I’ve officially run out of GIFs to use this month for this film, HAHA.
Was just informed tonight that Transmission has been accepted to yet another festival! This time its the Northwest Animation Festival, which actually takes place on two weekends in Oregon; first is May 17th - 19th in Portland, and then again May 31st - June 2nd in Eugene.
Not to mention, my friend Evan Borja also got his awesome film, OTZI, into the festival too! SVAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
In addition to the other news, I also received word that Transmission has been accepted into the Ivy Film Festival which takes place at Brown University in April. More info and specific dates soon (the festival runs from April 8-14th).
If you can’t make it to any festival screenings and/or are too eager to see the film, you can still purchase a Transmission tape for $5 and get a streaming copy instantly, long before it’s available to the public!
REMINDER
Transmission will be screening this Saturday at The Little Rock Film Festival’s Little Rock Horror Picture Show in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The film will be screening as part of their International Shorts 1 block, which screens twice: First at 10:15 AM at the Argenta Community Theater and again later that day at 1PM at The Joint.
More info on the festival can be found at the link above. I won’t be able to make it but let me know if you can!
3 for 3. It’s March, just got an e-mail that Transmission has been accepted into yet another festival: The Citrus Cel Animation Film Festival in Jacksonvile, Florida.
It’ll be running from April 4-6th, but I’m not sure what day my film will be screening; so I’ll find more info on that and update you later ;)
Per usual, you can still purchase a tape for just $5 if you wish to see the film long before it becomes available publicly online!
Look’s like I’m 2 for 2 this year with festival acceptances per month. Just got an e-mail saying that Transmission was accepted for The Little Rock Film Festival’s Little Rock Horror Picture Show next month!
To celebrate I actually made a .GIF in Photoshop this time as opposed to Flash, so the effects/colors are much closer to the actual film than my previous .GIFs from Transmission.
If you can’t make it to the festival and/or are too eager to see it, remember that you can still buy a limited edition cassette tape and get access to the film all for just $5 and even get a free postcard too!
Marissa Nadler is a totally amazing singer, and her involvement led me to check out this tape by Cloud Seeding. Nadler isn’t a member of the band; Cloud Seeding is a recording project centered around Kevin Serra’s instrumentals and a revolving cast of vocalists.
Nadler lends her vocal talents to Serra’s seductive, atmospheric settings (produced and arranged by bassist Cedar Apffel) on each song of the “Ink Jar / Unquestioning” cassingle. It’s a great match. Lead track Ink Jar is especially strong, rocking hard while creating a subtly uncomfortable vibe. The lyrics are about living in an ink jar. It’s creepy and I think the song is pretty perfect! The second song, Unquestioning, is about as cool as the first. Ditching the rock band for a more intimate, ambient sound, Serra and Apffel provide a much more pleasant surface for Nadler’s wordless vocalizations.
John Askew’s remix of Ink Jar is definitely the weak point of the tape. It’s cool to hear elements of the song mixed up, and there are fun moments, but it feels like a remix-by-numbers. The part I really don’t like is the polytonal mix of the chorus vocals with the verse instrumental. Maybe hardcore trip-hop fans will like it!
There appears to be a picture of Hope Sandoval (of Mazzy Star, as well as Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions) on the cover. It’s strange to see her face there, as listeners could easily mistake it for a picture of Nadler. More importantly, though: her spirit is definitely present in the music. The dynamic between Serra’s instrumentals and Nadler’s vocals functions somewhat like that of guitarist David Roback and singer Sandoval in Mazzy Star. Both groups are quick to shift gears between the uncomfortable and the straightforwardly beautiful.
The cassette is available through Otherworldly Mystics, and the packaging is great. The label on the tape has cool “ripped” collage effects, and the layout is rock-solid. While the tape itself is very short, the design as well as the music makes it well worth purchasing!
-Will Henriksen
Guess I forgot to mention this here but Transmission has been selected for the Animation Hall of Fame’s Savannah International Animation Festival which will take place on April 13th in Savannah, Georgia!
Good way to start off the year, I suppose ;)
And remember, Transmission tapes are still available for just $5, and that includes a free instant streaming copy of the film as well as a postcard! Get a chance to see it before its cool!
Otherworldly Mystics has been steadily putting out tapes for a little under two years now and while we have different tastes I tend to like the artists that Chris Robert’s finds and releases! So I was pleasantly surprised when he decided to release some solo soundtrack work of his that accompanied Jared D. Weiss’s animation “Transmission”. Weiss’s animation is a colorful darker work about a creature and his dog that begin to receive signal from an unknown presence via am/fm boombox. It’s pretty long and is constantly building which Robert’s music assists in illustrating throughout.
The dark drones and pitter-patters of mores code leak along and the colorful pair travel through terrains to find where the signal is being broadcast. Overall, this little tape is a success and the packaging is nice. The dub is real great and the sounds stand-alone but reinforce the animation as well. Both are worth checking out.
-CFIL
