I just started a new full-time job and Mona is feeling sick so we decided it was OK to take this weekend off. We'll be back at it next weekend though. I'm hoping we'll be filming two scenes with just as many bands.
The birth of The Hive Creative Labs 12 years ago I had an idea: A recording studio that would cater to the amazing underground bands in Vancouver. These were bands that couldn’t afford to record in the big studios so I decided to put my money down and be a conduit for their strange sounds. I started The Hive with an initial investment of $10 000 and along with Colin Stewart and Jim Routhier we began to record the bands that the mainstream didn’t give a shit about.
In 2008 the Hive is an institution. The proof is the name recognition of these bands: Black Mountain, Destroyer, No Kids, P:ano , Cave Singers, Ten Kens, Beans, Ashley Park.
People now give a shit.
Beyond the Music Then, I wanted to do the same thing for film in Vancouver. Together with Mona Mok, our feature documentary Ladyhawk: Let Me Be Fictional, has proven that an 82 minute documentary about an upcoming indie-rock band with the slightest of premises can be compelling.
We learned a lot about the non-fiction genre on this project and are excited to enter the dramatic fictional narrative realm.
Into the Fiction Starting this October, Obsolete Films is going to be embarking on a fictional feature length film shoot. “Everything Louder Than Everything Else” will be a no-budget semi-scripted drama/comedy. Mona and I will be filming on location at the Hive creative labs recording studio without any other crew except ourselves. The film will follow the lives of the people who work at an indie-rock studio and the bands that come in to record their albums.
We feel this subculture has been under represented on the screen and that our access to this world means we’ll present a truthful and entertaining movie about indie-rock in 2008. This movie is going to be the summation of everything we’ve learned, loved and loathed about the music world. Filmed in the same way the music is recorded (seat-of-the-pants, taking chances, performance above perfection) we feel we’ll get the visual equivalent of the music that is being produced at studios like this all over the world.
One Method, Two Mediums In the past we have seen a division between indie-rock and indie-film. We want to merge the two because we feel the two are of equal importance as art forms. Why is it so hard to translate our love for the same moral truths from one medium to another? So often I see filmmaker who champion lo-fi music pioneers like Pavement and Sebadoh so easily succumb to making a film that fits in seamlessly with all the other Cineplex crap.
We have access to both worlds.
Our artistic goal is two-fold.
This will not be a consolation prize with a great sound track. Because this is a self-financed project, we are going to have creative control over our vision and this film will come to the screen unhampered by compromises like so many Canadian films.
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