With a narrative assembled from unrelated story sketches that I’d been fabricating with Hartford Art School classmate Michael Mongillo over several years since graduation, Circuit was originally conceived as a feature. Financial constraints–coupled with the evolving scope of the project–forced the film into a tight (if scraggly) twenty minute short. Utilizing friends for the cast and crew, many of them H.A.S. grads themselves, and a handful of locations around New England, Circuit was shot over a period of two years and edited at Boston Film/Video Foundation’s then-new digital editing facilities. Thanks to Vimeo, it can now be seen in it’s entirety here. Below is the original Film Threat Video Guide Review (yes, they used to print magazines on paper):

A series of very short, bizarre and often humorous vignettes that flow like an odd stream of consciousness into each other, Circuit immediately sucked me into its strange world where I remained a welcome captive for an all-too-brief 20 minutes. A particularly enjoyable scene featured a gaggle of animal rights protesters getting the crap beaten out of them by several rogue cops. Created on an obviously limited budget, writer/director Jay Hollinsworth manages to deliver an entertaining little film which I heartily recommend, especially for those of you with nothing better to do than get drunk or high and watch odd things on the tele.

- Scott Russo

Anyway, she and Producer Kelly Williams are raising funds through IndieGoGo and, although they’ve already reached their modest goal, I can attest to the fact that you can never have enough funding. Plus, Kat is, hands-down, one of the kindest, most generous people in the local film community, and her film will star Jonny Mars from Wuss and Madison Burge from Friday Night Lights. Get more info and donate right here.

Monday (5/9) @ Noon EST
1. Bridge Burning
2. Rope
3. Dear Rosemary

Tuesday (5/10) @ Noon EST
4. White Limo
5. Arlandria
6. These Days

Wednesday (5/11) @ Noon EST
7. Back & Forth
8. A Matter of Time
9. Miss the Misery

Thursday (5/12) @ Noon EST
10. I Should Have Known
11. Walk

Color Me Obsessed – I have to imagine this film is Gorman Bechard’s dream come true. A self-described ‘Mats fanatic, Bechard has put forth a ballsy, unique proposition—a music documentary that sings the praises of a band without using any of that band’s music. Instead, the film is a comprehensive collection of interviews with fellow Replacements fans like Greg Norman and Grant Hart from Hüsker Dü, Craig Finn from The Hold Steady, celebrities like Dave Foley and Tom Arnold, and writers like Greg Kot and Robert Christgau, just to name a few. It’s been recommended to put this mix tape together for pre and post-screening enjoyment.

Searching For Elliott Smith – A touching tribute to an extremely talented and extremely troubled artist who was never comfortable with his increasing popularity. This is the first real document of Smith that he actually took part in and also has the cooperation of former girlfriend Jennifer Chiba, someone who still, years after Smith’s death, is saddled with the undeserving burden of being a target of the lies, accusations, and outright libel that emanate from the darkest corners of the internet. It’s a chance for his loved ones to finally remember him as a person and appreciate the legacy of his music without the tabloid bullshit as accompaniment.

Blank City – A chronicle of the “Cinema of Transgression,” a film scene clearly born of, and filled with, the music of NYC’s No Wave movement of the early eighties. Fueled by a brilliant soundtrack assembled by music supervisor Dan Selzer, owner and founder of Acute Records, the movie sketches out this post-punk, DIY school of filmmaking born of the fury, talent and bad taste of filmmakers like Amos Poe, Richard Kern, Nick Zedd and Jim Jarmusch. Also, of special interest, it just finished its run at the Magic Lantern (a theater which holds a very special place in my heart) last week. Which brings me to…

SpokAnarchy – An unflinching look at how a punk scene can rise and flourish—in its own rollicking, unique fashion—in the middle of a cultural wasteland… in this case, Spokane, Washington circa nineteen-eighties. David and Theresa Halsell, Jon and Heather Swanstrom, Cory Wees, and Erica Schisler all collaborated to craft this authentic and deeply satisfying testament to the liberating and transformative power of punk rock. Through interviews with the movers and shakers in the scene and beautifully scarred, analogue period footage (some of which I was happy to provide), the film offers a glimpse into what can bloom anywhere there’s creativity, desire and a heavy dose of dissatisfaction.

Find ‘em, watch ‘em.

While waiting, I paid a visit to the idea bank: the stockpile of outlines, treatments, half-completed scripts and storyboards that most indie filmmakers usually cultivate. Years ago, I had sketched out an outline for a short film which would depict a day in the life of an urban office worker. At some point, the concept of the narrative taking on a kind of fairytale quality began to creep in and doing it all in an animated, German Expressionist woodcut aesthetic seemed appropriate. It just did, don’t ask why. I commenced rotoscoping experiments of shooting low-key footage, importing the footage into Photoshop, converting it to black and white, and refining each frame one at a time until the grays were eliminated and the edges took on a sharp, chiseled angularity. It was a tedious process, but if tedium wasn’t my thing, I probably should have stayed away from animation completely.

While the results from the first test were encouraging, the correspondence I was receiving from the label was intermittent and strangely devoid of details. No deadline had been set, I still had no idea what track I was to be assigned, and I assumed (correctly) that none of the other finalists had been provided this information either. Realizing that they were set to tour at the end of May, I immediately dispelled any notions that I’d have access to the band at all, and started the process of firing off frantic emails in search of a cast and crew. Yes, I was committing to a concept for a music video before ever having heard the song. I’d be lying if I said this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. But it was very close.

Michael Lovecraft, a friend of my wife’s who’d recently returned to the Austin area from Alaska, volunteered to take on any tasks that I wanted to throw his way so I slapped a proverbial Producer nametag on his proverbial lapel and started throwing. With the guidance of Kat Candler, it was shockingly easy to get together a crew of David Blue Garcia, Chad Leathers, Lucas Amann, Evelyn Leal and Ashlyn Fielder. Finding a lead actress was less easy. I had stumbled upon the blog of Jennymarie Jemison while doing some pre-casting/internet rummaging for a screenplay that’s still in development and immediately made a mental bookmark. She was funny, talented and had the ideal look for a character who eventually became named Helga (because I was tired of typing “our heroine”). Unfortunately, once I contacted her, I discovered that she was also totally immersed in SXSW, something that I’d long abandoned all hope of. We agreed to meet after things had died down and I scrambled to come up with plans B through D.

In the meantime, I finally received the song: track 6, “These Days”. It was almost uncomfortably serendipitous how well the song fit the video. That’s right, you read that correctly… the song fit the video. It jacked up all the little, mundane, day-to-day frustrations to existential levels and a character who was initially just a darkly lecherous supervisor became a full-on, malevolent, Nosferatu-esque villain—a manifestation of not merely a bad day but evil incarnate. So Mike located our villain, John Cowher, and I, with the immense help of illustrator John Bergdahl, started assembling weird, angular background plates full of subtle nods to the Brothers Grimm.

While the steps in the formula had been refined, the song and the concept had a nice cohesion, and Jennymarie was on board and, refreshingly, up for anything (and provided a superb hair-and-makeup recommendation, Jenny Lin), doubts still existed. I was told the idea was too high-concept, the conceit of casting a beautiful actress and shooting hi-def only to put the works through a process to make it look like this was counter-intuitive, the timeframe was far too tight for a finished animated product, et cetera. Problem was, the person who was telling me these things was the voice in my head, and we’ve always had a contentious relationship. I would never have even attempted half of what I’ve accomplished if I listened to that asshole. So fuck that guy. Concerns about pretentious art history references, shooting pretty things only to ugly them up in post, and a deadline of barely two and half weeks were crammed back into a spare brainhole, and we got to work.

I’ll finish the story once I know when/where all these music videos are going to appear online.

Info I probably shouldn’t leave out: the video is for the song “These Days”. It’s a solid track on an album—Wasting Light—that I’ll go ahead and say is among their best. Dave Grohl recorded it analogue-style in his Encino garage, with guests Bob Mould and Krist Novocelic… and Pat Smear, who is back with the band full time… and it was produced by Butch Vig. Jesus, I’d be excited about this even if I hadn’t directed a video.