Gotterdammerung on Sunday
Shot on mini-DV, 3CCD camera
This film is no more complicated than the "Gee, I think I need to have my hand be like Siegfried in Gotterdammerung, and have my chair talk to me."
Thus is greatness born.
Love in a Time of Zellweger
Shot on mini-DV, 3CCD camera
Used "Cinelook" filter In Adobe After Effects to simulate film graininess
This film is an excerpt from a longer screenplay-in-progress about angry 20-somethings in love. I've always enjoyed films with overly witty dialogue. It's not necessarily realistic, but it is fun.
And of course I've always hated the film Jerry McGuire, and scientologists in general. I'd hoped for better results in the "Love in a Time of the Beast" segment, but due to limited time, limited budget, etc., I settled for some weird filters and sound effects.
Also, remember not to fuck goats.
More generally, there are some interesting questions regarding the nature of role reversal this film brushes on -- i.e., how do we react to lesbian "I want to fuck her" versus heterosexual male "I want to fuck her"? Is "fucking" equally ideologically laden in this way?
Interestingly, in the couple of screenings this film got, the girl saying "you just want to fuck Tom Cruise" to the guy gets bigger laughs, doubtless because being male and gay is still less culturally acceptable than being a lesbian. Hence, being accused of being gay is still "funny" in some way.
Of course, I probably did this part just for the cheap laughs, but that doesn't mean it can't have an ideological agenda as well.
The Body as Boundary Project
This film is a collaboration of the following people's efforts, for which I am very grateful:
A.D.:
Brooke Marroquin
Streakers:
Julia Pelayo
Dawn Bayer
Videographers:
Ari rosenfield
VHS-C
Christopher Obal
mini-DV, on Canon XL1
JIM DUNN
http://www.breakdancekid.com/pages/1/
Super-8
Police Lookouts / Clothes Handlers:
Andrea Newell
Lauren Poulos
I originally sent an e-mail to the post-modern gothic listserv, which stated:
Hiya PoMoGothers,
I'm trying to put together a team for a big streaking project that I
want to tape and work into a short film about the preconceptions about and
limitations of the human body. Here's a posting of all the pertinent
details -- please let me know if you'd like to get involved!
Cheers,
Robin Dunn
lordrob@att.net
Streak:
a long, narrow mark, smear, band of color, or the like: streaks of mud
a portion or layer of something. distinguished by color or nature from the
rest; a vein or stratum: streaks of fat in meat
to flash, as lightning
The human body is still ruled grotesque by America, unless you look like
David Hasselhoff or Kate Moss. But it doesn't have to be that way. Come
on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------
The UT Body as Boundary Project Invites Your Participation in the Following
Event!
Reveal your body, and reveal the public mind, and have fun and get the old
adrenaline running while you're running naked, across the UT campus plaza.
I need a lot of people to help create this project, which consists of the
following roles:
10-20 streakers
10-20 clothes handlers
7-8 camera operators
5-6 police lookouts
Any number of creative people who can figure out how to make the UT Body as
Boundary Project really, really cool.
Why am I doing this? The biggest reason is that naked people running across
the UT tower plaza is funny as hell. It's bound to make for a good story
afterwards. I've got other reasons and motivations too:
Dr. Sandy Stone's "Postmodern Gothic" class encourages cutting edge dialogue
about contemporary conceptions of the body, the mind, and the psyche.
I plan to help anyone who wants to get involved shed their shame in public,
and then transform the video footage into a 5-10 minute project about the
limitations and possibilities of the human body.
So if you want to help, want to brainstorm ideas or plans, or just want to
insult me for having crazy and useless ideas, let me know.
Cheers,
Robin Dunn
lordrob@att.net
(512) 443-4077
My reasons as stated then I still agree with: naked bodies are opportunities for positive laughter. Bodies are these funny appendages we're always carrying around and we fuss over them all the time and we pass laws that regulate them and we operate on them, etc.
But streaking reminds us of our roots -- it gives us a grounding locus from which to reevaluate our priorities in the universe. (Or at least I hope it does!).
So, Brooke joined the effort.
Then I put flyers all around campus. Here's the flyer:
STREAK NAKED ACROSS UT!
The UT BODY AS BOUNDARY Project needs your help!
Streakers, clothes handlers, camera operators, cameras and additional crew needed!
Be bold, and e-mail streaknow@hotmail.com today
for more information.
I put up about 75 flyers over a period of 2 months, and in the end got about 12 interested streakers, and 6 support crew (though far fewer actually showed, of course, as you've seen).
Other intersting tidbits:
4 different reporters contacted me from the Texan, who wanted to do a story on the streaking project. But the texan had refused to place my ad asking for streakers, as it might "encourage students to violate school policy." So I told the reporters I would talk to them only if they got my ad printed. (None called back.)
One fellow grad student was talked out of helping with filming by his wife. Doh.
Finally:
The guy who made it into the Daily Texan (see the story here http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2004/04/01/TopStories/were-Going.Streaking-647742.shtml )
stole our thunder only a week before our event. But no need for professional jealousies here! The more the merrier.
---
There are some interesting theoretical issues regarding why streaking is a crime, and why streaking is funny and interesting.
A few ways to get at these issues are to ask:
What is a body?
Why be ashamed of a body?
Why pass laws about the human body?
What's wrong with genitalia and the anus?
Why WALK instead of RUN, as our streakers ended up doing.