Kate Spade made a cute video to usher in Spring. Her smart little pinwheels are also all over downtown streets right now. To quote Kate, the pinwheels represent the brand — “fresh, colorful, optimistic”. Thank god, because New Yorkers are ready for sun!

View the short video here

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I personally can’t wait for this show to premiere on MTV this summer. To read more on the show, go to MTV: Hard Times of RJ Berger

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(Imelda Marcos)

Regardless of what you think of Imelda Marcos politics, the lady was chic during her glory days. She was also a serious shopaholic known for having 3000 pairs of shoes while her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos delivered a strong arm authoritative state with political repression to the people of Philippines from 1959 to 1965. She is considered the corrupt fashionista, a textbook example of extravagance-meets-exploitation.

(Imelda Marcos)

David Byrne worked on a little project called “Here Lies Love” with a collection of 6 videos — One of the videos is a song by Santigold called “Please Don’t” that has gorgeous archival footage. The concept is interesting. It centers around a political tactic which she referred to as her “Handbag Diplomacy”.

(Imelda Marcos with deceased husband ex-President Ferdinand Marcos)

Most of the lyrics on this song are taken from quotes of the first lady, including the phrase she spoke,”please don’t”. She liked to sway world leaders with her charm, so she would sometimes bypass her hubby President, grab her handbag, hop a plane, and take major meetings with world leaders on her own to affect world policies (thus the term “Handbag Diplomacy”). The crazy thing is that sometimes, it worked!

(Taking Meetings with the Big Boys)

David Byrne writes on his site: “There was, for example, an Islamic-backed insurgency rising in the south of the Philippine archipelago, and she thought that a leader in that part of the world, Qaddafi in this case, might help pull the plug on that support if he saw things her way. Apparently he did – the funding stopped and the insurrection lost momentum. She later described him as a pushover, a mama’s boy.”

View the new video here:

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(”Heavy on the Mayo Please” — Kraft Placement)

Lady Gaga video has just been released her new video, “Telephone”, directed by Jonas Akerlund, and co-written by Gaga and Jonas. If you read this blog, you know that I like to reference branded content videos to illustrate the art of this new business model. This one, however, makes my stomach feel funny. Zero subtlety here. The brands sorta slap you in the face… back to back… and every time they do, I hear a little “ka-ching” in my mind.

The producers of this video are listed as House of Gaga, Serial Pictures, Streamline Records, R.A.F., and Chimney Pot — I’m sure all of them are laughing their way to the bank. The topic of branded integration is a delicate matter. Of course, this is my opinion only. To some this video is considered a big “win”. It depends what end of the spectrum you come from… subtle? or in your face? You decide.

Here is the bodycount of brands…

(Double-whammy: Diet Pepsi and Chanel)

(Diet Pepsi)

(Virgin Mobile, shot 1)

(Virgin Mobile, shot 2)

(Polaroid, shot 1)

(Polaroid, shot 2)

(Beats by Dr.Dre)

(Plenty of Fish Website… yes, it’s a real website)

(Polaroid, shot 3)

(Wonderbread)

(Gaga Laughing All the Way to the Bank, in her Pussy Wagon)

Is it me, or do you feel molested by too many brands? I will begrudingly admit, the usage of Diet Pepsi cans as hair rollers in a lesbian prison fantasy is kinda humorous.

To view the video for yourself, go to Telephone / Gaga to experience the visual assault.

Happy viewing.

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Meet Alex Mar, a New York based Director/Producer who spent the last few years searching out America for people experimenting in alternative faiths. The result? An intimate portrait of 3 characters delving into their unique mysticisms. American Mystic was recently announced in the World Doc Features category in the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. We caught up with the films Director to ask a few questions about her journey.

(Director Alex Mar on the set of her documentary, American Mystic)

Jauretsi: Major congratulations. First, can you tell us a bit about your background in Directing/Filmmaking?

Alex Mar: I took a really untraditional route into filmmaking.  I have a background in TV and journalism, but I actually started out in video and performance art. Inspired by some of the renegades like Joan Jonas and Mike Kelly, I moved to Amsterdam out of college to make work. While I was there, I hoodwinked some of the top Dutch actors into making strange little art films with me. I remember shooting a musical number in the gear room of an 18th-century windmill in the middle of the night — we had to dodge the blades while lighting the scene. And then there was the dream sequence we shot in the dungeon room of a bordello on the edge of town — when I first approached them about using the space, the madame thought I was looking for a job.

(American Mystic)

J: Describe your 3 characters, a quickie breakdown — and the “why” and the “how” you chose these people to tell this bigger story?

AM: Kublai, a farm hand in upstate New York, is training to communicate with the dead; Chuck, a Lakota Sioux in the South Dakota badlands, is returning to the scarring ritual of sundancing; Morpheus, a pagan priestess, is building a witches’ sanctuary off the grid in northern California.

Finding the right balance for the film was a huge challenge.  I spent six relentless months traveling the country casting, from rural Tennessee to the mountains of California.  I visited with snake handlers, witches’ covens, and a whole range of underground religious groups in different regions, at one point assimilating into a community that required that I live as a covered woman, waking up to milk goats at 5am.  It’s hard enough to try to capture people’s spiritual beliefs in images, but it’s another thing to try to find subjects sympathetic and accessible enough to make some of these exotic practices relatable to a broader audience.

(American Mystic)

J: As a fellow documentarian, I can imagine your individual war stories making this — funding challenges, the joy of completing a vision, resource limitations, deadlines, emotional epiphanies. Can you explain the struggle yet the beautiful ride, and if you learned anything about “the process” to share with other filmmakers?

AM: There were definitely physical challenges — sweating through 104-degree days, or sleeping in abandoned boats buried in the dirt on tarantula-infested land.  And since this was my first feature, I certainly had moments when I doubted whether or not what I was shooting would even become a movie.  But the biggest revelation for me was learning that you simply cannot shove people out in the world into some idea you have — you miss great things that way.  After a certain point, no matter how stylistic your approach is, the subjects shape the film, and the project takes on a life of its own. For a control freak, this was a pretty major breakthrough.

J: What were you doing the day you got the phonecall for the Tribeca Film Festival? What went through your mind when it got accepted?

AM: I was actually getting out of a matinee of Audillard’s “A Prophet” at an Upper West Side arthouse theater, surrounded by old ladies.  I had a slew of texts and voicemail messages.  When I rang one of the programmers back, I did my best to play it cool: “Well, I’m very pleased, thank you, isn’t that nice.”  I actually think it was brave of them to support a film that refuses to pass judgment on people’s spiritual beliefs.

J: Can you explain what you intend your audience to feel when they walk away from watching this film?

AM: You may have almost nothing in common with another person, but we’re all connected by the need to believe our lives have meaning.

J: What’s next for you?

AM: A strange, beautiful horror film I’ve written.  We’ll be shooting later this year.

———————

To purchase tickets for American Mystic at the Tribeca Film Festival, go to:
Tribeca Film Festival / World Documentary Features

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