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An Evolutionary Approach to Filmmaking
The very first inspiration for seriously embarking on filmmaking occurred in 1992, before video-making was even my intent, when by chance I recorded a spontaneous conversation I had with a saxophonist busker and his musical performance inside of the New York Subway. He was wearing an army jumpsuit, a handmade CIA tag and a cap on his head with two silly plastic antennas sticking out. When he saw me holding a tiny pocket camera in one hand and a microphone in my other hand, he asked, “Are you a reporter or somethin’?” Fortuitously, a tiny tape machine inside of my pants pocket was recording, the first such portable digital recording device on the commercial market. Based on an ensuing literally other-worldly conversation and just a few photos I shot of him, five years later I made a short film called, Antenna Man, coinciding with a burgeoning revolutionary technological opportunity, which was unheard of when he and I met.
For me, as an independent artist, this was a revelation. Until then, film was shot with bulky camera equipment on celluloid tape that no one would be carrying on a daily basis, as I was doing, during travels through undergrounds across two continents, capturing material which I originally intended to include in art installations. Further, outside of amateur 8mm, film was expensive and editing a mechanical chore, all of which instantly vanished when digital video editing suddenly became possible.
Here is a newly edited 2021 remake of the original 1997 version, which is still a far cry from a soon-to-be-released evolutionary transformation, another massive technological leap 30 years later, which has allowed Antenna Man to come to life!
Likewise, suddenly the tools became available that provided me with an incredible opportunity to experiment in previously unimaginable ways with sound and music. I describe this in detail with sound and music examples here:
In 1996, prior to creating the short video film Antenna Man, for the first time I composed and recorded original music compositions for video which I also edited. Almost overnight the my first effort won awards in several European video festivals. This included first prizes in Canzo (Como), Italy and Lorca, Spain. The video, About to Depart, was conceived as an introduction to a concept that evolved and became the film version of The Underground Cathedral. It incorporates both still photos and video clips shot in undergrounds of numerous cities, from my native Los Angeles to across Europe all the way to Moscow. I traveled far and wide, specifically for this purpose, always with something in hand to capture whatever I found to be of interest. The precise purpose of the photos, video clips and sounds I collected was not known at the time. There was never and has never been a script in mind before or during the editing process. All changed quickly, when with a single revolutionary desktop computer, an Amiga 3000, it became possible to record digital sound, music and video, even at once on the same monitor!
The second video I created with an original musical composition is Paquito. It focuses on a half-blind young man who I encountered regularly chanting for spare change on the underground metro platform in front of the Barcelona opera house, Liceu, and my favorite cafe, Cafè de l’Òpera, in the city where I lived from 1990 until ’96.
Here is a documentation of the initial awards received and screenings of About to Depart, Paquito and The Underground Cathedral at cutting edge European media festivals, which became commonplace in Europe, if not elsewhere, at the dawning of the new hi-tech era:
After moving to Paris in 1987 and Barcelona in 1990, I rode metros almost daily, always with pocket-sized tools in hand, which I could resort to anonymously and could carry with me easily even if on the way to to buy food. With digital editing effects at my fingertips for the first time I made the most of the material I had collected in a creative fashion. Here are a few scenes from a slightly updated 2021 edit of the original 1996 version of About to Depart:, which has since also undergone a dramatic evolutionary transformation.
The film takes one on a musical underground journey through not just time and space but during transformational historical moments, particularly prior to and at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among the various segments of the film is “Under Lenin’s Tomb,” which captures sounds and scenes of undergrounds of Central/Eastern Europe, including Moscow, Prague, Budapest, Berlin and Warsaw. Another metaphorically reflects Poland’s painful nonviolent resistance during the ’80s era of Martial Law and its liberation at the very moment of my first visit.
One part of the film focuses on Paquito, who became the focus of my second music video. Here are a few moments from the original 1996 version:
Still another “chapter” of the film documents visits to the Bonne Nouvelle (Good News, in English) metro station in Paris. Throughout are moments of buskers performing for spare change every sort of music and musical instrument imaginable, representing various cultures of the world. I have wanted others to see through my eyes during my underworld journeys, hence, I am heard, but not seen, speaking to a few of them, as in the case of Antenna Man. Of course, I am also invisible for I have usually traveled alone, shooting spontaneously with just one camera. In Barcelona I had an encounter with an opera singer and in my native home of Los Angeles I interviewed “Dr. Seuss,” who talked about overcoming cancer after his leg was amputated. He played in the LA Metro daily, always with a smile on his face, entertaining passengers with his “one-leg garbage band.” And extensive interview conducted in 1999 by radio journalist, Christine Rheys of Radio France Culture, concerning The Underground Cathedral film can be found here, on another linked website made years earlier: Radio France Culture Interview Like all of my work, in the name of The Underground Cathedral, this film has continually undergone revisions, for in both a literal and figurative sense it is about movement and change that is ever evolving. My continuing travels, both returning to places where I have been before and to new ones has given me the impetus and new material with which to continue developing this concept, not only in various media but in new ways as they become accessible. One of my most recent additions is a video shot in Buenos Aires. Since 2023 I have also made several visits to Brazil and another video from those travels is coming, as is intended from other corners of the world yet to be explored. This is a clip from the video which I named after the famous Argentine tango singer and composer, Carlos Gardel: Forty years ago I fought with the notion of a computer imitating the creation of a painting, like I do today with the hard-to-fathom fact that writing a prompt can almost instantly result in the realization of a finished song or video. Yet, over the years of working with high technology, which gave me opportunities that previously were unthinkable, I came to recognize that like any tools and resources at an artist’s disposal, in the end, that is what they are: tools, which when combined with one’s developed creative skills can take the manifestation of one’s imagination to another level. Hence, as I unconsciously started out this journey into filmmaking with but five still photos of a New York Subway busker, thanks to new tech tools this was nevertheless accomplished. Yet, it remained impossible to conceive of actually witnessing him speak and play his musical instrument. Now, decades later, that has all miraculously changed, while simultaneously I’ve both brought Antenna man to life and immortalized him, as if a statue in the metro station below the Louvre museum in Paris:
Similarly, a yet-to-be-released new version of About to Depart brings to life large wall posters inside of metro platforms, including an old torn poster containing an image of a woman’s legs, which I photographed long ago in Paris. However, the first animated scene shown here, of a passage to Piccadilly Square in London, remains from the original 1996 version, which was achieved by creating a series of digital “paintings” of a the same photo, then editing them together in a video editing timeline:
