Hasta La Motion!

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See the rest of our 2014 FoST films here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs6Vd3jEmIsvQTuwyNo6KaILrAal6napZ

“We live in a world awash of information, but we seem to face a growing scarcity of wisdom,” states Maria Popova, Founder of the website Brain Pickings. Popova believes it’s the storyteller’s role to interpret information and shape it into wisdom for the rest of the culture to share.

A Future of StoryTelling Film. Produced by Melcher Media and Kalakala Co.

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I am in no way even attempting to assume that I know anything about the political/social realities at play in the world at the moment, but at quick glance it seems as though violence breeds more violence. The people who changed the world, were the ones who laid down their arms – chose to forgive – to restore – to love – people like Jesus, Mandela, Ghandi, Martin Luther King. Just before he was assassinated on April 3rd, 1968, Martin Luther King preached the sermon ‘I’ve been to the Mountaintop’. Its a profund account of hope and amidst the despair – where he considers the importance and relevance of being born into the turmoil and unrest of the twentieth century. His outlook provides unique context for pain and suffering as he says ‘only when it is dark enough can you see the stars’ He goes on to say; ‘Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. But now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.’ He modeled a way of non-violence – and it cost him his life. Inspired by his words one night I cut together this clip using old archive footage from the Prelinger Archives – those words are as poignant today as they were back when he first spoke them – if not more (for me personally at least).

This film took 300,000 photos, riots, wildfires, paintings in abandoned houses, two years and zero graphics to make. It changed my entire life. Digital downloads available at www.jeff-frost.com/downloads Circle of Abstract Ritual began as an exploration of the idea that creation and destruction might be the same thing. The destruction end of that thought began in earnest when riots broke out in my neighborhood in Anaheim, California, 2012. I immediately climbed onto my landlord’s roof without asking and began recording the unfolding events. The news agencies I contacted had no idea what to do with time lapse footage of riots, which was okay with me because I had been thinking about recontextualizing news as art for some time. After that I got the bug. I chased down wildfires, walked down storm drains on the L.A. River and found abandoned houses where I could set up elaborate optical illusion paintings. The illusion part of the paintings are not an end in themselves in my work. They’re an intimation of things we can’t physically detect; a way to get an ever so slight edge on the unknowable. Early in the process I mapped out a very interconnected narrative structure. It took a long time to fill that narrative structure in, and when I finished editing the film after seven solid weeks of being holed up in a dark room I had no idea if it was something anyone would want to watch. I almost cut the film into pieces before realizing that outside influences were pressuring me to make that decision, and that I was happy with it as it was. It took a long time to come to the creation side of the original premise. It finally took form in a collaboration with sculptor, Steve Shigley, as well as 15 amazing volunteers who moved full sized tree sculptures 450 times over two nights to create the stop motion climax of the film (see the behind the scenes film, Story of Abstract Ritual for the tale of their monumental effort: www.vimeo.com/frostjeff/soar). The idea I wanted to explore was the creation of culture as a conscious creative act, but without the trappings of dogma from institutions or even from ways of thinking. The circle of inverted trees became a small piece of the world with personal meaning where I could mark significant events, contemplate and reflect. That circle still stands, and I still visit it regularly. Several people who have been there have told me that it’s come to mean something special for them as well. They each have their own fascinating way of interpreting the power inherent in those trees. This film is art for the sake of art. It was made with much generosity, from the people who let me crash on their couches to the people who backed the Kickstarter. To all of those people, thank you. This would not have been possible without your help.

Film for Italian high fashion brand, producing exquisitely crafted goods and fragrances. “Inspired by journeys to exotic lands, the new Gucci Oud fragrance features an inventive blend of traditional Eastern ingredients. Natural oud is tempered with pear, raspberry and saffron along with other evocative essences for a sensual and modern fragrance, for him as well as for her.” Credits Client: GUCCI Creative Agency: REM (Ruini e Marrioti) Creative Director: Riccardo Ruini Director: Korb Production + Postproduction Company: Korb Sound Postproduction: KOUZ productions English VO: Sharon Mann Compositor: David Kosten 2014

This is the jazzy intro to “The Name of the Game,” a 1968-1971 NBC-TV “wheel series” starring Gene Barry, Tony Franciosa, Robert Stack, and Susan Saint James. The theme music is by Dave Grusin. You can find out more about this show here: http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2008/09/in-name-of-nostalgia.html