 |
 |
 |
|
Musical Accompaniment
Need a little musical masterful flow to get your body working for the Split Pillow Screening?
Visit the Challenge 2.0 homepage, which features a theme song from Swak One and MC Tony B. It's a little bit like Kool Keith meets Eminem meets high-impact flick-forming. Er...sort of.
|
|
 |
|
|
In virtually all media, technical advancement yields creative experimentation and, ultimately, innovation. Take film, for instance.
As the 8 millimeter format became ubiquitous in the early 1960s and the tools for manufacturing films extended beyond the boundaries of studios, avant-garde artists began to experiment with pictures in motion. Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Allen Ginsberg exploited the lower barriers to entry to make (oftentimes unpalatable) films that paved the way for more serious filmmakers to apply their craft.
John Cassavetes, with films such as "Faces" and "A Woman Under the Influence," is noted for turning the novelty of experimental 8MM filmmaking into art. Now, with the emergence of digital video as an inexpensive and accepted form of filmmaking, creative tinkering runs rampant.
In Chicago, the birthplace of improvisational comedy and a town where experimentation is imbedded within the entertainment and filmmaking communities, our regional sensibilities merrily co-exist with emerging media. Which brings us to Improv Film and the Challenge 2.0.
On June 3, local not-for-profit production company Split Pillow will screen its second annual series of improvisational films at the Biograph Theatre in Lincoln Park. All of the 18 films that will be shown at Challenge 2.0 were produced, written and conceived less than one week earlier over the course of Memorial Day Weekend. More than 100 filmmakers, writers, actors, editors and other interested parties are expected to participate and contribute to this ad-libbed form of filmmaking.
Split Pillow is the brainchild of Columbia College graduate student and local film producer Jason Stephens. Stephens named the company after the gear in a fan that holds the axel in place and enables its blades to spin. "We're the organization around which filmmakers revolve to create a single momentum," Stephens says.
Stephens, who worked in Washington D.C. prior to moving to Chicago two years ago, created the first Challenge last year as a way to connect with other local filmmakers.
"I was having trouble finding a community that had an established infrastructure to it," he said. "I put together the challenge as a way to create some sort of community. What I didn't comprehend or realize was how much of a demand there was for Improv Film. And that is why I created Split Pillow."
[1] [2]
006: Split Pillow
|
