Belgrade Artist in Residence

My news for 2013 is that I've been offered an artist in residence in Belgrade. This residency is through Alternative Film Festival and the Academic Film Center. where my film The Swimmer screened earlier this month. I am excited of the prospect of creating a project for this opportunity. You will hear more about this in the coming months.  I will also be setting up a funding campaign to help with travel expenses. In the mean time if you are interested in supporting my project, I have some digital drawings for sale on the menu link- RE:store. This is a site I created to help with the general cost of making films. Support is always welcome and I'd like to offer artwork in exchange.

Erasable Cities Online

Like most filmmakers I'm hesitant to post films online. I'm afraid it might be seen as a substitute for the experience of a cinema. But one of the advantages of being online is multiple viewings, and in this case the text by Italo Calvino should be listened to repeatedly. And the readings by Jack Bennett as Marco Polo and Stan Shields as Kublai Khan are wonderful, as well as the brilliant score by Jason Staczek.

And if you're in Portland this week the film will screen for the second time at NW Filmmaker's Festival Thurs night at 7pm.

 

Erasable Cities: https://vimeo.com/41462098

Charade

I am currently finishing up my latest film and will be ready to start sending it out to festivals next week. I still like the above photo as a promotional still, but below is an actual still from the film. It is based on and uses manipulated footage from the 1963 film of the same name with Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn about a man who is constantly changing his identity.

November Screenings

I'm happy to say I'll be a guest of Portland's Northwest Film Center again the second week of November for their NW Filmmaker's Festival. They will be screening Erasable Cities on Saturday November 10th.  And on the same day in New York, How to Draw Clouds will be screening at the Imagine Science Festival. Then on the 25th Rewired Festival in The Hague will screen Tidal Wave.

RE

I have noticed, walking through the new Target store in downtown Seattle that one of their house brands is called RE. The logo has a similar sans bold face font, and strongly resembles the one used in this blog. I have never seen this logo before and I'm pretty sure Target hasn't seen my blog. Many times creativity is seen to be inspired by conscious and unconscious stimuli formed from the world around us. Sometimes this is nature, but most often it's from memories of artworks created by other people. Sometimes this is called stealing, but in most cases that term is used incorrectly, and the courts are having a difficult time sorting it out. But there's another form of inspiration, like the RE from the Target store where the idea is so simple that a collective unconsciousness takes over and many people can have the same idea at the same time. 

Erasable Cites at Antimatter

I'm happy to report Erasable Cities will have a screening at this years Antimatter Film Festival in Victoria B.C. Antimatter is a festival that consistently screens the best in experimental film with a global perspective.  At the same time they are very supportive of "local" filmmakers. I live in another country, but in Seattle, they are a ferryboat ride away. This is a festival that has supported my films from the beginning. I began making films in 2005, and they have screened my films every year since 2006. The festival this year runs from October 12th to 20th, and my film will screen Oct 17th. The official line up hasn't been announced yet, but this link should keep you informed.

New Website, Art for Film- RE:store

I've made a new website for selling prints of digital art to help fund current and future films. I'm making museum quality giclee's as well as cheaper laser prints. They are all signed, limited additions. I also have flipbooks and an archive of visual art. I'll give you the link here, but it's also in the menu above.

Artworks for Charade

As my current film project Charade progresses I will be making digital drawings to help along the creative process. I've been rummaging through production stills and posters from the original film for my source and inspiration.

There are now 16 days left of my funddrive on USA Projects. One of my perks is an original art work based on the film for a $1,000 donation. I think a unique print of this image is a good contender. If you have the money to invest on that level I hope you will consider it. There are of course perks for smaller donations, and any size donation is welcome. For more information follow this link.
http://www.usaprojects.org/project/charade

The Swimmer online

Well, there's three weeks left of my fundraising campaign. For the remaining three weeks I've decided post my film The Swimmer on Vimeo.

This film premiered at SIFF last year and has screened at Antimatter in Victoria BC, Northwest Filmmakers Festival in Portland, Other Cinema in San Francisco, Paris Festival of Experimental and Different Cinema in France and will screen at Festival Images Contre Nature in Marseille in July. It's also distributed by the Paris experimental film collective Collectif Jeune Cinema. The Swimmer is inspired by the John Cheever short story, and includes manipulated footage from the 1968 film of the same name by Frank & Eleanor Perry staring Burt Landcaster. This film has similarities with my proposed film Charade in that I'm taking the structure of one film, and abstracting it into an experimental narrative. 

I hope you will watch it, and feel free to watch my other films as well. If you like it, I hope you will support my project. Any amount of support will help, even the cost of a theater ticket or a cup of coffee. But of course the larger donations are tax deductible, will reward you with perks, and will be eligible for matching funds.


The Swimmer  https://vimeo.com/36857538
Funding for Charade  http://www.usaprojects.org/project/charade

A Lap in France

The Swimmer jumps the pond to swim another lap in French Cinemas. July 11th & 13th, Festival Images Contre Nature in Marseille France.

Fundraising for Charade Continues...

Fundraising continues....  http://www.usaprojects.org/project/charade

Lower Manhattan

Right before I started making films in 2005, I created a project of collecting dreams from friends and making art works out of them. The theme was recurrent dreams of places other than where you live. Some of these dreams found their way into my early films, like Tidal Wave. This particular one was given to me by Portland's Fred Nemo.  The work is acrylic transfer from a computer generated image, and acrylic on paper.

Fundraising Continues...

A very nice article about my USA Projects fundraising campaign by Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film!!
http://www.badlit.com/?p=22843

Flipbooks for Films

As a thank you for a $50 contribution for my new film project I've made these flipbooks out of a section of my film Tidal Wave. The books are 2.5" x 2.75", 74 pages, and fastened by a bulldog clip. I would love for all of you to have one. I have 4 more weeks to make my goal. If a little more than 100 of you pledge $50 I'm there! The deadline for pledging is July 21st.

http://www.usaprojects.org/project/charade

Fundraising for Charade continues....   
http://www.usaprojects.org/project/charade

USA Projects Fundraising for Charade

I  have started fundraising for my next film on USAProjects. The film is Charade, a short experimental film exploring themes of identity and deception inspired by and including manipulated footage from the 1963 film Charade. Click here to go to my fundraising site and read a more detailed description of the film and funding info. This is my first experiment in this form of funding, and I’ve made a reel as a form of introduction.   Donations can be as small as a dollar or as large as you’d like… and there are perks!  I’ll be adding more info in the coming weeks till my deadline of July 21^th.  USA Projects will supply matching funds, which will make your donations go even further, but as with Kickstarter, if I don’t reach my goal by that date the deal’s off.  So please help support your local artists…..

One More Lap

The Swimmer continues to take a lap in micro-cinemas down the west coast. These micro-cinemas form a river that lead to a place... some place called home. Next stop Other Cinema, May 26th!

Pools in Winter

If you are familiar with my films you may have noticed a recurring theme of water in many of them. One reason for this may be that I grew up next door to an Olympic- sized swimming pool in Tacoma Washington, and spent a lot of time there. One of my memories was a ritual where my brother and our neighbor Scott would jump the fence every spring before the pool was open to the public and be the first ones in for the year.  Scott who would later become the first drummer for Soundgarden would do this sneaking in style, and do a glorious jackknife off the high dive.

Anyway, I did a series of drawings of this pool when it was empty in winter (the high dive was shorted around that time from 10' to roughly the size of the smaller ones).  I've been going through the artworks I made in the 80's & 90's and came upon these drawings made in 1987. They are unframed and made to be hung together, 35"x 26" each, charcoal on heavy rag paper. I am in the process of cataloging these works and might make a separate blog for them.  These are the last of a series of pool drawings and paintings done around that time. I'm trying to lighten my inventory, and if you can give a good home these drawings please let me know. You can contact me through my email- salise.hughes@gmail.com.

Erasable Cities

My film Erasable Cities will screen at Seattle International Film Festival May 24th, part of their ALT-Shorts program. Erasable Cities is based on text from Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities, and features like many of my other films erased film footage. Footage in this film includes fragments from Death in Venice, Don't Look Now, and Three Coins in the Fountain. The score is by Jason Staczek. In this film Jason also chose an erasure technique, erasing excerpts from the Dead Emcee Scrolls composed by Thomas Kessler and performed by the Arditti String Quartet. This is my most ambitious film to date and my longest at twelve minutes. The film also features narration by Jack Bennett as Marco Polo and Stan Shields as Kublai Khan.

Members of S.E.A.T. will give lectures of our work as well as an encore presentation of our ReAnimated exquisite corpse films at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, April 20th starting at 7 pm. in their cafe. S.E.A.T. members included: Drew Christie, Webster Crowell, Stefan Gruber, Salise Hughes, Britta Johnson, Tess Martin, and Clyde Petersen.

Experiments in Cinema v7.9

How to Draw Clouds will screen at Experiments in Cinema v7.9 in Albuquerque NM. The screening will take place on Tues, April 17th at the Guild Cinema starting at 6 pm.

The Perils of Boating

The Perils of Boating is a 4 monitor media installation that will be on view in the windows of 4Culture's E4C: Electric Gallery for one year starting April 5th. The work is based on reedited manipulated footage from F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

ReAnimated

On March 1st S.E.A.T. http://www.experimentalanimation.org/ will host an animation event during First Thursday in Pioneer Square in Seattle. We  will take over Zeitgeist Coffee with film projections both in and outside of the space. At the center of the event is ReAnimated- an Exquisite Corpse film made by seven of the members. Back in late December we came together to draw slips of paper from a hat that would tell us what image would begin and end our films. For example one of the prompts was Man with a Beard. The picture above shows that I ended my film with an image of a man with a beard and animator Clyde Petersen began his film with an image of a man with a beard. After we chose our prompts we were sworn to secrecy so we wouldn't influence each other. Now that these two films are finished I can show you an example of the prompts.