Bolex H16 and Sekonic Light Meters: Shutter Angle Confusion Resolved!

The Bolex H16 RX 5 has a 130 degree shutter opening angle when the variable shutter is all the way open (the lever is all the way up). See below: The Sekonic L-508 however (and some other Sekonic meter models) assume all cameras have a 180 degree shutter opening angle, a setting that cannot be changed on models like the L-508.  So there is a serious discrepancy here for Bolex users. Below is an utterly confusing excerpt from the L-508 online .pdf manual about how to recalculate for other shutter angles; Do you understand this? I don't. So I wrote to the US based Sekonic parent company Macgroup and they actually responded, check it out:  Paul: Instead of this confusing math, we used a Sekonic Cine meter and took a reading with 180 set as the shutter angle until we got an even f/4. Then in the same light adjusted the angle to 130 degrees and took another reading. The second measurement was f.2.8 and 5/10, so your shutter angle adjustment for 130 degrees is one-half stop.

Man or Astroman Close Encounter: Guitar Secrets Revealed!

On July 14th and 15th 2013, my wife Carla and I had the extreme privilege of fulfilling a 10 year dream to see Man or Astroman? play a live show, at a two-night double feature in Chicago's Empty bottle bar. Arriving an hour early, I found a pleasantly intimate venue with friendly staff and delicious local micro-brews. Due to the small size of the place I was confident about getting a good spot up front to discover clues about Brian Causey's pedal setup and guitar sound, being satisfied with that alone. But never in a million years would I have guessed what life changing events were about to unfold.

The first incident occurred during the last song of the set, one of my all time favorites "Special Agent Conrad Uno", when there appeared to be something happening with Causey's Hallmark Custom 60. It was during the interlude when the Peter Gunn theme was normally played but instead Causey flipped the guitar upside down and started banging the headstock on the stage creating a myriad of sounds. Then unexpectedly, the legendary Star Crunch stepped over to where I was standing and literally handed me his guitar, AND pick!

Exhausted from a 5-hour drive from Detroit to Chicago after an already long workday, and trying to psychologically deal with what was going on, my mind was in a muddle and the Peter Gunn riff escaped me. But I shook it off quickly and collected my thoughts after hearing the sound of my fast punk down-stroking the second string coming from far across the stage. Suddenly I was caught up in Birdstuff's beat and began playing on autopilot, whatever came to mind in time with the drums and rhythm guitar. It was just some Shadowy Men like riff, but in reality a purposeful setup to do what I've always dreamed- a move that captures the classic Man or Astroman guitar sound that's eluded me all these years. But would it work? I've tried Silvertones, Teiscos and various hollowbodys with marginal results and now, in front of a crazed audience, I'd be testing the actual live guitar setup of Brian Causey himself! (Carla got it on VIDEO! Click here)

Making my way down the scale inevitably towards the bottom, I raised the neck and grabbed hold of the Mosrite-like tremolo to end with an explosive chord and speedy vibrato combo. I remember the feeling of it as I bent, the spring moving easily with minimal effort. Yet a slight tilt was more than enough to change the pitch completely. So when I torqued that sucker like a wildman for maximum vibrato at the end, it made all of my surf punk psychobilly space twang dreams come true! And so, at that very moment I knew my quest was finally over. The Mosrite/Hallmark tremolo design truly is the corner piece in the Man or Astroman guitar sound puzzle.

Needless to say my time with the Hallmark was coming to a close, so I played a farewell riff and raised the guitar up as high as I could for one last tremolo trist before handing it back to Causey who then put it out crowd surfing. In amazement of what just happened, I glanced down to my hand where I still held the pick gave me, worn from being played the entire show. Some people next to me were cheering and said something I couldn't understand so I just gave a nod and smiled in response. Little did they know, that this event was without a doubt one of the most memorable and defining moments in my entire life.

After the show, things quieted down and the bar was about to close. Only a few people mingled around and the place was mostly empty. So as crew began removing equipment off-stage, I took the opportunity to snap some photos of the entire setup including Brian Teasley's drum kit. Inside the kick drum was what seemed to be rolled up pieces of bed padding, that space age memory-foam stuff.  I also noticed Remo and Evans drumheads and Sabian cymbals. Then, one of the Astro road-team techs overheard myself and another fan discussing the equipment, so while carrying the Hallmark Custom 60 away he allowed us to touch the strings and examine their gauge. What a great guy! I guessed out loud that they were certainly lighter, probably 11's and the crewman just nodded before carting off the legendary instrument.

A few minutes after, lurking in the shadows in an area off to the side, I noticed a strangely familiar figure examining some equipment. It was Brian Causey himself, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity to meet my favorite musician and biggest inspiration of all time slip by.

It was a truly a thrilling moment, walking over to introduce myself to a legend like that. I mentioned the years of research, trial and error spent trying to find the Man or Astroman sound, and was greeted with sympathetic ears. He was super nice about it and patiently listened to my story so I decided to ask the question that had been burning in my mind every time I saw that  $6,000+ pricetag- "WHY MOSRITE?" Why do you play such an expensive brand guitar, what was your first Mosrite and why?  Well I wish I could've written down all that was said, but to paraphrase it was basically that he never played Mosrite as a brand exclusively.  Several years ago, he walked into a little guitar shop where some guy was selling a Mosrite Mark 1 for around $1000. The seller told him a little about it, Brian tried it then bought it, that's all! He then told me about how in the years to follow the Mark 1 took serious beatings on the road. (minutes before the encounter, I actually saw a guitar tech walk away after setting the Hallmark against an amp- as soon as he walked away, it fell over and slammed to the ground) Causey said he wanted guitars that wouldn't break the bank if stolen, damaged, etc. so he decided to try the much less expensive Hallmark Custom 60 and has been using them ever since. Causey also mentioned that he thought paying Mosrite prices for a guitar is just ridiculous!! (I asked him if he knew Dana Mosely or had any connection with Mosrite, and he said no, adding that he wasn't at all impressed with the Ed Roman shop which lead to a quick conversation about how absurdly commercialized and over priced it is)

Me and Brian Causey, wow!

Brian Causey turned out to be a super nice guy and was actually willing to chat for quite a while. The following bullet points are things that I remembered from our conversations:

• He ONLY uses the bridge pickup
• Miracle of Genuine Pyrex, like many early Man or Astroman album recordings were done with a Gretsch Tennesean, not a Mosrite Mark 1!!!!  I did a little checking on this and found that the Tennesean uses a pickup called a Hi-lo tron (at like 3k ohms) which can be purchased for around $100, the same price as a Dynasonic. If you check out videos on this guitar and the pickup, it sounds unbelievably awesome and you can definetely tell it's a Shadowy Men kind've sound. I might just be buying one to put in my Teisco Trump hollowbody! In fact, I'm tempted to say that the Tennesean might be THE guitar for the Astro sound rather than the Mosrite Mark 1.  
• Besides the 1st Mosrite he got at a store for like $1000, Brian Causey uses Hallmark Custom 60's exclusively, and has for years.
• Used a single SM57 to record the amp output for early albums
• Causey has recently been talking to Bob Shade at Hallmark about making custom Man or Astroman guitars! We chatted for a moment about the importance of a zero fret and I'm pretty sure his signature guitar will have one, unlike some Hallmarks such as the wing-bat. 
• I asked specifically what genre Brian would classify his music as and he just shrugged his shoulders, not really seeming to know what to say. I then asked what he thought about the future of surf music, and weather he felt it was declining in popularity over the last few years. There was a pause of silence after that so I felt compelled to give an example, albeit a poor one, that I was having a difficult time finding people interested in my own surfy album, and also unable to find any/many new surf bands online. His response was short and to the point, that Man or Astroman always packs a place with people/sells out a show. Which is true, but what I was really trying to see is if he thought the style in general was out of vogue. I mean I'll personally never tire of surf music or any of it's sub-genres, but it just seems like people aren't really excited about that anymore. So from the perspective of one who's attempting to create new surfy/spy-fi music, I just wonder if there's even an audience out there for it.   
• Brian Causey uses a lighter-medium pick, and has several Dunlop custom-made glow in the dark picks that he said don't really glow well and asked me to try one out! He actually gave me one to keep and after taking it home and testing it, I found that it does indeed glow, but fades quickly. (video coming soon) I'll be using this pick to complete the Beady Dine album!  (visit BeadyDine.com to hear for yourself)
• Causey has a collection of 24+ guitars INCLUDING a Teisco made Silvertone Mosrite copy, though from what I remember in our conversation about that he seemed to consider it cheaply made and wasn't impressed, so perhaps he has the model 1440 and not the well-made 1445.
• I asked him what he thinks about people like myself writing blogs and trying to learn about his setup & style of playing, was he angry or agitated about it and he sympathetically said that he 'understands' and mentioned Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet as an influence to his own playing. 
• I asked how he comes up with songs, what was he doing when he wrote miracle of Genuine Pyrex? Though he couldn't specifically recall, he did say that most of his songs are written under extreme pressure to just get it done, that he gets deadlines to have the songs done by and kind've smirked telling me that sometimes he'll wait till' the last minute and under pressure just writes the songs in a hurry. 
• I asked what he thought about analog vs digital recording like pro-tools, and he said that though he's an advocate of the analog recording sound, many good things could be accomplished digitally if the user is crafty and quality minded, which makes sense.     
• He's never heard of M3 California pickups, though I told him about it and how much I like the RH-100. 

Beady Dine Meets Man or Astroman? Pictured here is...(front row left to right) Paul Chesney, Carla Chesney and Robert Delbueno, aka Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard. Photobomb by Greg Chesney.

Photobombed by Brian Teasley aka 'Birdstuff'

This was one of the most profound experiences ever and I found this legendary band's willingness to talk and hang out with their fans after the show a testament to who they are as people. I'd been waiting a long time for the opportunity to experience Man or Astroman? and because of their generous, fun spirit I have the wonderful gift of memories and lasting inspiration to keep for rest of my life for which I am truly grateful.

Final decision on guitar sound? I installed my Teisco/Silvertone guitar with Gretsch Dynasonic and light-up "Astro-meter" to comemorate the ever-present influence of Man or Astroman. 

Prologue: the quest CONTINUES. UPDATE: Nov 27th, 2013: Just got back from California, where I had the chance to meet and talk with a gentleman at Sam Ash music store in Hollywood who used to work with Semie. ALSO- hung out in Bakersfield with the guys at Front Porch music, they let me play a Mosrite Mark 1 and even introduced me to.... DANA MOSELEY! WOW, details coming soon.

Meantime, I can't wait to reveal something astounding that solves my Mosrite quest mystery once and for all, which is that there are 3 key ingredients to an authentic Mosrite sound: 1.) an actual Mosrite bridge pickup 2.) Really low action via a zero fret and thin fretwires often referred to as "speed frets"  3.) Almost as important as the pickup- the Vibramute ROLLERBRIDGE- must be positioned directly below the pickup, in fact it must be touching the bridge pickup!  If you satisfy these requirements, I guarantee you'll have a Mosrite sound.

Why I Reject Mainstream Movies of Today and Only Watch Films Of The Past.

I seem to have the privilege of belonging to yet another generation of those who bear witness to a shifting control cycle of mainstream Hollywood resulting in the transformation of movies from masterful works of cinema by passionate collaborative professionals, to an utterly deplorable parade of hour and a half long targeted marketing advertisements posed as cinema thanks to totalitarian control of the studio system by non film-connoisseur executives who's reputations & careers are made by coming in under budget for immediate presale to TV or netflix profits rather than producing a good movie that endures long term success.

Jurassic Park was a kids movie, or so I thought while waiting to see it in a theater with my Dad and younger sister. All the media hype about technical breakthroughs in  "digital animation" couldn't mean less to a person like myself, who went to shows only to escape reality and become one of the characters in order to participate in a great adventure never to be had in real life.  Little did I know that was exactly what I was in for as terrifyingly realistic dinosaurs roamed a lush rainforest hunting for their human prey.  Seeing panicked characters frantically trying to escape in a jeep while a huge realistic-looking dinosaur ran after them was a movie moment I never forgot and it gave me great hope for the future of digital animation.

But tragically, digital effects of the next decade somehow declined to the level of kids cartoons as software became cheaper and studios under budget obsession saw marketing research suggest that movies didn't have to be good, just abundant and cheap as suggested by Pauline Kael in her famous New York Times article "Why Movies Are So Bad or The Numbers".  So after becoming increasingly disenfranchised with cheap digital characters & effects created with obvious minimal effort, I looked to settle with just interesting stories. But more disappointment followed as movie after movie seemed to offer the same exact watered down formula of characters and situations. It began giving me the impression that some computer algorithm was calculating the story based on parameters set by a studio executive marketing strategy team and that the cartoon-like digitally animated characters were the resulting labor of some low paid outsourced software programmer over a remote network that streamed the pieced together final product right into the theater from overseas. 

A 'Perfect' Role Model For The Global Consumer

A good film is believable and presents believable characters like those we encounter in real life; ones with quirky ways and slightly flawed back stories. But something major has changed in the course of the last several years which, from my perspective, has brought a complete shift away from the unique oddball individualist character, to an collectivist army of conformists serving as a generic one-size-fits all role model for the ideal global consumer.  

We are all flawed, in a variety of ways.  But it is impossible for today's politically correct mainstream studio system to to allow anyone to be portrayed as such as it would stifle the level of political correctness needed for the broadest international marketing possible.  So instead studio execs bait target-audiences like wild game using the most basic desires of the human race, sex and material gain to cattle-drive the minds of the public into moral bankruptcy in order to sell millions of products.  Like a cosmetics commercial promising euphoric beauty with each purchase, the mainstream movie preaches with religious fervor the never ending quest for prioritizing beauty above all, no matter what or who you are thereby accentuating the need for constant consumerism.  Common themes transitioning into this frenzy include the young girl who must forget about the simple pleasures of childhood to focus on learning about sexuality as soon as possible, in order to be accepted by the world around her and obtain goods & services from men.  The older woman's story is of overcoming the obstacle of age as well as her boring idiotic husband, working hard to retain her youthful sexuality for advancements in career or positions of power even at the expense of family relationships.  The results of this philosophy are clearly visible as each and every movie character, even ones that may be presented as 'too fat' or 'nerdy' always posses an underlying cosmetic beauty that transparently reveals the true moral of the story, like all mainstream movies, that the two most important things in life besides committing one self to any socialist cause are beauty and sex via a never ending ego massage of self love through the pursuit of wealth in order to achieve the god-like stature of the character in the movie.

Fortunately, the disgust I experienced with all current movies  and thier messages became a blessing as I began to search out and find a universe of great films made in the 1940's, 50's and 60's that I never would've discovered otherwise. This treasure trove of fascinating stories, characters and actors were directed & produced by passionate imaginative filmmakers like Roger Corman, Edward D Wood Jr, the Milner brothers, Orson Welles, George King and Alfred Hitchcock. Their films offer a delightful escape into the past away from today's pushy, preachy and corporate wholesale movie mindlessness.

Man or Astroman Guitar Sound: A 10 Year Quest

 

Just WHAT IS that Man or Astroman sound anyway?  Am I the only one interested in solving the mystery behind that eerily authentic gurgling reverb astro-crunch?  I mean while most surfy bands seem perfectly content sliding into the easychair of that  Fender Jaguar or simple Gretsch hollowbody sound, these proported "extra-terrestrials" offer a truly stunning one of-a-kind authenticity. 

To date, I have found very little interest in the way of online articles on the subject of the Man or Astroman? guitar setup.  So after years of research & experimentation, I've finally decided to come forward with previously unreleased documentation containing the results of my 10 year quest for the Man or Astroman sound.  This is my story.


I. The Guitar: 

 

What I gather from early videos, Star Crunch used a 1965 Mosrite Mark I re-issue. But after searching online, I was sticker shocked at it's starting pricetag of around $2500! "Ed Roman" is the individual responsible for the website that sells Mosrite's and after viewing all the images of rolls royce's and celebrities it is apparent that the high cost of Mosrite's are obviously needed to support lavish wealth and Keith Urban's endorsement. 

 But as for myself with a limited budget of around $600, I re-adjusted my sights on the seemingly affordable Univox Hi-Flyer, of which I bid on FOUR seperate guitars and lost- each time within the last 5 seconds of bidding.  Apparently Kurt Cobain and some dude from the Ramones played them exclusively so good luck trying to get one. 

Then I considered Eastwood, a manufacturer of cool looking new guitars modeled after classic ones of the 50's & 60's. Their Mosrite copy, called "Sidejack DLX" ($450), did have P-90 pickups, basswood body & tremolo bar but....I just had this lingering bad feeling about buying a NEW guitar claiming to sound vintage when no guitar shop around here carrys them (for me to try out) and the impossibility of judging what it will actually sound like from online videos due to the fact that  EVERY FREAKIN person seems compelled to play the EXACT SAME show-offy generic guitar-center blues riff on every single video no matter what the guitar is. (With the one exception being of course the intermitant attempt at "surf" where you might get a quick-picked downward scale slide followed by a 'walk don't run' mini riff BEFORE the bluesy brag fest begins).  So I kept looking.

 

Next up: SILVERTONE- plenty available on Ebay plus made in the 60's & affordable! Only ONE particular model seemed suitable however, the 1969 model 1445 listed as a "Mosrite copy". Unlike others including the 1968 1440, the 1445 is almost identical to the Mark I,  featuring a THIN body made of "Flamed Maple over Basswood", angled "hound dog" single coil pickups, and "German carved" edges. As a bonus,  no famous guitar player is associated with this baby, so bidding was a cinch and I won it for around $600.
Prologue: At home I was pleasantly surprised. Gambling on the Silvertone paid off BIG TIME- when I hit that low string and heard the tangy gurgling of low-frequency reverb resonate from the cabinet of my 1971 Fender Twin; I knew I was on my way. So please, if you're looking for that genuine Man or astroman sound on a budget and come across a 1445,  don't miss out! 

Here is a summary of the Silvertone's similarities to the Mosrite Mark I that seems to be VERY important in any guitar when searching for that Man or Astroman sound: 

  a) BODY:  must be extremely thin and made from quality material such as Maple, Basswood or  Mahagony. (no "ash")

 b) PICKUP:  Will make or break your sound- they must be single coil, but extremely "hot". There are several P-90 models available for purchase for around $100 and CurtisNovak.com sells thier "JM-Mosrite" pickup ($120) which is wound to the 1963 Mosrite specs of 13.5k (ohms).

c) Neck: Longer than most, the Silvertone 1445 has a 25" scale length, the same as the Mosrite Mark I!  (note: The Eastwood Sidejack is only 24 3/4".)  Also, the Moserite & Silvertone 1445 both have a "zero" fret.

d) Fret Wires: Very thin so that the strings are sitting close to the fretboard. Several people I talked to complained that the Mosrite's thin fretwires wear out quickly, but there is obviously a design reason why this is done as the Silvertone is the same way.

e) Tuners:  Old tuners really suck and I had a big problem with staying in tune. But none of the replacement kits I found matched the existing hole sizes. Foolishly in a hurry, I chose to take my cordless and just carefully drill out new holes in the headstock, myself.  In the end, the holes were too big & not at a perfect 90 degree angle which,  still works I guess but looks rediculous.  I highly recommend just having this done by a pro at your local guitar shop instead.



II. Playing Techniques:

* Use light (bright) or even super light strings, I have had great success with Fender brand.

*When picking the guitar, never stray too far away from the pickup, especially when going nuts with the tremolo. The tremolo should be a Bigsby with a flat arm, the longer the better to allow for the easiest transition from playing to tremolo action.  You know, for some reason alot of bands just barely touch the tremolo, and it's like at the end of a song.  LAZZZYYYY!!!!!  You gotta feel comfortable bending that sucker fast! 

*When playing chords on the bottom 2nd, 3rd, & 4th strings, try playing only strings 2 & 4 instead. You can tell Star Crunch frequently does this like on Miracle of Genuine Pyrex and it's what I feel is a major part of the Man or Astroman sound.

*Detune to lower than normal key for added bass and depth 

*Only use the pickup closest to the bridge, and make sure it is as close to the strings as possible without causing any buzzing. 

*The amp will need to be adjusted for high treble, low bass with some gain boost needed. I set my reverb at about 3/4 but not all the way up as this seems to cause muddling of the sound when recorded with a mic.  



III Amps/Pedals:

This website details a 1999 phone interview with Trace Reading about his guitar, amp & pedal setup. I am unashamed to have a printout of it posted in my studio like a centerfold pinup. 

Though I DID manage to get a 1971 Fender twin reverb amp, Dan Electro Dan-Echo delay (don't expect to get this at guitar center, apparently they think they're too good to stock this brand though you WILL find the pro-co rat there for about $80) and an MXR Analog Delay,  I must say that for $50 bucks  the next best thing has been my Digitech RP50- YES is that crrrazy or what! This very common cheap-o effect pedal actually has an outstanding fender twin modulation that, when tweaked, sounds grrreat going right into your mixer or recording interface!!! 

In fact, micing an amp is such a pain that for all but one track on the Beady Dine album I used the RP50. If you are gonna mic your Fender Twin though, I recommend the Shure SM57 or a pencil shaped condenser mic layed out right ontop of the amp and hanging over the speaker grill upside down (pointed towards the floor).

In Conclusion, there is still much more to discover about the man or astroman guitar sound. I'd ask that anyone with further information on the topic please post a comment. There are still unanswered questions about the specific recording, mixing & mastering processes of each album and I will update this blog with further research findings.  

Balancing a Flycam Nano

What to expect: a 20 minute "setup" time each and every instance something is moved on the rig even a fraction of an inch. Millimeter accurate adjustments must be made on a clumsy bulky sliding sled apparatus in order to maintain balance, and the whole process is very frustrating- if anything moves, (like if you rotate the camera's preview display window or even if it moves the slightest amount) balance is lost and time consuming adjustments must be made.

To make those left/right precision adjustments much quicker though, (and actually possible) I've inserted a machine screw horizontally through the existing openings in the forward and back slider (below where the camera is mounted) with a couple of nuts on there for weight that can be moved left and right quickly and precisely calibrating the balance. Then, another for front and back. With lots of practice, accurate balance can be achieved in a fraction of the time (like 3-5 minutes OR less). Important: when you use those washers at the bottom to adjust front and back balance, you are also slightly changing the left and right pitch balance as well so practice is an absolute must.

Pinnacle Studio vs. Power Director Pro

The hard truth is that Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate Collection, even with today's latest systems, is still a 32bit software and a poor one at that. You can expect to have to wait 5-30 seconds after making ANY editing change in the timeline for a render progress bar to finish, not to mention the delay if you choose to be so BOLD as to add a 3D transition not to mention the 3 to 5 minute wait just for adding clips to an AVCHD project.

See my frustration comes after being told by Pinnacles tech staff for years that my computer hardware simply wasn't good enough, though it was well above the minimum specs. So twice I went out and spent thousands of dollars on a new latest/greatest systems with virtually NO difference in performance whatsoever! Then I heard about Cyberlink's 'Power Director Pro', the first 64-bit consumer editing product out there and for the same price as Pinnacle Studio! The reviews were good so I gave it a try.

No words could describe what it was like to use this program for the first time- it is just phenomenal, and there is NO RENDER BAR!!!! You simply add transitions and clips to the timeline and IT JUST WORKS...immediately! And when you're done editing the project, the actual render time is at least half that of Pinnacle Studio.

It's blaringly obvious now that the whole problem with Pinnacle Studio is poor software design and wasteful use of system resources.

Carla French Hair Clips

From the desk of Carla French: a new floral pattered creation is making its way to the CFC online store, and it's unlike anything I've seen in projects past. With mountains of floral material piled high on the craft table, I had to ask..."just what are those colorful fluffy incarnations?" To which Carla replied "hair clips! I just love flower pins, and wanted to try something different."

I'll say, some even double as both clothing pin and hair clip. Yep Carla is at it again, this time transforming dull 'yo-yo' pins into flowery jewels of colorful delight. It seems the fleeting beauty of actual flower pins and hair clips inspired Carla to create something with a bit more permanence, incorporating lasting vibrant materials in place of withering petals. The result- well see for yourself at carlafrenchshop.com. These delightful gems truly remind me of our honeymoon in Maui and Carla’s certainly has done a great job recapturing that fun & light-hearted feeling.

PUZZLE GIRL: A Revealing Look At Artist & Photographer Carla French

My very first memory of Carla French is of elegantly clothed body parts mounted to a closet door in her parent’s basement. Yes, body parts. Life size images of them to be exact, strewn together as a whole with some fine thread. From afar, the puzzle-like display gave one the impression of an actual life-size girl standing there, quietly observing. Then daring to get a closer look, I noticed that each section derived from a separate photograph, having separate outfits, and separate identities.

To analyze this, I immediately thought of the assortment of personalities one accumulates during a lifetime. That perhaps this bizarre installment was a mere incarnation of the many complex facets to the individual as a whole. Quite willing to accept this explanation (and not wanting to ask out of fear of seeming foolish or un –artistic), I dismissed further inquiry and pretended to ignore the mysterious Puzzle Girl montage. Though one haunting question remained; who WAS she?

Over the next few months, I enjoyed the privilege of getting to know Carla and made frequent visits to her basement gallery. There I had unlimited access to her work, paging through the most fascinating abstract photography I’d ever seen. Then, similar to puzzle girl, I noticed a pattern emerge whereby most of Carla’s photos seemed constantly layered with drawings, textures and material. In a telling paper for one of her classes at College For Creative Studies, Carla wrote:

“My fashion signature consists of combining photography with drawing. This process is done using a Mamiya RZ medium format camera. By cross processing the film, an uncontrolled, ethereal color is born giving the photograph an enigmatic and sensuous feeling. Then, I scan my images and manipulate them in photocopy. I select a section I want to change and add a photocopy filter so that the image changes to a drawing. I then print the work and go into the drawing area with a pencil, to create a realistic drawing. Then I rescan the drawing. My prints are life-size, mounted on foam-core. The prints are in pieces. The photographs are in one section and the drawings in another. When put together, the pieces are not aligned. They are off-centered. This technique gives the viewer a sense of mystery because an exterior view is not always like the interior. It is also a notion about the unconscious self because in reality, life is not always aligned.”

Even more intriguing was the common theme chosen by this shy and unassuming artist; self-portraiture. Carla’s colleagues at CCS often recall her many trademark self-portraits consisting of blurred shadows and silhouettes. In stark contrast (dare I say in bold opposition) to conventional fashion photography, the work of Carla French is strangely obscure. Double exposures, long exposure time with movement, elaborate outfits & accessories not to mention the addition of actual fabric and other three dimensional materials to printed works, are clues to her artistic intentions.

In an artist statement written to her mentor Linda Soberman, Carla reveals:

“I’ve noticed that my work relates to my struggles. How people perceive me from the outside is not who I am on the inside. So my projects address how things on the outside (clothing, looking away from the observer of the photograph) do not necessarily reflect what lies beneath. The photos are about hiding and revealing. Hiding something, then revealing it to those who are looking ”

Immediately after reading this passage, I gazed up once more at Puzzle Girl with chills. Could it be? Yes of course, those beautiful eyes and familiar expression…for the first time ever I was looking beyond the complex mural of drawing and fabric, and into the heart of the artist. To my surprise, the girl cleverly hidden beneath the puzzle-like montage of photos was Carla French herself!

Having never seen anything like this, I asked Carla who or what inspired her. She then listed some very interesting artists including Cindy Sherman, Sarah Moon and Ralph Meatyard. But aside from that, in regards to her own intentions Carla writes:

“For one series I chose to photograph a woman’s back with blonde hair and a thin body, wearing an elegant dress with a mysterious feminine quality. The viewer is then left to wonder what this woman looks like since her face is away from the camera. I chose this type of person because most women wish to create an image of self that will be accepted by society. And so my vision speaks through the imagery I create, about one’s struggle to find the meaning of beauty within themselves.”

Now capable of looking beyond the complex and into that which should’ve been obvious all along, I could see clearly that Carla’s work was speaking of her own personal struggle to re-define that which is beautiful. In her own words, “My goal is to capture the beauty in things that go unnoticed by most people, because those are the things that are the most beautiful to me.”

For more about Carla French, visit her website at www.carlafrenchcreations.com

Clash of the Titans Remake Rant

I entered the following rant about the possibility of a clash of the Titans remake at:

http://screenrant.com/clash-of-the-titans-remake-good-idea-or-bad-niall-1080/comment-page-1/#comment-152162

It’s gonna be more of the same laughable, rediculous digital effects on par with a kids cartoon followed by an utterly mainstream snoozefest of characters who’s dialogue and actions were formulated by some marketing group’s research on how to appeal to the masses. Just like American automakers, Hollywood studios are SO concerned about their bottom line that they LIMIT their creative potential to the same old boring designs of the past that have proven to sell. Fine, so what do you get? A bunch of cars that all look the same….and sell the same. Meanwhile people are intrigued by the radical designs of foreign cars & ‘independant’ films and I’d rather stay home and watch YOUTUBE. I really think Hollywood ought to stop trying to passify their weak, inept stories with computer animations. Instead, I think they should just forget about it and take a chance on some radical new characters (like people who are less than perfect for a change) and make the focus of the movie…are you ready….THE STORY instead of effects, gore, or celebrity power. Finally, I’d like to mention to those Hollywood mainstreamers…if you want to see better sales at the box office, try making some PRO-AMERICAN films for a change. you might be surprised.