Creativity Base

For several years now, Adelaide’s Media Resource Centre has been running a music production initiative for emerging screen composers called Silent Remasters. After applying for the privilege of performing an original live re-score of a silent movie classic in two previous years, it appears third time’s the charm and Supermarket is on this year’s recipient list. Now I am faced with the equally daunting and exhilerating task of composing and preparing a brand-spanking new electronic score for the horror classic The Cabinet of Dr Caligari… ready for performance in less than three weeks!

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari - Original Illustrated Poster

I was first introduced to Robert Wiene‘s psychological thriller some years ago through a friend with obscure and fascinating taste. Produced in 1920, the film struck me with its dramatic use of light and shadow and the obvious influence of expressionistic painting in the often oblique and wild set designs. For a film of its age, its pace is a little slow but it holds up much better than the majority of works of its age. The likes of Rob Zombie, Tim Burton and countless other artists (past and present) have drawn direct influence from this film and it’s a pleasure to be given the chance to work directly with such a precious piece of cinema’s history. As an exploration of madness and monstrosity, the film brought to light themes that have continued to sustain the horror and thriller genres through decades of permutations.

My proposal for the new soundtrack to the film includes a variety of instrumentation- no honky tonk pianos or string ensembles in sight. A sampler, microphone, delays & fx, an accordian, several synthesizers, some percussion and a theremin will all be put to work. I will be performing the score as Supermarket, though at this stage Emma Sterling (who usually manages the VJ’ing role in our regular audio-visual sets) will not be taking the stage. The film runs a length of 72 minutes, so I’ll be breaking the score into ‘themes’… remixing versions of arrangements at different instances during the film. A necessary design decision to make the task of fulfilling the brief achievable in the tight three weeks of allowed schedule.

Once I have some of the score recorded, Em and I will float a 30 second trailer online and give you all a taste of what lucky cinema-goers in Adelaide will be privvy to on the night of November 26th. The screening starts at 7.30pm, and there will be two short silent films preceding The Cabinet of Dr Caligari… La Folie du Docteur Tube (1915) and Windsor McKay’s Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet (1922). Windsor McKay is one of the great early pioneers of animated film, and both shorts promise to showcase some impressive special effects that place them far in advance of their years of production.

The Silent Remasters program runs for four nights of original performed re-scores over two weeks. Full details are available on the Mercury Cinema’s website.

Dan Monceaux

Since moving our business, danimations, into the Tomorrow Studio in Adelaide back in June, Emma Sterling and I have been more committed than ever to turning our skills into a sustainable business in the digital media sector. Designed to assist emerging practitioners with a complementary peer group, business advice, workshops, shared facilities, inner-city location, Government-subsidized rent and more, Tomorrow Studio tenancy really does sell itself.

Tomorrow Studio, 193 Wakefield St, Adelaide

While we have been busily developing sample products of our video and animation services and planning the imminent relaunch of our website, several of our more established neighbours have been forging new partnerships under the Studio roof, like the one between web-designers Digital Lamb (Steve Ready and Bec Harper-Wells) and 3D visualisation team Extra Artists (Dan Cormick and Sonia Tynedale). Taking a different course, game and simulation developers Holopoint have already outgrown the space, and moved on to more suitable premises.

In their wake, Holopoint left eight vacant spaces behind in the studio, most of which are now filled. Among the new tenants are three energetic lads who work as Awesome Fighter Animation (Tim Cannan, Levi George & Jonny). From what we’ve seen of their previous projects, they’re a talented and energetic team, and we are already planning a collaborative animation project involving them and the team from fellow first-wave tenants I Love Biscuits (Kyle Leffers and Hannah Murdoch).

The other new tenants represent a spread covering web design, web development and video production. The incumbent video producer is Miles Rowland from Closer Media, whose work demonstrates solid craft and much promise. New tenants whose work I’m less familiar with include web-developer Michael Russel from whois.com.au and Melissa Bagnara, the latest early-career designer to join our ranks.

While Em and I had been eagerly anticipating the new tenants’ announcement for some time, we also felt that the vacancies could have been more broadly advertised. A waiting exists for prospective tenants to join, but finding this list in the first place relies largely on the would-be applicant’s social networks and detective skills. All current tenants could benefit more from a greater diversity of business practise under the Studio roof (we now have five businesses whose practise overlaps in web-development areas for example) and the best way to stimulate this would be to increase public awareness of the Studio and encourage more applicants to apply.

Another studio tenant, Holly Owen (Champagne for the Ladies) also recently vacated her office to move overseas, and as I understand it, current waiting list members will be considered and short-listers interviewed for this opening very soon. To join the waiting list, and to read more about the Department of Trade & Economic Development’s Creative Industries campaign, visit http://www.creativesa.org.

Last week, danimations was signed on to the task of photo and video documenting this year’s Odyssey Festival, an annual celebration of Greek culture in Adelaide, South Australia. The event launched last week, synchronising with the Greek Film Festival‘s premiere Adelaide screening of Bang Bang Wedding, featuring Greek-Australian talent, Alex Dimitriades. Hundreds of people streamed into the Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, tucked in behind Rundle Street. They were greeted by flag-bearing children in traditional costume, a performance of live traditional Greek music, and a red carpet runway. VIP speeches followed and after the film screening, the party stepped up a notch with a bounty of food, wine and more live music.

The above video was shot on a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 and edited on a Windows PC, with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.

The introductory animation was developed in Adobe Flash. Emma and I will be shooting each event in this year’s Odyssey Festival, which runs for the rest of October. The event includes comedy, cabaret, film screenings, a youth talent showcase, an art exhibition and a fantastic closing concert and party. For more details, visit the Odyssey Festival‘s website.

Dan Monceaux