Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Indigo Lady, A Performance Art Movie (festival entry version)
"Indigo Lady, A Performance Art Movie" is currently in progress. the movie is montaged, 'mostly teched" improv scenes by the actors. Sylvia gives the actors the underlying facts of the scene in advance and the actors create the characters through long form improvisation - and the characters create the scene and tell their story their way. It is an exhaustive process, but extremely rewarding.
This version of my movie-in-progress was created to be a festival entry version. INDIGO LADY is projected to have a final length of 50 minutes and will be completed by October 31, 2012. The final cost of this movie will be approximately $3,000 to $4,000.
our process & progress is blogged at sylviatoyindustries-indigolady.blogspot.com.
two of the previous live-action not-an-animatic pre-production storyboards for 'Indigo Lady' were part of KAPAS 2012, El Festival Internacional de Cine Performance y Cine Antisistema, kapasfestival.blogspot.com.es/p/films-en-proyeccion.html, in August 2012.
thanks for watching!
- sylvia
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
soon to include animation by Michael Lewis & Tyler Cohen ...
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| Actor Nicholas Jackson & designer Tyler Cohen's drawings for Indigo Lady |
Indigo Lady, A Performance Art Movie: Status, August 15th
The Storyboard now has a target final length of just under 50 minutes. There are 3 major monologues still to do: Russell's (Steve Lewis), Becky's (Rebecca Longworth), and Donald the Detective's (Nidal Yousef). Rebecca and I will shoot this coming weekend; Nidal is working on his character and we likely will shoot before the end of the month when he's ready; and Steve and I are making plans to shoot all of his scenes in the next few months. I will also shoot an interview scene between Nick the writer (Nicholas Jackson) and Donald within the next month.
In the meantime, Michael Lewis is deciding how to partially animate Tyler Cohen's drawings so that the animations can transition into live-action scenes between Indigo (Sapna Gandhi) and her parents (Diana Slampyak & Nima Nejad); Indigo and Russell; Donald & Indigo; Donald and Becky. These animation/live-action scenes will be "inter-scenes" and likely will help solve the transition problem that is in the Storyboard at the moment.
I am researching the fuzzy greenscreened image problem - since I am self-taught, the solution may take a while.
Please stay tuned. And, thanks for watching!
- sylvia
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Indigo Lady: Synopsis
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| Indigo Milazzo's 10th birthday by Tyler Cohen |
INDIGO LADY is a performance art movie about a Nebraska ranching empire heiress who murders her husband, butchers him the way her father taught her to butcher a hog, and turns him into ham. The movie is loosely based on various news items, folklore, and random stories about rural life that the director heard while living in Nebraska the first half of her life. The story, characters, and subtext are lifted from a solo performance play that the director wrote in the 1990s and that was produced by The Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco USA (1993).
The dialogue and action, rather than being scripted, are completely improvised by the characters. The reward of the process is poignantly painful, realistic people telling their own story, while being shot in the style of raw, minimally teched documentary video. With the exception of greenscreening, the footage is edited on the timeline solely for the sake of clarity. The movie heavily employs montage and each scene is a "painting."
There is no music and only the most necessary sound editing. The viewer's auditory experience of the movie is as raw and close to the edge as the visual experience.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Nidal, your character is a homicide detective
Donald, The Police Detective
Nidal, your character is the man who around 1980 conducted the initial investigation of the disappearance of Russell, Indigo Milazzo's husband. Mrs. Milazzo, the very attractive orphaned daughter & only child of the wealthiest family in town - the family's matriarch founded the town of Flavia, Nebraska. The town is named after Flavia.
When Indigo reports her husband Russell, who she has just married has disappeared, abandoned her, the townspeople find it hard to believe because Russell was a respected businessman who got his start as a disadvantaged child of poor, unlucky farmers, who Indigo's father took under his wing, educated him and set him up in business - Indigo grew up with Russell as sort of a 10-years older brother. But Indigo lost her parents in a plane crash just six months prior to her wedding and the townspeople are extremely sympathetic and so they believe her, and noone in town would badmouth her or her family anyway, because over half of them would not have a job if not for the Milazzos.
But you, Donald, don't believe Russell abandoned Indigo. You persist in questioning her until she complains to your supervisor. Your supervisor tells you to close the file. But then, 8 months after the disappearance of Russell, a woman (Becky) comes to see you because she read about your investigation in the paper. She tells you that she was Russell's mistress, they have 3 children, he bought her a house, supported her and his children and regularly visited them, trying to keep her position in the community as respectable as possible under the circumstances.
So you convince your superiors to get the file reopened and you start visiting Indigo every day - questioning her, poking around all the structures on her property, digging in her garden. She is more friendly this time around and starts feeding your breakfast when you show up in the morning. She is sometimes flirtatious (you are the actor: it's your call how you handle Indigo being friendly, as you are about 30 older now but you are a cop, professional and might have had a girlfriend, etc., in those days.)
One day in the spring, a humid day when the very large compost heap in her backyard is particularly stinky, you realize that is the one place you haven't searched. It's messy, but you start poking around it and find this bone and you know that it's from the hand of a large human - Russell's size. You take it to the lab (you are the actor: it's your choice whether you tell Indigo that you found it.)
Sure enough, the lab confirms that it's Russell.
Just so you know, if the lab used DNA testing it would have to be 1985. So you can decide whether your investigation was around 1985 or before. We can adjust the dates in the movie if you decide the lab used DNA testing.
Now you have to arrest Indigo, the pretty lady who has become your friend. How you do it is up to you the actor.
However, once Indigo's arrested, she becomes very angry (understandable!) and she tells you that the ham she's been feeding you with your eggs came from Russell, because she cut him up, cured him and hung him in her meat cellar. That disgusts and hurts you, but when the lab tests the ham, they confirm that it's Russell ham.
Now it's 30 years later and you're the chief law enforcement officer of Cheyenne County; and every time there's a hearing about releasing Indigo, you show up to testify against her ever getting out of the prison for the mentally ill.
The Indigo Lady Storyboard - August 14, 2012
our "live-action, not-an-animatic storyboard" will continue grow as the characters create scenes & story in front of the camera
Indigo's Baby Dress
the white dress is an icon with so much power.
this scene and two other scenes in which the white dress
serves as a backdrop to the scene, and which occur
at different plot points along the story arc and
the development of Indigo Milazzo's inner conflict,
will be added to the new Storyboard soon.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Your character is a science writer
A message to our new actor, Nick, for his first scenes.
hey. have thought about it all day, and think it's the way to go: your character is a science writer (forensic psychology) who wants specifically to write a major article on Indigo Milazzo for (whatever your fave rag is). she refuses to grant you an interview. so it's been decided that your article, other than research of the trial transcript, newspaper clippings and a face-to-face interview with the lead investigating officer, will explore why a woman says she killed her husband for tearing down her great-great grandmother's house, RATHER than for him telling her on their wedding night that he had mistress and 3 children whom he supported and visited regularly the same way he would with a real wife & family.
the ancestor (Flavia Milazzo) was a mysterious, dark woman with lots of cash, a baby and no husband, who said she was Sicilian when she showed up in the late 1800's in a small nothing of a settlement in Western Nebraska near the Wyoming border. she started a highly successful ranching empire and the settlement became a thriving town named after her. Indigo was in the process of getting the ancestor's house heritage, protected status by the state at the time she got married. her husband was a lot older than her and after being her father's protege, when her parents were killed in a plane crash, he took her under his wing and courted her.
all of the ancestor's descendants were male children until Indigo was born. i don't know how many old world Sicilians you've seen, but one of my old friend's mother from Catania was darker than i am. so the Milazzo men have always married the whitest possible women so the children wouldn't turn out dark. i think Flavia was probably Creole - nobody in western Nebraska would have known the difference and the lady's cash probably had a bleaching effect. i play her ghost and i think she has a deep Faulknerian secret.
you can run with this however you like.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Trailer Version 2
Actors are Sapna Gandhi as Indigo Milazzo, and Diana Slampyak and Nima Nejad, who play Indigo's dead parents, Violet & Blackie Milazzo in my in-progress performance art movie, "Indigo Lady." All of the scenes are improvised. There are more story, scenes & characters to come.
Our designer is Tyler Cohen and our special effects master is Michael Lewis.
two of the live-action not-an-animatic pre-production storyboards for 'Indigo Lady' will be screened in KAPAS 2012, El Festival Internacional de Cine Performance y Cine Antisistema
Our designer is Tyler Cohen and our special effects master is Michael Lewis.
two of the live-action not-an-animatic pre-production storyboards for 'Indigo Lady' will be screened in KAPAS 2012, El Festival Internacional de Cine Performance y Cine Antisistema
Friday, August 3, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sapna Gandhi, 'Indigo Lady'
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| Ms. Sapna Gandhi |
British born Sapna Gandhi grew up all over The States, speaking five languages, singing in a musical group called Cosmic Kids, training as a martial artist, and balancing classical ballet with Bollywood (among other cultural conundrums). It wasn't until after graduating from Saint Mary's College of California with degrees in English and Women's Studies, that she realized her passion for acting and went on to study at The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.
Ms. Gandhi has played a slew of ethnically ambiguous characters, including an Iraqi farmer's wife, a Columbian boxer, an Indian bride-to-be, and a Puerto Rican cop (to name a few). Her favorite stage roles include Harper in Angels In America, Prudence in Beyond Therapy, and Susan in Do You Want to Buy My Brain? As a member of the groundbreaking Jump! Theatre in San Francisco, she wrote, produced, and starred (as an actor/singer/dancer) in the moody, mixed-media production of Terminally Female: A Cabaret. She also appeared in a few features and several short films, including starring in ifilm winner, Thou Art That, before migrating to Los Angeles.
Sapna Gandhi most recently co-starred on NBC's Awake, can be seen in the upcoming Indie cult feature, Dust Up, and stars in the performance art film, Indigo Lady, which has its premiere screening in Madrid, in August 2012.
Sapna Gandhi most recently co-starred on NBC's Awake, can be seen in the upcoming Indie cult feature, Dust Up, and stars in the performance art film, Indigo Lady, which has its premiere screening in Madrid, in August 2012.
Ms. Gandhi's own short film, Once It's Taken Shape, (co-written and co-starring Chris Frederick) is presently in development, and she is redefining the term "short" with her comedic series, 12 Second Broad Strokes (in development with Amanda Lipppert and Elan O'Connor). She is also writing the psychological thriller, Stain (with Andy Gates).
Sapna Gandhi is Editor-In-Chief for We Make Movies, as well as a columnist, event coordinator, and DIY actors’ advocate.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Presentation, style and format
Format of Indigo Lady
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ladies, i now have a very clear picture in my mind as to the presentation, style and format of the movie. i have been exploring and experimenting, and came up with 4 videos that have the format that works for what i want to do: "performance art videos - silent montages exploring the performance of simple acts in familiar, stripped down settings - formalistic presentation, multiple sensory and emotional layers." possible settings: Violet's sewing room, Flavia's house, a gazebo (for Violet), an empty diner on the highway (Russel's mistress), a prison visitation room (Indigo), a small empty Catholic Church (Violet), a barn (Indigo), a coffin or under weathered floorboards for the Great Great Grandmother, Flavia, etc. these are coming off the top of my head, but most likely the settings would all be based on/lifted from Tyler's drawings, except for the interview with a reporter that each of you will have.
i am seeing the movie as about 50 minutes long, divided into scenes that all begin with a drawing and dissolve into a scene complete with actors, props, etc., - it is likely that the actors playing the action scenes will speaking extras, one of whom would be a "doppelganger" of the main character that the scene was about (i.e., Violet's argument with her husband about the husband bathing/dressing Indigo; Russell's telling his mistress that he was getting married; the murder scene, inter alia). i would really appreciate your watching at least one of the videos in this Vimeo Album:https://vimeo.com/channels/ once i have clips of each of your monologues, and a "drawing come to life" clip, i will make a trailer and begin soliciting funding.  | ||||||||
Friday, May 4, 2012
Revised Concept & Process
changing my concept for my performance art movie, Indigo Lady: i now see it as composed of monologues by the female characters (Indigo, Violet, Russell's Mistress, Flavia) montage style the way i've been working,
but with each monologue telling the story Rashomon style; and intercut in such a way that the story is arc'ed, and so that the audience can decide for itself what really happened.
i have told the actors that they really really really will have to trust me, because we will work one on one, with each actor only knowing what the other characters have said from rushes (viewing rushes is optional and up to each actor). i want a sense of isolation/persecution/victimization, self centeredness and trying to get the audience on one's side as if each character was telling their side of the story before anybody else's side of the story was told.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Designer Tyler Cohen
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