Turns out there’s a lot more work than I would have expected to produce a movie, even a very, very, very short one. I blame the Indie Movie Work Ethic. You’d think putting actual plots in their movies all the time would wear them out.
I’m talking of course about the 1-Second Film, a project begun seven years ago by Nirvan Mullick when he was a student at the California Institute of the Arts. (I know you know all about it because I told you last year.) Quick version: It’s a non-profit, community-building, awareness-raising artistic collaboration between (so far) 8,100 people. Mullick and his peeps will create a one-second movie composed of images of 12 different paintings (two frames each) that were themselves painted in one very colorful day by students, faculty, and anyone else wandering past. It’s rumored that one hapless pizza-delivery guy was mistakenly painted over in #9 after he leaned against it to tie his shoes, but the eternal torment of his unfortunate soul has not been independently verified and anyway it really adds depth to the piece.
Mullick began funding his idea by going up to celebrities and offering to sell them producer screen credits for $1, a canny combination of stalking and panhandling that really paid off. He received donations from stars like Kiefer Sutherland, Stephen Colbert, Kevin Bacon, Christina Ricci, Seth Green, Samuel L. Jackson, and many more, some of them kicking in more than a buck and a few getting into smack-talking bidding wars for top billing.
Regular citizens also got in on the act – I’m in for $23.23, but then I’ve always supported any arts that will get me a screen credit – and the 1-Second Film began taking off. At the Web site you’ll find a community building itself, all focused on creating the perfect 1-second film and, more to the point, talking about it. As I write this there are currently 8,153 producers on this movie and more coming in every hour, wriging blogs, making their own film crews, being all social with each other. If this movie wins any awards they’re gonna be cranking out little statues for months.
But this experiment in funky, fleeting art still needs more publicity, and that’s where their latest event comes in: The Road to Oprah.
If you want people to know about your movie, be it about neo-Nazis looking for love in a liberal arts college, animated penguins looking for love in the harsh and bewildering Sahara, or about Ben Stiller looking for love in an uncaring box office, you want to get on Oprah. Her award-winning show and consequent pipeline to a bazillion people is unparalled, and so the 1-Second folks bought an old bus, converted it to biodiesel, and loaded up for a 10,000-mile cross-country journey to meet Oprah and ask her for a dollar.
Why do I tell you this? Besides the general insanity of it all, I mean? Because they’re coming here. Next Wednesday, Oct. 17, you can hear a performance by the film’s director and the band The Evangenitals (“hillbilly love punk alternative country psychedelic healthy hippie dirty rock”) while getting the chance to empty out the change in your car ashtray and become a movie producer. Filming for the movie’s documentary will also occur – the documentary will ultimately play alongside the 1-Second Film’s estimated 90 minutes of credits – so brush your hair first. They’ll be playing at the City Park Amphitheater in Port Orange from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and the next morning they’ll be giving an unplugged concert at the Emory L. Bennett Veterans Memorial Nursing Home in Daytona Beach.
(If Oprah is aware of this movement, she hasn’t said. Maybe when they get there they should knock first.)
All proceeds from the movie and the auction of the original paintings will go to the Global Fund for Women. It’s a wonderfully bizarre chance to become part of something that’s been planned meticulously for months to ultimately end in a brief colorful display that you’ll miss if you blink, and since you weren’t there for my honeymoon this is the closest you’ll get.
And if you remember the general quality of the movies Hollywood put out this summer, a dollar to create something original is the best deal you’ll ever find. Even if it won’t get you the good table at Sardi’s.
Yet.
Thanks fellow producer Chris (the check is in the mail)Can’t wait to meet you at the jam fest! Hope lots of fun loving fellow Daytona Area Peeps come on out and join us.