Category: Visual Arts

REVIEW: Jaded Inc. (14KT + Mayer Hawthorne)

Phillip Wachowiak

Going to the Blind Pig on a Saturday evening was the perfect way to numb the combination of a disappointing football game and several days of unwanted cold weather (in case you have never been, the main room in the Blind Pig is one of the warmest rooms in the city of Ann Arbor). Immediately I felt welcome in my black converses and flannel when I saw hordes of others wearing the same.

By the same token, I was not ready for the opening act.

You can check out “The Black Opera” at their web site here:

http://www.theblackopera.com/The Black Opera

Describing themselves as “Rap’s first performing arts group,” The Black Opera hit hard and fast. They changed costumes between songs and made references all over the place, from the Black Power movement to the water crisis in Detroit (at least that’s what their chant about water made me think of). In other words, this was the black Blue Man Group.

Since I hadn’t researched the opening act, I was blindsided at the beginning, but by the end everyone in the room was chanting alongside these talented men. They were not just a rap group, but a collection of performance artists that made the entire bar their stage.

Jaded Inc. is a synth-pop/beat wave group composed of Mayer Hawthorne and hip-hop artist/DJ 14KT. Both men are from the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area so it was awesome to see these talented men come back to their roots.

All niceties aside, the bar was bangin’. Jaded Inc. is a hybrid collaboration of two accomplished artists and it showed. Each stationed at the front of the stage with his respective Macbook and synthesizer, they dropped the beats and we were happy to oblige.

From the strange yet sexual “Coconut Sofa” to the hip-hop inspired “The Big Knock,” these DJs covered all their bases and made a concert that was neither too chill nor too loud and obnoxious.

Jaded Inc.

Preview: Feminist Activist Group ‘Pussy Riot’ Comes to Michigan Theater Thursday

watsonsauce

crime-and-punishment-pussy-riots

What: Pussy Riot/ Zona Prava – Part of Penny W. Stamp Speaker Series
Where: Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor
When: Thursday 18 September, 5:10pm
How Much: FREE!

Founded in 2011, Pussy Riot is a punk, feminist activist group from Russia who stage spontaneous performance based protests in public locations around Russia’s capitol cities. Their protests are filmed, edited into music videos and posted on the internet.

Their activism focuses on feminism, LGBT rights, opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the connection between Putin and The Russian Orthodox Church.

Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina, two of the founding members of the Pussy Riot collective made up of approximately eleven women, were arrested in autumn 2012 following a protest against President Putin staged in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were charged with hooliganism and sentenced to two years in prison. The arrests and trials of Pussy Riot’s members drew international attention to the corruption and anti-gay legislation active in Russia at the time.

After their release from prison in December 2013 Tolokonnikova and Alekhina founded Zona Prava (Zone of Rights) and organization aimed at providing legal representation, information, safety monotoring, advocacy and oversight to those in Russian prisons who have been deprived of their liberty.

The event is supported by the UM Penny W. Stamps Speaker Series, Michigan Radio, WUOM 91.7 and Arts @ Michigan.

REVIEW: Lightworks Day 1

Phillip Wachowiak

Aside from the lack of popcorn, Lightworks Winter 2014 was remarkably better than its fall semester counterpart. Not only were the films more polished, but his time the audience was granted the pleasure of actual hosts. The festival programs, were entirely correct this time around, and by the end of the first night, the audience itself was close to filling the entire Natural Science Auditorium.

The key difference between Lightworks and other festivals is that you often see professors sitting down the row from students, just as exciting to see the finished product as the student. Since these films were all made for classes, you can tell which class they came from by their nature.

Films from the 400-level classes are reserved for the end. These films—Toast and (?)–deserve their place at the finale of the festival because their production quality is astonishingly close to a professional big-budget film. Below this are the 300-level films, which entail the intermediate production classes. These categories emphasis narrative, are coherent, and overall films that you would feel comfortable watching with your parents.

Other films get weird and experimental and, in many cases, exciting. One of the best reasons to go to a film festival is to experience all of the avant-garde student films that display raw talent. When I say raw talent, I mean films that make you question what you just watched, yet you want to watch them again. Fancy animated projects manifested themselves as psychedelic dystopian computer work and kaleidoscopic aesthetics. There were also wonderful hand-drawn animations, of a dog disrupting Santa as he gets ready for Christmas Eve.

The animations were juxtaposed with live action pieces that leave you breathless. It is unbelievable the talent that is displayed in these films, both in the dancers moving their bodies on screen and in the plethora of editing techniques that make the films a psychedelic wonderland. They are a comedic, talented, astonishing.

A change from previous years is the influx of silent films. While seeing student projects made on real 16mm film is wonderful, last night seemed to alternate them with their sound-equipped video counterparts. In some instances this meant an awkward transition from a modern video to a more classical art-house piece. I enjoyed both types, but I wonder if it would be possible to separate the categories completely: all of the films in one section and all of the videos in another section. This way the audience could get into a certain mood for one or the other without constant disruption.

The hosts, Chad and Riley, have made quite a name for themselves. Veterans of the acting circuit and appearing in several of the Lighworks films, they made a name for themselves as a duo by appearing in The Secret Show, a quirky underground video podcast that premiered earlier this semester.

Like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, these comedians were a welcome change from the regular hosting by FVSA students. Keeping up with the fashion of reading live tweets during intermissions, they interacted with the audience and created an organic, relaxing atmosphere for everyone.

Small technical difficulties seemed to plague the projectionists. Since there were so many transitions between 16mm films and videos, the projectionist was constantly changing from one format to the other so the audience would often be waiting in the dark for longer than normal. On top of that, a few of the films were blown out to the extent that one could not tell what was in half of the shots. Most alarming of all as a trace of lag that I saw in a couple of the films. Since most projects are exported in high definition format, I assume the computer has trouble rendering them fast enough sometimes. At any rate, it was a disappointment to see impressive special effects lagging because of the very technology that created them.

To end this on a high note, I only need to remind readers that Lightworks is 100% free. This is a two day festival, over eight hours long, and you can walk inside with nothing but the clothes on your back. It was a pleasure to watch these amazing films knowing that I go to school with the students that make these films. As always, I recommend Lightworks to everyone.

 

A Couple Samples of the films shown last night:

Kickstarter Video for “George O. Duncan”

“Urban Canvas” Detroit Documentary

The Hosts

REVIEW: Michigan Pops presents Game of Pops

csatter

After arriving at the Michigan Theater, and hearing sounds of a small jazz ensemble coming from the main theater, I knew this was going to be an interesting concert. With the couple who started a slap fight in front of me, an audience who rarely stopped talking, and an intermission in which the musicians wandered around to chat with the audience, I can honestly say I have never experienced an orchestra concert quite like this one.

Centered around the theme of games, the Michigan Pops Orchestra played 14 pieces, including music from the Olympics, Halo, Rocky, and the ever popular Game of Thrones. While most of the pieces were played well, the second half of the concert was stronger than the first, and the suites from Video Games Live and Game of Thrones were when the orchestra really shined. In those moments there weren’t any homemade movies or awkward gags, and the Michigan Pops let the music speak and showed off how well they can play and how great they sound together.

The two soloists, Allen Chang, a clarinetist, and Dylan Stasack, a singer, were wonderful additions to the concert and both performed very well. While the insertion of a classical concerto into a concert of predominately movie and video game music felt a little awkward, Chang’s excellent playing captivated the audience. Stasack gave a strong performance of “Go the Distance” from Hercules, which showed off both is musical and theatrical skills.

Overall, the concert was pretty good, with interesting pieces that were played well. Although it is a student run orchestra, I was surprised with how informal the concert was. The constant chatting of the audience, flash photography in the dark theater, unconventional intermission, and over played gags were distracting and had me wishing for a more traditional and formal orchestra concert.

REVIEW: M-Agination Films Festival

Phillip Wachowiak

Usually student films are envisioned as earth-shattering ideas that will shake the world, only to end up on Youtube or Vimeo with 200 views.
Events like the M-Agination Film Festival allows films to transcend this by showcasing a collection of these films on the big screen in the Michigan theater for a much wider audience, in the best possible way to experience a film.

Before I go any further, I will admit that I am a producer on the board of M-Agination films. I am one of the ten students who sorts through dozens of scripts at the beginning of each semester, choosing a handful of scripts that we like enough to produce.

Consequently, I might be a little biased. I may be more apt to appreciate the work that goes into these films, but I am also more prone to see the wide range of errors that student films can make.

Despite a technical difficulty at the beginning of the festival, M-Agination is one of the best student film fests, if not the best overall film festival on campus. Compared to student festivals such as Lightworks, the venue of the Michigan Theater is a thousand times better than the cramped space of the Natural Science Auditorium.

On top of that, the films shown this year were consistent high-quality films—you can go to this festival expecting enjoyable films all night rather than a collection of hit or miss pieces. While the festival doesn’t quite match the Ann Arbor Film Festival, it’s free and you get a free t-shirt if you show up early.

Now on to the films themselves.

There was a nice diversity of films: comedy and tragedy, narrative and experimental, ancient and modern.

“Pinkie Promise” was a classic feel-good love story about a boy and a girl getting together after promising to do so when they were teenagers. “696” takes a polar opposite approach of a married man lamenting the death of his earlier love.

“Dream Girl” was an experimental piece on the simple premise of a guy seeing a cute girl at a party, while “Initiation” dealt with the grim subject of hazing of college athletes. This was especially powerful because it added overt messages offering help to those who may need it. As far as I know, it will be used as a powerful tool to show to students experiencing alcohol addictions.

“Price of Art,” about two women stealing artwork to make the headlines and finding out that no one cared, was an interesting commentary on the status of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The two films that truly stood out were “Calvin” and “Crook’d.” Not only were these films made by talented students, but they had professional filmmaking equipment at their disposal and Kickstarter dollars as well. With long steadicam shots, incredible sound mixing, and top-notch script writing, these films were phenomenal partially because they could almost stand alongside Hollywood films.

I have heard that this was one of the best years yet for M-Agination. If this festival keeps improving, then it will easily become one of the best film festivals in Ann Arbor, period.

Student Video

REVIEW: Oscar – Nominated Animated Shorts

nina.j

These animated films featured a mixed bag in terms of origin, tone, genre, and visual quality.

One film was in a post-industrial style, using currently- common animation style (similar to Pixar, at least to my eye), and depicted robots as humane beings and animals. This film was about the everlasting friendship between a robotman and a robotdog, and the loyalty binding them. Another was more pencil-sketched, all in black and white, and quite dark in tone, about a feral child who, after being taken and sent to school by a hunter, escapes a civilized life through a mystical, transcendental dissolution of his material body. As the feral boy dissolves, he morphs through several configurations as various wild animals, finally becoming rain for the forest and creatures.

One film is about a squirrel searching for a scarf, encountering a handful of forest creatures during his search, and aiding them through philosophical conversations, offering his counsel. Finally the squirrel realizes the world will end eventually and that his scarf doesn’t matter, and is soon killed in a freak accident. This film expresses a combination of darkness and playfulness uncommon in popular animation. I loved the wisdom of the moral, that one may spend their lives philosophizing, but in the end, life is precious and fragile. Another film is a meditation on Japanese folklore. In Japan, a caption says, unused or misused objects carry trapped spirits. During the film, a man is stranded in a hut in the jungle and cannot escape until he puts a handful of neglected materials to use. These objects are personified throughout the film, and mutual gratitude is expressed at the end. Finally, in a British film, a witch and her cat travel around, showing compassion toward various forest creatures, and inviting them to ride on the witch’s broom, although there is not ample space. A dragon tries to eat the witch and the forest creatures band together to scare off the dragon and save the witch.

These synopses depict a clear theme in this year’s animated shorts : a celebration of the individual nature, and a prioritization of one’s material and spiritual freedom and present-mindedness. As I had anticipated, the general tone was brighter than non-animated shorts, but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the depth and dynamic of moral and emotional material. A few of these films are unapologetically inspired by classic folklore (the British and the Japanese especially), and most involved mystical elements. These animated films used technology and gorgeous artwork  to bring sequences of images into the mind’s eye, otherwise impossible for the viewer to experience. These images enabled emotional and moral experiences, equally unique and rare.

2014 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts