Alejandro Adams

From IntegratedMedia

Alejandro Adams is a digital filmmaker from Florida, USA, and who resides in San Jose, California. He is also married and has two children. As of today (2008) there is not a lot of information on Alejandro Adams the person: only on Alejandro Adams the film-maker.

Despite this, podcasts found on his blog do reveal that Adams failed to obtain entrance to film school despite several applications. His decision to make Around the Bay and Canary seems all the more remarkable to me due to his lack of formal training.

He is CEO of the website BRAINTRUSTdv. In 2007 he released his first feature film, Around the Bay. His second feature film, Canary, is currently in post-production.

In his essay The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall and Rise of Video, Alejandro discusses the history of video film-making. A very interesting read for everyone interested in the development of video filmmaking and how critics and media professionals have adapted and changed their predictions about and responses to the medium over a period of 50 years.

There is a video entry about this essay here.

1 BRAINTRUSTdv
- 1.1 Purpose
- 1.2 Interview with Alejandro Adams
2 Around the Bay
3 Canary
4 External References

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BRAINTRUSTdv

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Purpose

Alejandro Adams is also CEO of BRAINTRUSTdv, an academic forum designed to study the history of online cinema and video art and cinema. Other well known writers and thinkers on Integrated Media, including Lev Manovich and Henry Jenkins also contribute to this site.

According to the website BRAINTRUSTdv "is an ongoing attempt to understand electronic cinema on its own terms as well as through the prism of the twentieth-century art form from which it derives. BRAINTRUSTdv is more concerned with the history of video technology than with the latest development; more concerned with aesthetic debates than with technical specifications; more concerned with articulate arguments than with terse weblog exchanges."[1]

Adams has personally written several essays about [online cinema|web-hosted cinema], particularly focusing on the ways in which user participation has changed the cinematic viewing experience. In one essay entitled Preliminary Notes on Web-Hosted Cinema he writes, "the evolution of the spectator's control over his cinematic experience must be taken into account. Web-hosted cinema did not evolve from television or the cinema of the congregated audience; it evolved from the sensibilities of home-format cinema. Like the VCR throughout its history, Web-hosted cinema gives the viewer unprecedented control over his experience, elevating consumption to a sovereign, individualized act—thus the implications of a theory or ethics of spectatorship."

Viewers interested in exploring this issue further should look into Mike Jones and his PhD work on the "virtual camera."

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Interview with Alejandro Adams

My group tried to get into contact with Alejandro but unfortunately he was unable to interview with us for this project. We did, however, conduct a mock-interview with Alex Fjeld in the role of Alejandro. This interview was based on our research, but we wish to make it clear we are not attempting to speak for or put opinions into the mouth of Alejandro Adams.

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Around the Bay

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Plot

Adams released his completely digital and mostly improvised film Around The Bay late October, 2007.

Around The Bay tells a story of disintegration of a family in the face of struggling business in the Silicon Valley.

Daisy Katherine Celio lives in an unnamed town, works at a grocery store, and casually missed fall’s college enrollment deadline. Her father, Wyatt Steve Voldseth whom she hasn’t seen for the last decade, has just lost his girlfriend and his presumably high paying Silicon Valley job in the same week. Ill equipped to care for his nearly unbearable and yet empathy inspiring son Noah Connor Maselli he invites daughter Daisy to give Noah his ‘three meals a day’. Daisy comes to stay in his guest house with Wyatt stating that five-year-old Noah is self-governing and “knows himself,” a view that accounts for Noah’s aggression and unwillingness to befriend kindly Daisy.

You can watch an interview with Adams about his film 'Around The Bay'here. There is a little bit about Cinequest, a film festival held in San Jose, California and Alejandro Adams is introduced with a bit of his trailer.

Click here for another AJ clip

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Reviews

This film has received warm reviews for both its narrative structure and its compositional achievements through the exclusive use of digital film.
Richard von Busack, Metroactive's film reviewer, writes "Adams exhibits superb control of his actors, yet there's nothing but fresh, semi-improvised performances here. Though Around the Bay is an intimate film, this is no small story. The title is apt. Though the action takes place in Los Gatos and uses local locations such as the CalTrain, Leigh's Books and Karin's Bakery, this tale could take place anywhere around the San Francisco Bay, from Petaluma to Scotts Valley."

This also from Reely Girl "Performances are consistent and dialogue, though sometimes a bit thin, is really intelligent. Voldseth’s Wyatt is a perfect shell of a man. Trying little he seems to have made his fame skirting reality and Daisy, who turned out well (raised by her mother), is the only person willing to call him on his disingenuiness. Though his last moments are ones of remorse, one can’t feel as though his justice is one he’ll really aim to grow from – and cued by Celio’s response to him, it’s pretty clear that whether or not he mends his ways, the damage is pretty well done."

Nick Rombes, an occasional contributor on BRAINTRUSTdv "praises the film’s stylistic 'interplay of diegetic and non-diegetic sound'"[2]

Bayflix reviewer writes, "Sparse and utilitarian, Alejandro Adams’ low-key drama gets right to the point, then tells its dysfunctional family story without pyrotechnics. "

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Cast

Steve Voldseth as Wyatt
Katherine Celio as Daisy
Connor Maselli as Noah
Katherine Darling as Noreen
Michael Umansky as Aleksey
Bronica DeCarlo as Megan
Debra Niestat as Polly
Valerie Weak as Gloria
Larry Kitagawa as Alan
Katelyn Sacks as The Hairstylist
Sherrill Lawrence as Helen
Bob Skubis as The Jeweler

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Trivia

Alejandro Adams made many distinct and conscious choices when it came to the production of this film. He didn't intend, for example, to have one protagonist, but many. Each of the three "main" characters (Wyatt, Daisy and Noah) were given the task of developing their own characters as the shoot progressed. Because the film was shot in chronological order, the characters developed holistically in "real-time."

Alejandro has recently cited the movie The Death of Mr Lazarescu as his favourite movie in the last five years and draws parrells between the movie to his current feature film Canary Industries

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Logistical Challenges

As a director Alejandro has been lauded for his unique methods and ability to get amazing performances out of amateur or inexperienced actors. For his film 'Around the Bay' Adams recruited actors from Craig's List, an online bulletin board, and encouraged his actors to improvise in their roles. Additionally, his authorial style is very much evident throughout the film, using long takes; very high or low angle shots, and handheld, doco-style camera work.

The biggest logistical challenges for camera operators and boom operators on the "Around the Bay" shoot were the result of Adams' penchant for extremely long takes. Some takes in the film last more than 30 minutes. The camera crew therefore had to adjust the exposure when moving from inside to the outside and vice versa. This method gives a slight documentary feel to the film.

As a result of Adams' documentary style of filming the boom operators initially had difficulty recording clean sounds. The film's sound, particularly in the first section of the film (which was recorded and shot first) required heavy post-production due to scratching and shaking noises caused by the microphone. As the shoot progressed, however, the sound recording difficulties were solved by using lavalier-mics on the actors and by placing omni-directional mics around the interior/exterior locations.

When the production wrapped on 17 November 2006 after two months of shooting, Adams was left with 65 hours of footage to edit down to what became a 96 minute feature film.

Around The Bay had a shooting ratio of 40:1.

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Canary

(2008), Alejandro Adams is producing a film called Canary. From what comes out of his blog Canary Industries is Adam's second feature film, but is shot on an entirely new level with a cast of 50. The film is improvised in the same way as Around The Bay, Images are dominated by occlusions and barriers. Whereas unconventional angles in Around the Bay serve to distance the viewer from the characters, in Canary these shifting cages trap the characters, or lend a surreptitiousness to the action (and inaction).

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