The Ball Deep International blog : 2007 : January

Archive for January, 2007

Donna Juana (or If Don Juan Was a Woman) Episode 15

L to R: Brian Thunderblizzard, Sarah Dreamtigers, Roz Carter, Jimmy Carter, Hot Donna (August 2006)

SUBJECT: “I was born in the summer, in case you can’t tell.”

Dear Merran or Vern,
Please read this on the air:

Dear listeners,

In honor of this weekend, I tried to put together a wintery-mix for you. But that music’s just too drippy. So instead, I’d like to replay a show I made last year. It’s called “Summer Feelings” and it’s all music by Jonathan Richman. It reminds me of the summer.

You can find the playlist or download this show on my website, www.balldeep.tv. I’ve also posted a bonus Jonathan Richman MP3 there in honor of the other way I tried to beat the winter blues this weekend — buying very expensive jeans.

Well, enjoy! and sorry to flake out on you.

Love,
DJ Hot Donna

Thanks,
L
—

Lev’s radio show air’s every Sunday night at 11pm on WHFR.
(MPFREE), (Bonus MPFREE)

PLAYLIST:
Down in Bermuda
Sunday Afternoon
Harpo En Su Harpa
Walter Johnson
Nishi
Springtime in NY
I Love Hot Nights
New England
Parties In The USA
Walk Up the Street (demo)
Foggy Notion
Lonely Financial Zone
Monologue About Bermuda
The Beach
In Che Mondo Viviamo
Con el Merengue
Melodía Tradicional Ecuatoriana
When She Kisses Me
That Summer Feeling

January 28th, 2007 | Donna Juana, Motivation | 1 Comment »

Donna Juana 14 - Relaxing All Over the Place

Lev’s radio show airs every Sunday night at 11pm on WHFR. Tonight’s mellow and sophisticated episode was brought to you in part by Cutty Sark. (MPFree)

PLAYLIST:
Jonathan Richman - Theme from Moulin Rouge
Doctor Pablo & Dub Syndicate - Man of Mystery
Bim Sherman - Simple Life
Sly and the Family Stone - Runnin’ Away
John Legend - P.D.A. (We Just Don’t Care)
S.L.A.B. - “Late Night Hype” Track 4
Lil Wayne - Walk it Off (Chopped and Screwed by OG Ron C)
Lil Wayne - Vans Freestyle
Kid 606 - This Is Not My Statement
Touane - Pendulum (let your nerves speak)
Touane - The Clap Song
Phil Collins - Take Me Home (12″ mix)

Enjoy!

DJ Hot Donna

January 21st, 2007 | Donna Juana | No Comments »

M-M-M-Money is all we think of

With the Blondes In the Jungle shoot only half a year away (you heard the buzz?), we are fundraising like Ball Business. Now is Phase 1: Institutional Support. Next week we send in our application to the Jerome Foundation “New York City Media Arts Program”.

It’s our favorite foundation — first, the dude who runs it, Robert Byrd, is a real cool customer (that’s not sucking up. that’s the truth). Second, the grant could practically cover our entire budget. And third they’re waiting for a project like this one. So we’re psyched. I mean, it feels good just to apply for something prestigious.

And with that in mind, here’s the cover letter to our proposal — in a few months when we hear back, you guys will know whether or not it’s a good Sample Proposal. Till then, maybe you’d enjoy the inside peek anyways. The more interesting parts are highlighted

Updated 02/04/07 with the final version…

“I am nineteen years old, blonde, and looking for adventure. Let me be your special.”
- 1926 letter to J. Eric S. Thompson, Archaeologist of the ancient Maya

Blondes in the Jungle
A short fiction film with an accompanying original soundtrack
By Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn

Blondes in the Jungle is a comic fantasy. It follows British archaeologists in the 1930s excavating the Mayan Well of Sacrifice, and American teenagers in the 1980s hunting for the Fountain of Youth. Setting these stories side by side, we highlight useful links between the two seemingly unrelated cultures that inspire these expeditions. It will be an exciting movie for people like us, who are interested in the history of the Americas, the cultures of science and leisure and the many varieties of human adventure.

We will shoot on location, summer 2007, on the grounds of the Casa Verde yoga retreat near La Ceiba, Honduras. There will be a cast of six and a crew of three, including ourselves. The vast majority of shooting will take place outdoors in available light. We will also produce a companion original soundtrack for the film later this summer. One final product of Blondes in the Jungle will be a CD/DVD set of the film and soundtrack.

Taking the technical methods and artistic interests we have developed these past three years and elaborating them to far a more ambitious scope and scale, Blondes in the Jungle will be our breakthrough project.

Technical

In many ways, Blondes in the Jungle is the kind of production we are used to. All eleven of our movie projects have been shot on small budgets, teaching us how to minimize film used (we average a 1.5:1 ratio) and maximize the skills and resources at our disposal. Often we shoot using available light, in various weather conditions. We have also mounted complicated shoots including travel, isolated locations and limited time frames. Our work producing the GAaME DVD familiarized us the process of recording music and the possibilities offered by setting music alongside film. Professionally, Lev coordinated several large productions for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), including a four-person crew, two-week, multi-location shoot in the U.K.

The scale of the Blondes in the Jungle production, the two-week duration of the shoot, and the relative unpredictability of tropical weather present us special challenges. We have prepared for these by:
1. Sending Whitney to Casa Verde on a location scouting/preliminary planning trip this February.
At this time she will also shoot test footage and some B-roll.
2. Recruiting experienced and multi-talented producer Alex Orban.
3. Increasing our filming ratio to 3:1.
4. Extending the length of our shoot to give a healthy allowance for weather and other contingencies.
And finally through ongoing consultations with Geralyn Abinader, who has over 16 years of experience producing and directing shoots in remote locations including the rain forests of Vietnam and Brazil. All these safety measures only slightly increase our costs.

Artistic

As in many of our films, Blondes in the Jungle creates meaning through the juxtaposition of discreet and seemingly unrelated narratives and styles. The 1980s story has an adventure movie look and an ironic “downtown” pace common to our short films. The 1930s story follows the didactic form of education films, like those Lev produces for AMNH — only here the narrator is the Mayan jaguar god.

In Canterbury Tales style, the two central stories are starting-off points for others. Some are told orally: favorite TV show plots, a narration of the medieval European Children’s Crusade, a description of Christmas at the Mayan Archaeological workers camp. Others are visual, like the silent jungle landscape sequences that punctuate and interrupt the film.

Moments of co-incidence, artifacts from previous times, and recurring experiences – pleasure, wonder, violence – act as hyperlinks between the movie’s stories. A number of these hyperlinks suggest a cause-effect relationship, but many more follow an abstract joke-like logic. Either way, they pierce the boundaries between the movie’s many cultures and world-views (ancient and modern; European/American and Native American; work and leisure; scientific and supernatural). Thus, they lose their hermetic isolation and become involved in a network of associations and comparisons. This increases the meaning and relevance of each.

We have explored the potential of juxtaposition before, most notably in Jazz Christmas and Blood Stew, but never to as broad a set of moments, concepts and characters. And never have we developed and fleshed out each individual part with so much subtlety and sophistication. Blondes in the Jungle is our most ambitious film to date, following the artistic methodology we have developed for years, but raising the stakes of what we can talk about and and how it can be said.

With Blondes in the Jungle, we are in the lucky position of being fully prepared for something we haven’t done before – both technically and artistically. Please help us realize this potential.

Sincerely,

Lev Kalman
Whitney Horn

“I’m telling you, baby….The world is a jungle. Wherever you go it’s still the same.” - Bret Easton Ellis, Novelist

January 18th, 2007 | Motivation, Blondes in the Jungle | 1 Comment »

Halloween Face: A Real Horror Show Episode 4

Previously on Halloween Face: A Real Horror Show…

And now,

Episode 4:
Derek Youngbeard and (J)Z get together.

Cast:
Derek Youngbeard - Nate Davis
(J)Z - David Greenfield

HF_04 - (Quicktime), (Youtube)

Thematically related bonus MPFree: Neil Diamond - ~~Hell Yeah~~

Next episode: 01/31/07

January 17th, 2007 | Halloween Face | No Comments »

Donna Juana 12 - Towards a Blondes in the Jungle Mixtape

As you probably know if you have talked to me or Whitney in the last few months, Blondes in the Jungle will be The Film of 2007 — not just for us, but for you and thousands of other people as well.

With that in mind, this week’s Donna Juana is a first draft/brainstorm for the upcoming Blondes in the Jungle mixtape. That mixtape will in turn inspire the film’s original soundtrack, which will play from our heros’ boombox as they trek through the 1987 Honduran rain forest.

Ok — hope this helps you get as psyched as we are: (MPFreeee)

PLAYLIST:
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - In the Jungle
James White and the Blacks - (Tropical) Heatwave
Harry Nilsson and John Lennon - Mucho Mungo / Mt Elga
Lionel Richie - All Night Long (All Night)
Electra - Jibaro
Heaven 17 - Play To Win (Extended Version)
Prince - Partyman (remix)
Heaven 17 - Sign O’ The Times
Heaven 17 - We’re Going To Live For A Very Long Time
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - I’m Corrupt
The Specials - Too Much Too Young
Rod Stewart - Some Guys Have All The Luck / Addicted to Love (live)

SKULLLLLLLLLSS!SKUUUUUULLLLLLLLLSS!SSKKKKULLLLLLSS!

From Well of Sacrifice by Donald Ediger

January 15th, 2007 | Donna Juana, Blondes in the Jungle | 1 Comment »

Donna Juana 11 - On-U fONdUe

For fans of sound effects, daydreaming and things that can be described as “workouts” — the On-U fONdUe: 25 years of music from the inconsistently brilliant psychedelic-dub/dance label, On-U Sound. (MPFree)

PLAYLIST
Audio Active - Start Rec
Barmy Army - Billy Bonds
African Head Charge - Cattle Herders Charge
Barmy Army - Devo
Adrian, Denise & Emily Sherwood - Ignorant Version
Audio Active - U.G.
Ghetto Priest - Boom Fire
African Head Charge - Stebani’s Theme
Sinead O’Connor - Emma’s Song (Adrian Sherwood remix)
Adrian Sherwood w Lee Scratch Perry - Animal Magic
Lee Scratch Perry w Dub Syndicate - De Devil Dead
African Head Charge - I Want Water
Little Annie - I Think of You

NOTES and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Donna Juana airs every Sunday at 11pm on WHFR. MP3s and Playlists are archived on Balldeep.tv.

Mostly because I don’t get no-wave as well as others (Hot Donna Too, for example), I shied away from On-U’s celebrated no-wave output like Mark Stewart and the Mafia. But why two of my favorites, Bim Sherman and Dub Syndicate, are pretty much missing is a mystery to me. I might have to do another one of these.

Thanks to On-U Sound in The Area’s extensive discographies and to Captnswing’s time but not labor intensive instructions on installing Soulseek in Mac OSX. Without them I couldn’t go from “having” six On-U records to more like twenty-eight in less than a week.

Initially a matter of pain and often a hinderance, it is now a matter of pride that since its origins this project has not received a penny of private, university or government funding.

DJ Hot Donna
Jerusalem 1980

January 8th, 2007 | Donna Juana | No Comments »