the fabulous destiny of Hugh McGrory

So this random Irish guy named Hugh McGrory e-mailed me recently, and HOLY GRAVY BOATS he is a splendid filmmaker: experimental, but without giving me a headache, which is a grand feat indeed. Here are his words, and his work:

Just found 2 of my shorts that were somehow not taken offline. Low quality (especially since I have 35mm prints for both) but forgive me. They're only 3 mins each, commissioned as such by an Irish Film Board scheme.

Maze



Within Without

The first 'Maze' is shot on Super-8 on a wind-up clockwork Russian military camera. The camera literally stopped when the mechanism did a full spin! It's a film about the empty Maze/Long Kesh Prison outside Belfast, scene of the Hunger Strikes etc. I wasn't doing anything political though, just something about what the empty space has to say in itself about our peace process. The second short is 'Within Without', shot on HD with microscopy images taken at Yale. When it goes inside that stuff is really in there. There is a section of stars which is CGI but the rest is live-action. Anyway, these short pieces should give you a better idea of what I do. Don't think it's just art-nonsense. I have plans to incorporate these techniques into drama, literally go 'into' people etc to show that we're all the same.

. . . .

The music on 'Maze' is an original piece composed by a friend of mine in London - Simon Robinson, who released drum 'n' bass a few years back as 'The Advocate'. He took a very different slant on 'Maze' as you can hear. The music on 'Within Without' was again composed especially for the film by my friend Glenn Marshall . . . Glenn and I ran a company together called Make Films until a few years ago. He's a very good CGI filmmaker. Abstract Buddhist computer art.

Just for the record, Hugh is about to start a project right here in California, and I've been sworn to secrecy, but let's just say it will be FASCINATING, and I'm going to bribe Hugh every which way I can in order to be a part of it. It's interesting, I feel like over the past two weeks I have been awash in exciting film/art things, shooting projects and going to camera workshops and meeting tons of fun folks who are sincere yet ironically hep (cooler than being ironically hip), talking to people across the country and around the world about the nifty things we're all creating.

In other words: I sure love being part of an intellectual art circle. Next thing you know, I'll be quoting Derrida over cups of espresso whilst wearing a beret and setting fire to lawn flamingos because they're, like, So Totally Bourgeois. I can't wait!