Radar Redux.com is expanding the traditional concept of journalism, to cover a wide array of Baltimore Arts and Culture.
On Saturday, April 17th 2010, People of all ages and demographics were busily piling into the Senator Theater, to catch ODDSAC, Animal Collective’s premier visual album . The film, created during a four year touring hiatus, was directed by Danny Perez, in collaboration with the band of Baltimore natives: Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin (Josh Dibb) and Geologist (Brian Weitz).
Weitz (aka Panda Bear) said that they wanted to “create a movie that would have visuals similar to what somebody would see if they closed their eyes while listening to Animal Collective’s music”. “It’s the most experimental stuff we’ve ever done,” he noted.
The band’s psychedelic sound gells perfectly with the film’s images: shots of 6 minute-long, twirling, colored kaleidoscope fuzz, loops, and color patterns, interspersed with real-life scenes of everything from campfires gone wrong, a man playing a drum in a field, characters with faces of sheer horror, a girl washing a rag in the river of a field, a vampire boat scene, and the list goes on. According to Portner, “Maybe here and there, in our minds, there’s some weird narratives going on. The whole thing cohesively doesn’t have one narrative; it’s more of a visual or psychedelic thing. There are parts that are almost completely abstract, and there are parts that are little bit more live-action.”
Dibb and Weitz answered a few questions from the audience after the film’s premier. They explained that they experimented with images that reminded them of sounds, or that they felt reacted to a certain sound well. The two band members make a nod to Youtube in talking about some of the “weird, [inspirational] shit” they found there. When asked if they planned on doing more visual albums, they responded that they weren’t sure,.
One audience member asked Weitz how he would respond to critics who say he’s just being “weird for the sake of weird.” Weitz responded, “I would tell them fuck you and kiss my ass.” The film, he said, requires audience members “to step outside of your comfort of what is ‘normal’”. The band was asked if there were/are any particular themes they meant to portray in movie. They said they didn’t have any rigid set of themes they meant to portray, but expected the audience to grab the more obvious motifs such as purging, eruption, coalition of the point, and a certain bipolar sense of anxiety and frustration followed by a brief serenity
When asked which came first, the music or the video, for them it was clearly a “back and forth” thing. They edited mostly using final cut until they began screening at bigger festivals, including Sundance last January.
The live action scenes were filmed in large, vacant fields, or at night, in open yet eerie country sides in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and here in Maryland.
A question the whole audience was waiting to hear the answer to: “what inspired you to try to evoke emotions such as anxiety and repulsion in your film; what was responsible for this?” The answer, jointly given by Dibb and Weitz: “Merely everyday emotions, the bullshit of daily life, this harsh/weird generation we live in. We wanted people to explore those emotions which we all have. We can all share in these common everyday emotions.” Finally, one audience member asked why they called the film ODDSAC Both members responded that they didn’t really remember. They said it started as a kind of joke, and that it had something to do with weird, deformed candy characters.
It’s not every day that I would voluntarily choose to watch an experimental film, let alone one created by a band that I consider myself a fan of. Animal Collective gave me a newfound appreciation for experimental film, while staying true to their musical routes; it was a true example of how an artist’s work can develop.
To check out the film’s trailer, click below
to check out a live interview with Panda Bear and Deaking, brought to you by Change Up Magazine, click below
Tags: Animal Collective, experimental film, Oddsac, Senator Theatre
Filed Under: Annoucements Feature Flash Box Import Sights Sounds
corrections:
Weitz (aka Panda Bear), should be Weitz (aka Geologist), and it’s Deakin, not ‘Deaking’. Not sure why you needed to reiterate when you already defined their aliases in the first paragraph.
.02
May 7, 2010 2:03 pm