A Bonus Movie

Posted on January 30, 2012 by codyclarke

In my previous entry, I announced I’ll be shooting a new feature film this Spring. Well, I don’t want to have to wait that long to get behind a camera again and do what I love most, so I’ve decided to make another one before then. Day 1 of shooting is this Thursday.

It’s called ‘Rehearsals’ and it centers around a group of 20-something girls who are trying to make it as actresses in NYC. There is no script, and no planned story. Everything will be improvised. Only in the editing room, after everything has been shot, will I assemble some sort of a narrative.

I will be shooting it all myself, with no crew whatsoever. The budget is likely to be virtually nothing. I expect to have it up online for free in a month or so.

Lastly, here’s what I sent out to my cast this week:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CAST OF ‘REHEARSALS’

  1. Be yourself at all times.
  2. When improvising with cast members, talk about things you actually want to talk about. Have real conversations. Say things you genuinely want to say. No ‘chatter’.
  3. I will never tell you what to say in a given scene. Say anything you want, so long as it comes from a real place within you.
  4. Don’t worry about a narrative or a story. Focus on the present (the scene you’re in at the moment) and not the ‘big picture’.
  5. As you will be in your real apartment/dorm, behave as you would normally in this setting. Everyone has favorite places to sit, ways of sitting, rituals, etc. Use your space as you really use it.
  6. When we shoot outdoors, we will not go places arbitrarily. We will go places you genuinely would like to go. You are as in control of the places we go as the things you  say.
  7. Never break a take. Even if you feel sure in your heart that it’s not going well. It might end up somewhere nice. You never know. Only ever break if I tell you to do so.
  8. Feel something. Anything. Joy, sadness, boredom, nervousness. It doesn’t matter. If it’s an emotion, it’s okay.
  9. You are beautiful as you are. Don’t spend any more time on beautifying yourself than you would normally spend in ‘real life’. You’re not going out on the town. Unless, of course, we’re shooting you going out on the town.
  10. I love you. I wouldn’t be working with you if I didn’t. This is a labor of love. I believe in you, I trust you, I enjoy you.

    Your Fan,
    Cody Clarke

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What’s in store for 2012? A new film!

Posted on January 2, 2012 by codyclarke

Hello, fans! (All six of you)

I hope 2012 has been treating you well so far. Me, I’ve been lazing it up, and will continue to do so through my birthday, January 3rd. But after that, I’ll be getting right back to the grindstone! And what will that entail this year? Glad you asked:

This Spring, I begin shooting my second feature-length film. I can’t say too much about it right now, but I will say a few things:

I wrote it, I’m directing it, and I’ll be in a couple scenes.

I’ll have a lot more money to work with this time around. Not an inordinate amount, but compared to Shredder? Avatar budget.

The main characters are two sisters, and it’s a feel-good romantic comedy. But it’s my version of that genre, which is to say, it’s a little subversive. Though it will play to a wide, PG-13 type of audience.

Why have I gone this route? Well, after making Shredder, I didn’t want to make ‘Shredder II’, so to speak. I didn’t want to repeat myself.

I wanted to do something completely different. I always want to do something completely different. In fact, the film I’m writing right now (which I plan to shoot 2013) is even more out of left field!

My goal is to never make two films that are alike. This isn’t to say I don’t respect directors that stick to one tone. Trust me, I worship at the altar of Aki Kaurismaki, Todd Solondz, Woody Allen, et al. But right now I’m having a great deal of fun jumping from genre to genre.

Thanks for your support, and I can’t wait for you to see the new one!

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Photoid: The New ‘Factoid’

Posted on December 30, 2011 by codyclarke

Urban legends and factoids have been rendered benign by the Internet. Anything that seems at all dubious can be Googled for its validity– that is, as far as text is concerned. Photos are still almost impossible to research, and thus, a new evolution of ‘factoid’ is born: Photoids.

This is not an actual term yet. I coined it just now. But I think it’s the best possible name for this phenomenon. What else do you call something like this:

Photoid

The above picture looks plausible: It’s improbable, but not impossible. And there are no noticeable Photoshop artifacts. But there is no way to prove or disprove its validity– as of the time I write this, TinEye turns up next to no results. Yet all over the world, this image is circulating, and people are presupposing it to be real.

This presents a Baudrillard-esque conundrum. We are living in an age where the ‘map’ is preceding the ‘territory’ the map depicts. In other words, someone may very well see this image, think ‘oh wow, I wanna try that’ and do so. But perhaps this image is Photoshopped, and nobody has ever done this– that is, except the person deciding to do it after seeing the photo. The person who assumes ‘someone else’ has already done it, and thus, it can be done.

It’s unimportant to debate whether this is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing. This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not. And as we move ever closer to the Technological Singularity, there will come a day we will be able to ‘Photoshop’ our lives as we are living them. And what then? The erosion of the ‘possible’ and the ‘impossible’? In a way. Nobody truly knows what it’ll ‘be like’. But it’s coming.

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Check me out in ‘Fake Henrik Zetterberg’

Posted on November 27, 2011 by codyclarke

Fake Henrik Zetterberg

This summer I acted in an episode of my friend/colleague Greg DeLiso’s web series ‘Fake Henrik Zetterberg’. It’s just one tiny line, but it was really fun to do, and the whole cast/crew are great people. Definitely check out the series. It’s cute and quirky and funny and all those good adjectives. The one I’m in is ‘Episode 4: Henrik’s Big Idea.’

Check it out at: FakeHenrikZetterberg.com

12/28/11 Update: In the beginning of Episode 9, you can briefly see me in the background getting chewed out by the boss.

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Nancy Ivers: 21L

Posted on November 16, 2011 by codyclarke

Hello darlings,

I was recently hired to film, direct, and edit a silent documentary about an artist’s first gallery show. If you’re one of the three people out there who liked Shredder, check it out, as it’s kinda up that same alley: static shots, fly-on-the-wall style, Canon T2i.

Nancy Ivers: 21L

Check it out here: Nancy Ivers: 21L

Enjoy!

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Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Social Network’

Posted on September 21, 2011 by codyclarke

It’s no secret that I hated The Social Network. Though I didn’t feel like detailing my various gripes then (and still don’t) I will say that one thing that irked me was that the parameters of the Facebook experience, and its philosophical implications, were entirely ignored. Which is a shame, because that, for me, is the most interesting aspect of Facebook. Learning the dramatic (and largely fabricated) history of its’ founders felt like a waste of time.

Luckily, there is a film out there that explores the metaphysics Facebook, if only allegorically, and most likely, unintentionally. That film is Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. If you have not seen it already, please do so before reading further. Although I won’t be ‘spoiling’ anything per se, I won’t be recounting the plot at all.

To put it bluntly: Cotard is Zuckerberg, and his warehouse installation is Facebook. His constant tinkering and overcomplicating directly mirrors the endless layout and functionality changes to the site over the years that have only made it worse and worse. The most recent of which, a realtime (and as of writing this, unremovable) activity feed on the right hand side, has cluttered the site to the point of near-parody. It looks and feels like an April Fool’s prank. Cotard’s myriad tweaks are similarly darkly funny.

Both Cotard’s and Zuckerberg’s creations must involve everyone you know, as well as people you barely know, to be complete. That is supposedly the ‘truth’ of the theater of it– despite the fact that no real truth can be found among such a cacophony of chatter. And both contain endless levels within levels– groups, events, walls, comment threads, games, etc., with seemingly no end. A nightmare of Baudrillard proportions.

The vast majority of us are living in Cotard/Zuckerberg’s world– a world with no possible meaning to be derived, yet we spend a large chunk of our lives intertwined in it. With Facebook, man has invented a virtual nihilistic universe. And I see Synecdoche as a cautionary tale: let us not die inside the machine.

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Sad Waitress Story

Posted on August 13, 2011 by codyclarke

I saw Eric Johnson at B.B. King’s the other night. Hell of a show. Dude killed it. But that’s beside the point:

There were a whole bunch of waitresses working that night, because the venue decided to cover the floor with tables, as they do occasionally. This forces the standing-room folk like myself back pretty far, but whatever. I still had a good vantage point.

The waitresses are busting their asses the whole time. Navigating through seas of people and chairs and tables without spilling a drop of a drink like it ain’t no thang. Well-earning their tips.

One waitress in particular catches my eye. She has her hair pulled back, glasses on, shirt buttoned up fully, sending a clear message to all in her radius: I’m here for turnaround, not small-talk. Always on her feet, always moving, always doing. Girl is a machine.

Now for the sad part.

It’s almost the end of the show. Maybe one, two songs left. She’s handling a table and a guy is trying to pass by her, but the pathway is too small. Girl has gotta squeeze in so he can pass. She’s trying to finish up what she’s doing and leave, but it’s taking too long. She’s gonna have to squeeze in. And both her and I know what’s gonna happen if she does. But she does it anyway.

The man strafes past her, and her and I share a telepathic millisecond of relief that he didn’t grope her or make body contact with her at all. But then just as he’s walking away, he intentionally lets his hand graze her ass.

And she sucks it up. Just continues working like nothing happened. Because this type of thing probably happens all the time. And she can’t just tattle every time, or else she’s ‘that girl that keeps thinking every guy is groping her’, and will get fired.

So, yeah. That’s the sad waitress story. Here’s a comedy ending to make it all better:

“That woman is now my wife.” – Robert Evans

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Watch Shredder, my first feature length film, streaming online!

Posted on July 31, 2011 by codyclarke

Shredder, a film by Cody Clarke

This past fall/winter, I filmed my first feature-length film, Shredder! We made it for $3,000, $735 of which we raised on Kickstarter. The rest came out of my own pocket.

I produced, wrote, directed, and edited the film. I also star in the lead role, as Travis, a High School senior who is falling out of love with writing silly comedy songs on guitar, and in love with heavy metal music. Over the course of the film, we follow my character’s ensuing ups and downs with friends, love interests, and his instrument.

The tone of the film is very atmospheric, minimalist, fly-on-the-wall. It’s shot in black and white and comprised solely of static shots. No coverage whatsoever. And there are some very long takes. I’ll tell you right now, the movie isn’t for everybody, but if you’re into that sort of thing, you might dig it.

Making this was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, and the cast and crew grew very close. A lot of love went into this thing. I hope that comes through as you watch.

Check it out here, where it’s streaming for free: http://www.codyclarke.com/shredder

Thanks for reading and thanks (in advance) for watching!

P.S. As a result of making this film, I’ve already found a producer for my next feature-length. We’ve been in pre-production for many months already. It’s an experimental romantic-comedy, and we start shooting this Fall. My goal is to keep making a film every year, a la Woody Allen.

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Ladytiger Vlogs #1

Posted on June 11, 2011 by codyclarke

Hey tigresses,

Here’s the first episode of my brand new vlog, LADYTIGER VLOGS! Rate, comment, subscribe.

XOXO,
Ladytiger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFUL6vc_yNo

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Duluth (Poem)

Posted on June 8, 2011 by codyclarke

Duluth
by Cody Clarke

Dancing in China
or at least Chinatown
is our dream

It’s what we one day
hope to do
in this world

Jiggle at grown-up strangers
who reminds us of us
in Middle School

with their polite society stoicism
and destinations
and introversion

as our All-American
18-year-old breasts
from Duluth, Minnesota

shake them from The Matrix
which is our favorite movie
even the sequels

and we watch them often
naked in our basement
vaginas to the screen

Chinese subtitles activated
and thick weed smoke
and God on Sunday

and graduation in June

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