For those who didn't already know, it's final. Lightpainting has got us sitting upright in our seats and has our full attention. Through our friend and crewmember Dana aka TCB we came in contact with Matt Crawford. Matt has gone trough the same journey we have: He discovered the world of lightpainting and got hypnotized by the lights. Now Matt and his crew are busy on a big project on lightpainting that will include a movie called 'luminary'. The movie is described as a 'gonzo documentary' about lightpainting. For this, Matt and the crew travel the world to show the work of numerous lightpainters/artists all around the globe. We want to know everything about this amazing project, and we will be following the crew in their progress. But first, a proper introduction. Welcome to the world of 'luminary'.
"With Luminary I get to say, "You have had a tremendous impact on me and other people and I'd like an opportunity to show everyone how good your are as an artist." Man, who wants to say no to that?"
Where are you from, and where did you grow up?
I was born in Ohio and I've grown up in Texas.
We know you as 'earsaregood', with a bit of research we discovered that's probably because you have a huge background in audio, like Foley, sound mixing and recording. How did you get into this and what do you do with that today?
I got into audio through doing sound design for live theatre. The process of getting a script and having someone say..."I want you to read this and make music and sounds to help us tell this story."...was/is something that is very attractive to me. The first time I heard that it was a "job" I remember exactly where I was and what I was looking at....I was in my friend Stephon's truck and he mentioned he was doing "sound design" for a local theatre. Bam...just like that, I realized I had a way to have my creative nature pay the bills (well not really when working in live theatre =-(...)...and I had a "vision" in which I saw myself in the future looking back at already accomplished sound designed shows I had done.
Learn more about Matt Crawford...
Now you're busy with Luminary, a documentary about light painting. What got you into lightpainting and what got you up to the point that you wanted to make a documentary about it?
The reason I decided to make Luminary is that I like making documentaries, but I have no desire to make one if it does not completely inspire me and at the same time make me feel like I can express that feeling to an audience. I also want to have my process be something that exposes me to real and intense experiences that make my world view expand. So, when I realized I could not stop looking at these light painting pictures and then started researching the process and artists, I realized this was a movie I wanted to make. It sort of came to my awareness that this project, Luminary, was going to happen..and now it is. I must say it's turning into way more fun than I had anticipated.
On the Luminary movie weblog we read that "The process of making Luminary is 'gonzo documentariansim' ". Can you elaborate on that?
I use Google as my "spell checker" and also as a "concept checker"....I sometimes will have an idea that I'm curious about and I'll type it into Google to see what "the matrix" had to say about it. Google is like an Oracle. It has the answers and guides your thoughts and actions. I like doing different word combination searches related to a topic to see what hits I get...and sometimes effective key word combination can really help refine a search.
On rare and special occasions the matrix has not had an entry that directly matches your keyword search. I love when that happens.....it's like finding out you had a "new thought".....it's a post post modern way to feel like a contributor to our new "Tower of Babel".....so, I had the idea "gonzo documentarianism" as way to describe to myself what I expected the film making experience for Luminary to be. When it didn't come back in the Google search I was secretly delighted. I had entered something into our shared consciousness. I made a few entries and started a blog and bought a domain and planted my fucking freak flag on that phrase/concept. haha! but seriously, Solomon said in the Bible that "there is nothing new under the sun"
luminary at lapp-pro
Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time."
So, I don't ultimately take it seriously to be "the first" to do anything.......but I like the idea that a "gonzo documentarianism" search only returns results of mine....it's probably because "documentarianism" is such a.....well....non-word?.....hehe...
The idea I have in mind when I say "gonzo documentarianism" is certainly stemming from gonzo journalism made famous by Hunter Thompson. But my idea is not necessarily related to the drug addled specifics of his expressions....
Rather, the idea is that you immerse yourself in the thing you are "covering" and allow a personal experience through which you "report". It's a stylistic decision in a way. It allows me/us the freedom to have a creative impact on the experience. We are not just documenting we are experiencing, and then creatively re-designing our "subjects" and "material" in each moment into a manufactured representation of both our primary narrative concepts and also our impressions as we experience them. A key concept would be that the "impressions" of our experiences as we go through them affect what we realize the narrative thread to be. Start with some guidelines and structure, but aim for the "essence" of each experience regardless of the preconception.
It's not just our impressions. In a "classic" definition of documenting you stay out of the way and try to get a true document; have no undue influence on the "subjects"...but with gonzo documentarianism we also have an impact on the artist and their process. So, Luminary is not just a document of their process, but a mingling of their natural artistic creation and our movie making constructs. It's entertainment after all...and we're after a whip ass entertaining romp across the planet and into the minds of these artists.... Hopefully we'll be scoring crack for our eyes/ears along the way.
Made by Dana aka (tcb) - http://twincitiesbrightest.com/
Do you think the movie will help lift lighpainting to a higher platform?
I hope so.
For this documentary, you will be traveling around the world meeting up with different artists. To which countries and artists will this trip lead you?
Currently we've been to:
- UK
Andrew Whyte (AndWhyNot on flickr) in Portsmouth area
Chris Benbow (Nocturne) in Crewe
Michael Bosanko in Cardiff, Wales - France
Guilhelm from Jadikan Lightning Project in Grenoble
Marko 93 in Paris - The Netherlands
Eric Staller in Amsterdam - Germany
LAPP-pro, Jan Wollert and Jorg Miedza, in Bremen
Lightmark, Jens Warnecke and Cenci Goeple, in Hamburg.
And we're still doing a road trip along the West Coast to see Troy Paiva, Dean Chamberlain (and some others to be announced), hopefully a Texas road trip with Noel Kerns, a trip to Berlin for the Lightwrite festival and then an extended stay in Okayama Japan with Fiziks, Trevor Williams, tdub303..... I am also looking into getting permission from the estate of Man Ray to include his "space writing" pics as part of the history and also looking to get permission to use the famous images Mili took of Picasso light painting....
How did you get in touch with all these artists?
Well, I got in touch with all the artists through the internet. I researched light painting pretty extensively and made a list of artists I thought would be great to talk to and I set about making contact. I found that every person I contacted had a shared passion and enthusiasm. Everyone has been extremely considerate and gracious in their willingness to take some time for this project.
Actually, I found one local Houston artist by light painting one of his sculptures. David, artandsteel, saw my pic on Flickr and we got connected. David has been doing light painting for several years now and he is my primary light painting collaborator. We take pictures together often and it's always a grand adventure. You can see some of the collab pics of ours in the Luminary galleries on the luminarymovie.com website. Check him out on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artandsteel/.
Are there any particular light painters you are excited to meet up with?
all of them....any of them.....
Do you have any other crew members helping you out?
This is really an opportunity to comment on the fact that I have a beautiful, and way more talented than me, wife named Che' that is doing all of the logistical arraignments and is also responsible for all the shot tapes and most "producer" duties. As if that was not enough, she will be making sure our 3 year old daughter Sway has the beautiful learning experience she deserves as we show her, for the very first time, the world on a more global scale.
Also, my friend and partner Joshua Butler will be running the main camera. We made our previous movie One-Eyed Girl in a similar way with him shooting and me interviewing/directing. But this time I'll be running the "B" camera as well....and a surround audio recorder.
This team of Che, Josh and myself all shot and edited One-Eyed Girl together and we are bringing the weight of the lessons we learned into Luminary. We are fortunate to have strong personal and professional relationships that make us a very strong production unit.
Which equipment will you be taking on the road with you?
Luminary is being shot in HDV. Our kit is lean and mean, but even so a 14 day production requires a considerable amount of kit. It looks like our primary camera is going to be an XHA1. This is far from my first choice, but considering it is free it is the obvious choice. It has limitations, but the reality of this project is that it's the content and the experience that are the ultimate value items. Would I like to be shooting on an EX1/3 and get low light performance that I really want?...uh, yeah. Do I have the resources to rent or buy that?...hellz no, not yet.
Learn more about the equipment...
Anything else you can tell us about the Luminary movie project?
Exepect gonzo style updates from the road....peep CFYE and luminarymovie.com for some exclusive content.
The artists in Luminary are all creating work that stops me in my tracks literally. I want to say that it all started with the images and it will end with the images, but with a much deeper appreciation for the artist inside them. I work in creative, demanding, corporate, theatrical environments on a daily basis and I am exposed to a lot of input so when I find something that makes me say "DAMN!" every time I see it for months and months I know that it must be pretty powerful. I know the power of this art and these artists is so strong that once we make Luminary it will contain tremendous energy and it will translate into a feeling of strength, empowerment, wonder, and exuberance in the viewer.
http://artandsteel.com/home.html
When can we expect Luminary to be out, and where will we be able to get it?
Luminary the movie is probably not going to be full realized until late 2010. But Luminary is more than a movie, it's a website with artist info, it's light painting kits, it's going to be on ongoing resource for light painting artists and information. So, we'll be increasing our profile as the content grows and our connections solidify. I trust in the process of honest enthusiasm and genuine interest. Making documentaries is great because I get to approach people I admire and appreciate and find ways to express/explain what I think is so great about them. With Luminary I get to say, "You have had a tremendous impact on me and other people and I'd like an opportunity to show everyone how good you are as an artist." Man, who wants to say no to that? But then, the critical factor for success, is to genuinely have the artists best interest in mind and be striving to create a creative document, but one that accurately demonstrates their unique artistic vision.
Stay in tune @ CFYE.com for everything about this amazing project and their trips, and be sure to check out the luminary website!
