COMING SOON! MAKING-OF DOCUMENTARY!
Bony Lil's Creation + Distraction, a duet of short films exploring the extreme opposite ends of the creative process. These films are a byproduct of collaboration between Zea Barker and Michael Pope (a designer/director duo who have brought you the bulk of the Dresden Dolls music videos, the Dresden Dolls: Live in Paradise DVD, the Dresden Dolls EPK, as well as music videos for some of Boston's underground bands and one for Ben Folds.) Creation and Distraction feature the adventures of Bony Lil in a mix of silent live-action and a unique style of hand-crafted animation. The first, Distraction, is a classic story of girl meets blank sheet of paper. We watch as Bony Lil labors to surmount the barrage of obstacles as she runs the gauntlet of creative expression. In the second, Creation, Bony Lil is steeped in the frenzy of inspiration. As she labors to draw characters, they begin to take on a life of their own and crawl off their pages looking for adventure, trouble and love. This film also features ten minutes of animation. Zea is a self-taught animator who has created her own unique style of animation that blends traditional hand-drawn and stop-motion styles.
Check out a collection of photos from the production process on flickr. A official Making Of/Documentary video is on its way.
Once all the pain-staking animation was drawn, cut out and shot, the remaining ingredient was finding fantastic musical talent to create original scores to Bony Lil's antics. Creation was put in the extremely capable hands of Valerie Thompson, cellist for Goli, She composed and orchestrated a juicy flamanco-influenced string quartet that fits the hijinx of the characters like a glove. Distraction was rendered by an all-star cast from the musicians of Blue Man Group. Hari Hassin (Music Director for Blue Man Boston) and Michael Petrucci steered the ship that at various times contained music directors from the Orlando show and the Megastar Rock Tour. They made some jaunty numbers taking cues from Django Reinhardt and James Brown as well as their own splendiforous brain pans. The icing on that cake was supplied by none other than Brian Viglione, of Dresden Dolls fame, who whipped up a saucy drum solo accompaniment to a rather passionate scene about oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
These films have screened on a thirteen city national tour Fuck the Backrow, at Chicago Short Film Brigade, Blood From a Turnip Puppet Film Festival in Providence RI and with live accompaniment at Joe's Pub in Manhattan. These films have never been released on the internet in entirety until this very moment.
Distraction: 8.5 min. black + white. Non-dialogue. Super8 film
Creation: 11 min. black + white. Non-dialogue. Super8 film and digital.
both films have been transferred to digital.