Edenwood Talk at BGSU Art School

On Thursday afternoon, April 23rd, Jen and I drove down to Bowling Green, Ohio, to give a talk at the university to a bunch of art students and faculty. The topic? The making of our latest epic, the surreal cowboy comedy about conspicuous consumption, EDENWOOD. It was a grand ol' time...

Jen is an art professor by day, and quite an accomplished artist, so she was right at home with all of the young creative types we hung with. About 30 seconds after meeting the students who had invited us down, she was already talking "mark making", giving insightful critiques and suggesting artists for the kids to check out. I was feeling a little in over my head, but once we got to the auditorium and started the talk, it all went well.

Jen spoke about how Edenwood was a logical extension of her latest body of work, even though she had never visualized herself as being a narrative filmmaker. It was cool getting to see the slide show of her past few years' artworks and seeing how it had all developed and intertwined and led to this odd movie. I talked more about how collaboration is so important in movie making and how it was cool that Jen and I together make things that neither person would make by themselves. Overall, it was pretty fun and also interesting to show footage from Ewood to a complete group of strangers for the first time. It went over well and we had a blast afterwards eating pizza and talking art and movie-making with some faculty and students.

I learned what "Machinima" is, that there is a group of parents who are majorly creeped out by Build-A-Bear Workshop, and that the chicken and cheese stuffed breadsticks with barbecue sauce at Pollyeye Pizza are like sex for your stomach. Hmm, maybe that's not the best way to put that?

In any case, we took the show on the road and it survived the intense furnace-like gaze of ART. Phew! On May 1st, we will be announcing the grand premiere of Edenwood in all its finished glory, and we're getting excited...

Bri