Alex de Campi: We'll have a poodle, a Baby Grand, and roses every day

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WHO

FILM & TV

COMICS & BOOKS

31.5.08 The Air Is Heavy With The Scent of Lilacs

If I ever get tattoos, I shall have the Rider-Waite card for The Magician full size on the inside of one forearm... and the card for The Fool on the other.

Things are going well. After much nail-biting suspense spread out over several months, I've landed a big music video for a well-known US indie star; it shoots in August in London. I've also written on about four more potential music videos and am waiting to hear back, so the summer could end up being quite busy. And I've been offered a feature script by an LA production company to direct. Early days yet, but it's a very good project. I shall continue doing my bit and see what happens.

How interested/curious are you guys on the process of creating music videos? I am thinking (if given permission by the singer/label) to blog the process of making the big August indie video.

Lastly, if you are based in or near London, I would point out that White Mischief, the little indoor festival started by Tobias Slater and myself last year is not so little anymore - and its next occurence is next Saturday night 7th June. If I do say so myself (although for geographic reasons I am no longer involved) it is one of the best run and most fun nights you can find in London; the closest you will ever get to one of those magic fantasy parties you see in films where there is something new and amazing in every corner. Well worth going to; and as it only happens every six months not to be missed when it comes around.

( 4:35 PM ) (0) comments

20.5.08 St Joseph's Baby Aspirin; Bartles & Jaymes...

I really did check into a cheap hotel on La Cienaga. Last week was Los Angeles, where I was a three-time loser and at the same time I was seeing Disney about a film. Three-time loser because last Wednesday I learned I had struck out at Babelgum (where I had two films in the top 10), after the previous week's disaster at Aniboom. The boyfriend's words of comfort: "Forget it. No band ever made it big by winning a Battle of the Bands contest". And I was at Disney, pitching a feature. And the only reason I found my way back from Burbank was I remembered Laurel Canyon from a Joni Mitchell song, and knew it would eventually get me to Sunset. I find my way around cities by the ghost trails of rock and roll songs.

Tomorrow I'm off to an island off the coast of Maine, without electricity or phone, for the rest of the week. The wild roses will be out, and the beach peas.

I am, as you can guess by the Los Angeles trip, finally getting serious about moving beyond music videos to short films and then a feature. I want to shoot two short films back to back this autumn; I have the script to one (a silent), but am still looking for the other. If you know any screenwriters with interesting, slightly surrealist 10-15 minute scripts, do point them in my direction.

I am also very much looking for some help redesigning my website into a simple wordpress blog plus a front page with my videos on it. The world has moved far beyond my simple coding skills and it is about time my web presence moved with it. Can any of you help?

( 3:15 PM ) (0) comments

6.5.08 Radiobled, Or: The Fix Is In

So Martin's and my animatic didn't make the semifinals of the Aniboom / Radiohead contest. What did make it? Lots of finished videos, and a 60-second recut a guy did of footage from another, finished and commercially-distributed animation of his, in direct contravention of the contest's "must be new work" rule, among other rules.

Do excuse me, I'm having one of those teary "will my career ever go anywhere" moments.

EDIT: It appears that another semifinalist, "16 tracks" is ALSO a recut of a pre-existing project. It's a shame, as I really liked this one... although I did wonder how they managed to shoot a project on film, do a DI, then do very advanced and lovely motion graphics in the extremely limited time the contest alloted for creating a storyboard. (Similarly, the Faust Arp video I link above, there were many, many comments under it during the voting period to the effect that people suspected it was a re-cut.)

( 6:36 PM ) (2) comments