By Billy DeFrain
While MTV plays fewer and fewer videos, it’s easier for bands to make their own as the cost approaches zero.
This was partly Elisabeth Reinkordt’s thinking when picking a theme for volume three of her Homegrown Film Festival series. The fest features 17 short films from local filmmakers with a special emphasis on low-budget, amateur, DIY and art pieces.
Since the festival was scheduled for the week of Lincoln Calling, the decision to feature local band music videos in this volume of her Homegrown series seemed natural. Reinkordt created a Facebook page to pair local bands with local directors. She was happy to find new submissions from directors who hadn’t participated in previous festivals. The reaction from bands was so enthusiastic that not every band could find a director to shoot its video.
“More than what to include, the goal is to have as many [videos] that are ready to be shown,” Reinkordt said. She’s looking for the right balance of styles in video and music, and eliminating entries that are too long — some were longer than 10 minutes. “You want diversity, but still quality.”
Entries range from abstract sound collage (Amber Hollman), minimalist video performances (Dean the Bible’s “Night Rider,” directed by Glory Benacka) to the DIY approximation of a slickly produced MTV big band video.
Somewhere in between is The Machete Archive’s video for “XI.” Shot on Super 8, the video follows the band driving through the countryside, pulling off the road, donning creepy animal masks — then blowing away a TV with shotguns.
The video features no footage of the band playing live or staged, but gradually builds as the moody, instrumental, metal and math-rock-infused sound of “XI” swells. Co-director Mark Thimijan said drummer Ian Francis approached him with the idea for the video.
“It’s kind of a gag, but it’s also kind of creepy … I’m not sure if there’s a message behind that or not,” Thimijan said. “We wanted to tell a story, we didn’t want to show them with live footage.”
It’s a callback to the gritty, DIY videos Thimijan remembers growing up with in the early ’80s, which often never showed the band.
“Some of the stuff that would come out would just blow me away. I’d sit in front of the TV and watch one great story after another being told with great music,” he said. “If you do watch music videos now, it seems like the same formula over and over.”
Chris Jonak directed a video for folk singer Manny Coon’s “Sweet Virginia.” The stop-motion animated video features pairs of shoes tapping and dancing on a stage-like setting the rhythm of Coon’s story-based, one-man-and-his-guitar song. Jonak varies the lighting and swaps photos hanging in the background to keep the video visually interesting
Jonak searched thrift stores for the pictures, and sewed his own curtains for the stage. While shooting each of the video’s six scenes only took around half an hour, editing took much longer.
“That was more of a pain than the shooting,” Jonak said. “Syncing it up, the shoes with the songs…[but] you can do anything you want with stop-motion.”
Jonak’s entry exemplifies the sweet spot between lo-fi DIY and creative, watchable quality, Reinkordt said.
“It looks good, and it was totally just done in somebody’s house,” she said. “That’s more what series is about … the ‘home grown’ aspect. It’s fun and some are really, really, DIY. The kids don’t have expensive cameras at all.”
The tone of videos also varies. While “XI” is mostly serious and straightforward, Two Black Cats’ anti-glamour video directed by Mike Van Haitsma features the band wrapped in Christmas lights, covered in grime and wearing plastic grocery bags. Other entries boast impressive production quality for low budget, one-camera videos with little-to-no other equipment.
Reinkordt hopes the Homegrown music videos can become an annual part of the ever-expanding Lincoln Calling.
“You don’t have a lot of venues for this,” Reinkordt said. “[Homegrown Film Festival] collects it and projects it in a manner it should be seen, on a big screen in front of an audience.”
Homegrown Film Festival Volume III: Lincoln Calling runs at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 28 at Bourbon Theatre, 14thand O, and costs $2.
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