting Homages

by | Aug 21, 2021 | 2D: Homages

For several years I occupied my studio time making homages of old masterpieces. Most of these were painted between 2003 and 07. This batch of paintings built my confidence. Reinventing a masterwork with modern materials is so much easier than inventing one from scratch. That is obvious, but the rewards of doing so kept me coming back. I studied my subjects like a free climber studies a rock face. I followed their guidance like a trusted guide’s footsteps. I tried to scale their brushwork, color choice, composition logic, etc. It’s never about perfection, but one hopes to get a reference point for the fine motor skills, dilated senses, and unconstrained imagination of the virtuoso, in ones own nervous system. To attempt to recreate each work with nothing but a freehand, a patient eye, some fine paper and acrylic paint- it impresses me now that I was willing to invest the time. These weren’t commissioned works, just studies. But for me, each one was a worthwhile masterclass from a genius.