Avant Garde Night Blog

On Thursday April 17, I attended Avant Garde night at Lumina Theatre. It was a night of interesting films and an interesting atmosphere. The show started out with Dr. Kreul speaking while his class made lots of noise with kazoos and other noise makers. Then when it was time to start the show, they threw the programs, which were in the shape of paper airplanes around the audience. After being hit in the eye with one it was time to start the show. The first film was about pandas discussing how to make a joke about a marriage broker, it didn’t make sense but, it was amusing to see people in panda costumes talking to each other. The next film was an animation called, there’s a pervert in our pool. This was interesting but, it was hard to understand the dialogue because it sounded like someone was just screaming into a microphone. The third film of the night was an episode of Full House edited to create what looked like a tripy rave video; it was very flashy and bright. The fourth film was about a woman missing her father, and the only sound was the last messages she had of him before he died. It was slow and rather depressing; I had trouble getting into it. The next film was probably the worst seventeen minutes of my life; it was a film that was created by throwing film in a lake and having it become scratched and then playing it in a projector. It was probably the worst concept of a film I have every seen or heard of. Maybe if he used the sound with another image but the fact that we watched scratches from seventeen minutes was pointless. The next film was the one by Andy Warhol. I do think it was cool that we watched a 16mm print of this film but, like most Warhol films I just don’t get it. It was four women staring at the screen for several minutes in silence. The only thing that happened was I found myself starring back but, other than that I was bored. The next film was one of the more creative films of the night, it encompassed one man singing and dancing to a song four times so he looked like he was every member of a boy band. It was really funny and well done. The next film was a 35mm cinemascope print of a reworking of the good the bad and the ugly it was really crazy and flashy and rather interesting. The final short film of the night was my favorite; it was an old black and white Spanish film that was subtitled to create a story about discussion on experimental film. It was really funny, I was laughing the entire time. It was diffidently the most creative thing I saw the whole night. The last part of the evening was the live cinema explosion which encompassed four 16mm projectors a laptop, keyboard, music and lots more. There were flashing images everywhere. It was rather crazy. The thing I enjoyed most about the night was that I got to run the films myself. I work as the manger of Lumina theatre and I was in charge of running the 16mm projectors. Throughout the night was threading one projector while screening with another. During the live cinema explosion, I was running back and fourth between two projectors trying to keep them playing the same film loop. Overall the night was fun and crazy, it was a lot to set up and it took awhile to break it all down. I was greatly pleased with the turnout and enjoyed the evening greatly.