Kid Can Drive ~ Blog

The Hunter and the Swan at SFFSFF

2012-01-20T09:37:00.000-05:00

Ghost and Us wins best Screenplay at Curio Media Viscera Film Festival!

2012-01-18T14:40:00.001-05:00

The Ghost and Us at Loscon

2011-11-25T02:29:00.001-05:00

The Ghost and Us will be at LosCon this weekend! And I will be there as well.

Check out their Facebook page for more info. It's on Friday and Saturday. At Six. At the LAX Marriot. Now you basically have all the info.

2011-11-05T16:32:00.003-04:00

TAG ARCHIVES: THE HUNTER AND THE SWAN DISCUSS THEIR MEETING

The Absurd Man – à la 8-Bit RPG

Posted on November 4, 2011 by D. Jette| Leave a comment

Thanks to my very good friend Landon Zakheim – who curated the second annual “Razorblades in Your Reese’s” Halloween short film program at the Downtown Independent last Monday- I was exposed to the tender and hilarious ennui of filmmaker Emily Carmichael. I am very happy this has happened. Her short The Hunter and the Swan Discuss Their Meeting was an outcast among the more shocking and musically epic shorts in the program (The Legend of Beaver Dam is one of the greatest things ever, as well), but its sensibility was dry and sweet, like some Yellow Tail at a dinner party with friends you don’t quite you know yet. Her contemporary take on this classic myth is fresh and she uses her symbols well.

But it’s her ongoing animated series The Adventures of Ledo and Ix that has me jazzed up. In this currently 8-part work, Carmichael uses the pixelated melodrama of the adventure RPG to cast absurd exigence on the hero/sidekick-vs-indifferent-cosmos experience. In four minute bursts, and with only 256 colors (which close-up, still manage to evoke real pathos), she parses the loopholes of consciousness, the automation of society, fear of the unknown, and the habits we cling to that give us meaning.

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The Hunter and the Swan at Cucalorus

2011-11-02T09:33:00.002-04:00

I will be in attendance at this one!

The Hunter and the Swan goes to Israel

2011-11-02T09:29:00.000-04:00

The Hunter and the Swan at Williamstown Film Festival

2011-11-02T09:22:00.000-04:00

The Hunter and the Swan at the Phildelphia Film Festival

2011-11-02T09:18:00.001-04:00

The Hunter and the Swan at Pamplona Film Festival

2011-11-02T09:05:00.002-04:00

The Hunter and the Swan at Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival

2011-11-02T09:02:00.000-04:00

The Hunter and the Swan at Fantastic Fest

2011-10-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

The Ghost and Us Takes Best Comedic Horror Short at Tabloid Witch Awards

2011-09-20T15:43:00.002-04:00

"Entries to the Tabloid Witch are often weak on story. Way too many serial killers or zombies killing people. Zombies attack. People run. Zombies kill. Repeat cycle. By contrast, The Ghost and Us has story arcs. Three of them, even! Each character changes in some small way by film's end.

Especially admirable is the film's middle (the turning point). Laura and Sena have called a temporary truce in their struggle for Ben's affections. Together, they share a snack in the kitchen. Girl stuff of the sort that bonds women. Then it becomes apparent that Sena cannot eat. She's a ghost."

Takuya Hosogane's Geometry of Space (as opposed to what?)

2011-09-04T15:38:00.001-04:00

This was an extra in the Kindle version of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. I finally tracked it down online because I wanted to use it as scratch audio for Episode 1. I seriously can't stop watching it.

2011-08-31T00:44:00.002-04:00

I'm back I'm back! (SO SING TO RAISE THE BLINDS UP)

What happened was, I spent a good piece of the summer teaching HERE. It was my job to prep 70 super-gifted black and latino seventh graders for the entrance exam they need to take to break into the fancy, blazer-y world of New England private prep schools, whence they will go on to become world-eating dynamos.

The students are awesome, awesome people. Teaching was super hard work, mainly because---OMG teaching whole classes of brilliant twelve year olds is very hard work. By the end of the summer I had a pretty good "Serious Teacher means business NOW" voice and was using it to great effect.

Now, I never yell when I'm directing. I don't think. Someone tell me if I'm wrong. There have been times when I've been like "everyone needs to bear with me because I am going to be yelly so that we make our day," but that's like, bracketed. It's a special case. I really thought that everything you could accomplish with yelling you could also accomplish with not-yelling, but I think when you're dealing with kids you really do have to come in strong and assert authority on the very first day, so you don't have to attempt to prove your authority on every subsequent day. I think probably when you're raising kids, also. It did make me grateful for everyone who has ever worked on one of my films and unquestioningly accepted my usually quite gentle style of leadership.

Anyways, the first episode of the new season of Ledo and Ix will start production tomorrow, a day on which it will still be August, so I am possibly not a liar if you have a forgiving definition?

You can join the mailing list and get a glimpse of the new season via the widget below. I'll be sure to e-mail the mailing list when the episodes start airing. We're also going to have a Kickstarter campaign up with some pretty awesome awards (such as appearing in an episode of Ledo and Ix, for all you big spenders out there.)

Finally, here's a look at Song-A-Day crooner Jonathan Mann sporting his awesome new Ledo T-shirt.

And in case anyone didn't click on the links which are to Jonathan's amazing Kickstarter video in which he explains, among other things, how to deal with writer's block, here it is. Watch it.

RUN LEDO RUN

2011-08-05T15:38:00.002-04:00

New T-Shirt!

For Boys For Girls

the Hunter and the Swan at MoliseCinema

2011-08-01T12:44:00.002-04:00

I was really sorry to miss this one. Everyone should get to see their films play in small towns in Italy!

"The Festival and the MoliseCinema association were born in 2003 with the aim of bringing cinema back to the small towns, especially in Molise, an italian region where the number of movie theaters is extremely small.

The Festival aims to promote the latest and most innovative works of the italian and international cinema, encouraging young authors and new ways of expression, which are especially welcome.

MoliseCinema wants to claim the right to enjoy cinema of the small italian towns, a right stifled for decades by the cultural domination of television and by the distribution policies which favour large urban areas and multi-screen cinemas."

Ledo and Ix at Kill Screen tonight

2011-07-30T19:25:00.000-04:00

I'm at the lovely Can Factory watching Rooftop Films and Kill Screen set up for the following awesome film and video game festival, featuring Ledo and Ix among many other games and game-inspired films: http://rooftopfilms.com/2011/schedule/kill-screen-videogame-film-festival

Ledo and Ix and Star Trek in Tompkins Square Park

2011-07-19T00:14:00.001-04:00

OMG HELLO NEW YORK.
The following is thing one of three about which I am excited.

1. This Thursday, July 21st, the original Adventures of Ledo and Ix is playing in front of the 2009 Star Trek in Tompkins Square park.

When:
This Thursday, July 21st, 8:30pm

Where:
Tompkins Square Park
(which is at 500 East 9th Street)

View Larger Map

What:

The Hunter and the Swan at Festival Mas Sorrer

2011-06-25T12:31:00.002-04:00

Ledo And Ix Go To Town at Northside

2011-06-13T14:03:00.002-04:00

In the meantime, New Yorkers in general and Brooklynites in particular are invited to see us in Williamsburg. Details follow!

June 17th at Northside Festival

Friday, June 17th

At indieScreen, at 285 Kent Avenue

At 6pm

Austin Dale (June 10, 2011)

"The Myth of the American Sleepover." Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Brooklyn’s Northside Festival, a four-day extravaganza of “music, film, food, ideas and art” will open its film event with a selection of shorts from New York filmmakers along with the indieWIRE-programmed New York premiere of David Robert Mitchell’s coming-of-age drama, “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” which premiered last year at Cannes to ecstatic reviews. The film will be released in theaters and On Demand July 22nd by IFC Films.

Other highlights include a screening of “Tabloid,” Errol Morris’ examination of a 1977 Wyoming sex scandal, to be released by IFC as well as “Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation,” a much-discussed but almost unseen shot-for-shot remake of the Spielberg classic filmed over seven years by a group of Mississippi children.

No But Seriously, Where Are Ledo and Ix?

2011-06-13T14:00:00.003-04:00

I know, I know, I lied. Ledo and Ix did not make it back for their projected arrival date. They have just been very, very busy.

You should still watch the first 8 episodes HERE if you have not already:

And rest assured that more adventures are definitely on the way, IF YOU CAN JUST WAIT UNTIL AUGUST.

The Hunter and the Swan at the Provincetown International Film Festival

2011-06-10T12:26:00.003-04:00

Huffington Post

2011-05-06T12:41:00.002-04:00

Teddy Wayne

Writer

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Interview With Sundance Filmmaker Emily Carmichael

Posted: 05/ 5/11 03:18 PM ET

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Amazing Inspiring Funny Scary Hot Crazy Important Weird

Film , Robert Redford , Sundance Film Festical , Sundance Film Festival 2011 , The Hunter And The Swan , Emily Carmichael , Fantasy Films , Filmmaking , Independent Film ,Sci-Fi , Science Fiction , Sundance , Arts News

Interviewed by Teddy Wayne for the Huffington Post! MANY SECRETS REVEALED

READ IT

Ledo and Ix has its first Fan Artwork, and it is AMAAAAAZING!!

2011-05-06T12:30:00.000-04:00

So when I was 17, I went to art camp at Bennington college with Dan Romer, Lily Ladewig, Ray Tintori, Luke Fox, Eva Navon and more folks I can't list because there's apparently there's a tag limit. It was, no lie, the happiest I had ever been up until that point. Somehow I keep running into people from that summer later in life. One of them is the inimitable Jonathan Mann, who's currently on a Song a Day regimen, and created this AMAZING SONG for Ledo and Ix. Enjoy it and marvel at his genius! Thank you Jonathan!

Check out more of Jonathan's music at SONGATRON.

The Hunter and the Swan at the Maryland Film Festival

2011-05-05T12:18:00.004-04:00

Ooh! Screening with The God of Love, that's nice!