australian youths painted rainbow arrested for creating love in private swimming pool
long story short, i asked my rad australian friend, director steven mitchell wright (of danger ensemble and “cabaret” fame), to make a video for tristan’s new record.
he shot it in brisbane.
this is me and steven (right) & tora hylands (left), live on the Who Killed Amanda Palmer tour in paris, 2009:
and here is steven, when he was with me in rural michigan a few years ago at the rothbury festival…..
so…steven watched the whole story collapse into place starting back in august when i met tristan, and it only seemed right….
the budget was almost nothing, and out of nothing, i think steven has made an incredible, beautiful, FUCK YES piece of art.
we’ve just posted it on vimeo and youtube. go see it, share it, love it, comment, and share it as much as you can.
and of course, if you haven’t gotten tristan’s record yet, DO IT: http://bit.ly/TAepBC
this is from steven, i asked him to share some thoughts about the making of the video:
While I was in Boston working on “Cabaret” and I was at the performance Tristan gave the night that he and Amanda had finished recording, I remember sitting in the chair as they played “János vs Wonderland” (which at the time was untitled), and I found myself crying (or rather fighting back the sobs)…. The next day, I think, Amanda asked me if I wanted to direct the music video for the piece. I’ve never really worked on video except in high school and a ninja video I made with Amanda when we were last on tour, but I decided I wanted to give it a go.
I was inspired by Amanda’s collaboration with Tristan, and so I thought it would be great for this project if I too collaborated with such an amazingly talented teenager. The first thing I did, was contact Sam Lara to see if she was interested. Sam Lara is an 18 year old filmmaker and actor that I know through my youth theatre company (Vanguard Youth Theatre) in Australia. She was psyched – so we went ahead. We had meetings…started talking…. I got frustrated with the process of film – or my perceived process of film – the part where you need to have decided all the shots and ideas before the actors get involved, so we decided to do a creative development play/day before shooting to play with ideas just like you would in theatre. We got the actors together, a lot of them actors I’ve worked with before and their friends, and we played. We shot late into the night/morning over the next two nights. We went in with a very loose plan, but changed it up along the way. The result, you can watch for yourself.
Lessons Steven learnt in the making of this video (and previously, but again during the making of this video): Film is not theatre…film doesn’t have to be as different to theatre as it seems initially. Make beautiful things – it changes the world. Do it yourself (because nobody else will). Willow Smith is not an ideal soundtrack to editing (although I have been known to whip my hair back and forth). You can make beautiful video work with 1 camera, car headlights, a ton of pizza, a handful of amazing people and a whole lot of love. Steven would like to work on video again.
amanda would like steven to work on video again.
ladies and gentlemen – WATCH:
…and check out a couple of behind-the-scenes pics at the very end of this blog…
….and as for the australian youths in the pool making a mess – i’ll be joining you soon.
….and as for the australian youths in the pool making a mess – i’ll be joining you soon.
as promised, i’ll be unveiling a shit-ton (album tracks, tour dates, and more) TOMORROW (unless you’re in oz/new zealand and on my mailing list, in which case…SOONER).
wait for it.
i love you.
xxx
AFP
p.s. if you’re interested in steven’s other work, this is a reminder to please HELP SOME CRAZY BEAUTIFUL AUSSIES (including him)…a lot of you will remember steven mitchell wright’s brainchild, the danger ensemble, from the WKAP tour in 2008/2009 where they toured for me for no money and worked their assess off.
in 2009 – when on break from said tour – they locked themselves in a freezing cold theatre in boston and began to develop a show called “the hamlet apocalypse”….neil and i saw a little bit of it at time, and it was strange and beautiful and raw. since then, it’s gone through more development and has become a full length show that i saw at adelaide fringe earlier this year…
it was tragic and inspiring and rough and tender and it made me want to do theatre more.
(the hamlet apocalypse, photo by morgan roberts)
why am i telling you this? well, inbetween making his first ever music video and being generally awesome, steven’s been working on taking this show to the next level, and getting it to where it can be an international touring gig, and bring it cities and countries near YOU. until now, it’s really been a labour of love…it’s been unpaid for the actors, director, creatives, and crew, but they’ve DONE IT – because they believe in the work. thing is, they have to raise money to increase the production value, create a very exciting soundtrack for the show (which will be available online), and develop everything they need to tour the world, proper-like.
they’re raising money on the australian version of kickstarter called fundbreak, and since you all kicked so much ass with tristan, it was important for me to bring this to your attention. as little as a dollar from everyone will go a huge way to making this awesome show be more awesomer. $10 will help heaps, and if you’re super loaded, you can donate $10,000 and they’ll fly you from anywhere in the world to the next opening night!
info and donation stuffs can be found at http://hamletapocalypse.fundbreak.com.au and you can share the link with people on twitter & facebook using http://bit.ly/fundTHA
check out the site – dig into your wallets if you can, spread the word either way…..support the fucking crazy experimental artists around us who are trying to make this world a bigger, more beautiful-ful-of-love place, because they and you are the fucking future of this world.and now, as promised, more pics from the making of the video:
