by Nathan Christ
A luminous day with Bill Baird - a 360-degree artist. I call him this because he can express himself from seemingly every angle. He can speak articulately about his life's pursuit, he can draw, paint, play multiple instruments, toss down lyrics in moments flat, and thrive in the studio, stealthily going after the sound he knows is on the tip of his mind. It's bigger than just the music. We filmed him for half of the day, touching on topics from urban development to culture hounds, from his vegetable oil-fueled car to Walt Whitman. He talked about Soundteam being picked up by Capitol records and painted out a hilarious scene of a some guy (maybe A&R) with a backwards baseball cap courting the band around a table with a $500 bottle of Dom Perignon. That was the moment he looked around and realized there was some corporate trouble afoot.
There was ease today after the relative stress of the last few days. The project challenges us every time we go out there, forces us to rapidly re-assess our preconceived ideas of people's desires and motives.
Once the subjects in the film get past the fact that Robert and I look like Robocops with our cameras and shoulder mounts, they trust us more. Bill from the Honeybears and the Harlequins called a camera, with its intense light trained on him, "the blaster." Red Hunter's band simply thought they looked too much like TV cameras. Odd what YouTube and mini cell phone technology have done to people's perceptions of larger, higher quality cameras. As if, by virtue of their quality, they aren't authentic. That's missing the point, I think. We all have our tools, and these are ours, and they are going to give us a beautiful final product.
It makes me wonder why a documentary of this nature hasn't been made in recent years about ATX. I mean, low-res videos abound. Friends shooting friends. Everyone's on camera all the time. But we're attempting to find some shred of sense in it, with good quality image and sound. As much as I love the rawness of the Velvet Underground Quine Tapes, we want to up the quality. And trust me, we are definitely boot-strapping it. We are the definition of a skeleton crew. But I think being only a 3-4 person crew allows us to better engage with the world in front of us. We can be in the moment and follow the energy more spontaneously.
Like the way Wim Wenders filmed Houston in Paris, TX - long tracking shots across expansive banks, staring through the camera with wide-eyed wonder at a giant construction crane with a proud American flag flapping on top. A brilliant and curious German exploring the intricacies and excesses of another culture as he finds them, insidious or commonplace as we Texans might find them to be. We're making this film not just for the people here, but for some guy named Jorg in Stockholm, who thinks people ride horses and screw sheep in Texas (I've been accused of both, completely straight-faced, during some of my travels.)
This is why our trips to Dallas and Houston, commencing tomorrow, will be interesting. We'll come up for air to look at another side of Texas before we submerge back in.
A luminous day with Bill Baird - a 360-degree artist. I call him this because he can express himself from seemingly every angle. He can speak articulately about his life's pursuit, he can draw, paint, play multiple instruments, toss down lyrics in moments flat, and thrive in the studio, stealthily going after the sound he knows is on the tip of his mind. It's bigger than just the music. We filmed him for half of the day, touching on topics from urban development to culture hounds, from his vegetable oil-fueled car to Walt Whitman. He talked about Soundteam being picked up by Capitol records and painted out a hilarious scene of a some guy (maybe A&R) with a backwards baseball cap courting the band around a table with a $500 bottle of Dom Perignon. That was the moment he looked around and realized there was some corporate trouble afoot.
There was ease today after the relative stress of the last few days. The project challenges us every time we go out there, forces us to rapidly re-assess our preconceived ideas of people's desires and motives.
Once the subjects in the film get past the fact that Robert and I look like Robocops with our cameras and shoulder mounts, they trust us more. Bill from the Honeybears and the Harlequins called a camera, with its intense light trained on him, "the blaster." Red Hunter's band simply thought they looked too much like TV cameras. Odd what YouTube and mini cell phone technology have done to people's perceptions of larger, higher quality cameras. As if, by virtue of their quality, they aren't authentic. That's missing the point, I think. We all have our tools, and these are ours, and they are going to give us a beautiful final product.
It makes me wonder why a documentary of this nature hasn't been made in recent years about ATX. I mean, low-res videos abound. Friends shooting friends. Everyone's on camera all the time. But we're attempting to find some shred of sense in it, with good quality image and sound. As much as I love the rawness of the Velvet Underground Quine Tapes, we want to up the quality. And trust me, we are definitely boot-strapping it. We are the definition of a skeleton crew. But I think being only a 3-4 person crew allows us to better engage with the world in front of us. We can be in the moment and follow the energy more spontaneously.
Like the way Wim Wenders filmed Houston in Paris, TX - long tracking shots across expansive banks, staring through the camera with wide-eyed wonder at a giant construction crane with a proud American flag flapping on top. A brilliant and curious German exploring the intricacies and excesses of another culture as he finds them, insidious or commonplace as we Texans might find them to be. We're making this film not just for the people here, but for some guy named Jorg in Stockholm, who thinks people ride horses and screw sheep in Texas (I've been accused of both, completely straight-faced, during some of my travels.)
This is why our trips to Dallas and Houston, commencing tomorrow, will be interesting. We'll come up for air to look at another side of Texas before we submerge back in.
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