The A/VEC series is inspired by a curiosity to explore what a filmmaker and a musician can dream-up, create and execute when paired together, with a limited amount of time, direction, and with mutual anonymity — including absolutely no communication between the two parties. Once selected for the project, the filmmaker is given one month to create and produce a short film, which is then discreetly delivered (via Marmoset) to a musician/band, who then has 10 days to write, arrange and produce a complete live soundtrack. This soundtrack is then premiered live in front of the filmmakers and a live audience at the A/VEC event.
On Friday, April 28th we were thrilled to welcome our artist and creative community into our HQ for our third installment of the A/VEC series. A celebration of artistic collaboration, this event paired our friends over at the San Francisco-based production company, Avocados and Coconuts, with local Portland artist and Marmoset collaborator, Holland Andrews (who you might’ve seen in our 2017 Reel and heard in our work with Tillamook). The resulting film + score revealed itself to be full of vibrant and lush color-focused shots found around the world — perfectly paired with an an ethereal, intense score of operatic vocals layered over clarinet notes with loops and pedals.
With Holland Andrews away at an artists’s residency and the filmmakers juggling between several other projects, the shortened time limit proved to be a challenge — not that you could tell.
“The time I got to connect with it was just now,” Andrews said in the Q+A immediately following the premiere of the scored film. “I was really excited to see what would come up from watching.”
The Avocados and Coconuts crew drew from the vaults of past footage to shape a narrative, and filled in shots as needed based on striking color, pacing the shots with a metronome to keep the flow and transitions running smoothly without any music. “It’s really hard to feel feelings for something without music,” noted Dalia Burde, who produced the project. “We had a joke going that we would show up here and it would just be bagpipes for 10 minutes,” director Chris Newman added.
Check out video coverage of the event below.