Everyone makes experimental films . . .

"Everyone makes experimental films in their dreams."

- Jeff Scher

Check out Jeff Scher's, new film "All the Wrong Reasons" on the NYT!  It is delightful! 

"Dreams are picture-driven, non-linear quilts of movie-like moments sprinkled with cryptic epiphanies. They play nightly in the private cinema of your head but the rub is the audience must be asleep. Then again, maybe sleep, or at least the suspension of conscious thought, is the ideal state for entering such a movie.

“All the Wrong Reasons” is an experiment in making a film that feels as if it has percolated up from the subconscious; a dream you can watch with your eyes open. It’s one of those big cathartic dreams, a labyrinth of fleeting moments full of metaphor and mischief. I wanted it to feel like a bumpy roller coaster ride in and out of the dark side of the brain where all the wrong reasons reside. And, as with all dreams, the meaning and significance are open to interpretation.

There are almost 3,000 paintings and collages in this film. I used rapidly changing color to give a shimmer to the animation and lots of collage to create a visually percussive texture. Shay Lynch’s score pulls all of the wildly disparate images together."  - Jeff Scher

*

P.S.  This film reminds me of a certain cartoon, I'll describe it here:

Frame 1:  A woman awakens, her cat sleeping on her bed, to see a pixie surrounded by stars, "I'm your fairy godmother!"  Frame 2:  The fairy taps the woman on her head with a wand, "ping,"  and declares, "All your dreams shall come TRUE!"  Frame 3:  The woman sits up in her bed (oddly she has been wearing sunglasses throughout this story) and she is delighted!  Frame 4: Suddenly, she is in a classroom full of students - naked (!), while  someone hands her an algebra final she skipped a few years ago . .

:)

This beautiful day outside?  It's beautiful, because you are in it!

Comments

[Thom]

I wonder what sort of films we'd see if someone invented the Dreamotograph?

[jmac]

Hey Thom,

I think that we already are seeing and creating the Dreamotograph films! I'm interested in hearing more about what you are envisioning. Better yet, what are you dreaming?

:)

[Thom]

Hi ya, J. You know how Maya Deren had been a poet who found the need to translate images into verbal form irritating, and so found the camera a welcome solution to the problem? Well, the Dreamotograph would be even an more direct connection and solution. A universal mind decoder (as someone said) straight from the dreamer to the screen. I'm writing a short story about it.

[jmac]

Very interesting! Sometimes I dream that I am filming! :) By the way, the short story sounds awesome! Please send it to me!

[Thom]

When it's finished I'll give you the first peek at it. Hmm...wait. When it's finished, I'll send it to you in exchange for a film about a dream in which you are filming a dream about filming. :P