I love South by Southwest (SXSW), for the extremity of it, for the insane noise, for the unstoppable crowd, for the 1000 concerts a day, for the fact that it’s simply so easy to hate that you should just embrace it. On one side, small or underground music celebrations (ATP, Blogotheque’s Soirees de Poche…), on the other side, SXSW, in between, a certain idea of hell in creation today.
I have to admit it, i went there (two times, 2008 and 2009) each time because i was paid (yes, money, ah) by some big websites to do some shootings there, over 5 days, with bands which are also playing 3 other gigs on the same day. Could have been a nightmare, was a nightmare when i was pressured to shoot an infamous band, but most of the time it was a real fun experience. Even if i have to admit i was far from doing the best work of my life.
But some souvenirs are strong and i wanted to post a serie of those videos for this month of august - when nobody is seriously online, i know, but sxsw tastes like summer.
To start, probably my favourite shoot in austin and one of my fav moment ever in a camera life, a 30 minute one shot/one take, in a house populated by 6 bands (Megafaun, Balmorhea, Murder, Stars Like Fleas, The Physics of Meaning, and Slaraffenland all stars). What we called the Hometapes family house, as most of those bands are very close to the label run by Sara and Adam.
No fake cuts, just one semi-impro shot, one hour to think about it, thirty minutes to shoot it. Thanks to Teresa, Natalie and Sara, who participated in the creation of this piece with the bands and i and a few other people. The best way we could film sxsw in a way. And a film which gave me a lot of new ideas on the social interaction/experiment that a camera could start, but more later.
from
http://fiumenights.com/?p=167
