BOMB IT 2 Featured Artist: Victor Ash (Interview)

BOMB IT 2 Artist Victor Ash just might embody artistic evolution. Bursting onto the graffiti scene in the early 1980s, he went by Ash2 and Saho, and ran with the popular Parisian crew, BBC. He has since expanded his style, focusing on large- scale murals involving themes of human nature and perception. We caught up with Ash amidst his busy schedule, where he briefed us on his latest projects, his artistic transition, and themes that inspire his work.

If you like what you see, head over to our Bomb It 2 Kickstarter campaign to learn more about this project and ways you can contribute!

BOMB IT: What have you been up to since we filmed you in Bomb IT 2?

Victor Ash: Loads of things happened, new murals in several cities across the world, meeting new exciting people and new directions in my work.

BI: Can you talk about your recent works? What kinds of themes are you exploring with them?

VA: Since last year I have been working mostly with the theme of “animals faces,” playing with the idea of the animals looking at the viewer and the viewer looking back, I try to symbolize the human interactions we have with nature and nature with humans.

BI: There’s a lot of incrimination of graffiti and street artists in the news. As you’ve matured as an artist, do you feel your stance on graffiti and public space has changed? Why or why not?

VA: I started to paint outside when I was a teen. Looking for an identity, I liked the thrill the revolt and the energy I found there. Also, I like to be in direct contact with the public, it creates a communication that you wouldn’t get by staying in a studio. Now I’m not active illegally in the streets because what I do is too big and takes too long to do but I still paint in the streets, just not illegally.. I understand why others keep on doing it, but personally I find challenges elsewhere and getting responsibilities like having children and family forces you to work and think in other ways.

BI: What recent or current events have inspired your work?

VA: Many things happening are worth commenting on. I get most of my inspiration from the information I received about the current state of the world, my work has to reflect the time we are living, and getting informed about the world is important for my themes.

BI:  What inspired the change in your work?

VA: In the 80’s I was a teen, focusing in the aesthetics of graffiti, it was great, but after some years I realized that it was not enough just doing letters and characters for me to keep interested in painting and I had to look further in my development to keep it exciting.

BI: What have been some public responses to your current street art and murals?

VA: In general the response is positive, if it was always negative I would do something else with my life.

BI: What advice or insight would you give to emerging street and graffiti artists?

VA: Keep on doing it as long as it matters for you and others.

This Is Not a Game: An Interview With Lady Pink

By Nijla Mu’min

***In celebration of our upcoming release of BOMB IT 2, we’re featuring this exclusive interview with BOMB IT artist Lady Pink. The interview was conducted by our social media manager and emerging writer/filmmaker, Nijla Mu’min. ***

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Graffiti/ Fine Artist Lady Pink knows her stuff. With a career spanning over 30 years, hundreds of canvasses, and walls, her knowledge of the art form is expansive, but also grounded in its tough realities. I caught up with the New York -based artist over Skype where she candidly discussed the first women of graffiti, the dangers of public work, and the current threat of the Vandal Squad (the Graffiti Police) on her life.

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One Time in Bangkok!

Hi Everyone,

I’ve shot in a number of crazy situations throughout the world shooting Bomb It 1&2, Better Living Through Circuitry and Survival Research Labs – but this expedition in Bangkok for Bomb It 2 stands out in my mind because I can still feel those red ants biting my legs – and because my humorously clumsy ways of dealing with the situation was filmed by one of the writers I was with. It also led to an incredible view of Bangkok in this oddly beautiful plein air building. I hope you enjoy it!

For more, visit our BOMB IT 2 Kickstarter and help us reach 20k! We’ve got 9 more days to make it happen for the August release.

Putting Chilean Film on the Map

On Thursday and Friday of this week (Oct 20-21) I will be at the Flyway Film Festival, presenting my two-day Think Outside the Box Office workshop on the ever-changing world of hybrid distribution and marketing. Today, though, I am thrilled to share a guest post from Chilean filmmaker Bernardo Palau whose first feature film ‘Saving You’ had a small theatrical release in Chile in November 2010 and is now available on iTunes.  Here is his post:

PUTTING CHILEAN FILM ON THE MAP

By Bernardo Palau

I live in Chile — a long and thin land at the end of the world — at the southernmost point of South America. Chile is a country mainly known for its wines, the variety of its landscapes and its writers and poets like Isabel Allende, Pablo Neruda and Vicente Huidobro.

I say “mainly” because every day Chile is getting more and more known for a different kind of poet/storyteller: its filmmakers. Over the last few years many Chilean films have navigated the A-class film festival circuit, which has placed Chile on the map of world cinema in the eyes of the press.

Leaving aside the recently deceased Raoul Ruiz and his prolific filmography, many directors, including Sebastian Silva (‘The Maid’), Matias Bize (‘The life of the fish’), Pablo Larraín (‘Tony Manero’), Gonzalo Justiniano (‘B-Happy’), Sebastian Lelio (‘Christmas’), and others have created a lot of buzz at various international film festivals. But is that all there is to Chilean cinema?

No, actually. There are still a lot of Chilean films out there that the world doesn’t know about yet.

Allow me to explain: In Chile we have two major kind of films, the Public (or State) co-finance films, which have big budgets for our industry (normally between $500,000 and $2,000,000), enabling them to have a great festival presence around the world. On the other hand, we also have micro-budget guerrilla / garage films that work with small budgets, small crews and a lot of good will.

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BOMB IT 2 Screening @ Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle

BOMB IT 2 is screening at 6 p.m. at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco on Thursday, October 6th as part of the Can Film Festival, sponsored by the Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle.

“The Can Film Fest” is organized by nonprofit arts organization The Estria Foundation as part of their week long Graffiti Arts Festival taking place October 6-8 in San Francisco.

BOMB IT 2 goes where no graffiti doc has gone before, including the West Bank, Tel Aviv, Jakarta, Copenhagen, and Singapore, among other places. It shows the incredible range of styles and ideas that surround graffiti and street art culture throughout the world and especially in places where most people probably don’t even think it exists.

Graffiti and street art is not a monolithic force around the world – it is different for every individual and every culture – and that is evident in the broad range of practitioners in the film. We are happy to partner with The Estria Graffiti Arts Festival this year and be part of celebrating one of the most vibrant art movements happening in the world today. A lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication exists surrounding this world, and the more outreach by organizations such as the Estria Foundation, the better!

10 Ways in Which I Would Release Bomb It Today

Chris Horton asked me to write this post for the new Artist Services website that Sundance has set up. However, many filmmakers don’t have access to that site, and so I am posting it here on my blog for anyone to be able to read. Here is the post:

In 2005 I started a documentary project that became Bomb It which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007, was released on DVD, iTunes and Netflix via New Video and has had an extended life on VOD (Gravitas), Web series (Babelgum), various foreign sales (PAL DVD this month on Dogwoof) etc. As many of you know, my experience releasing Bomb It inspired me to write a manual for other filmmakers to release their films in this new distribution landscape: Think Outside the Box Office. Chris Horton approached me to write a post on how I would release Bomb It in today’s distribution landscape (and knowing what I know now). I’ve actually thought about this a lot (mostly kicking my self for what I could have done better!)
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TOTBO Tip of the Day 10 Blog

Blogging helps in two ways: First, it drives traffic to your site as you link to new and interesting stories that are related to the subject of your film (For Bomb It, we post news about graffiti around the world.) And second, your blogging activity will help your site’s SEO (search engine optimization). This will result in higher search rankings for your film in relevant categories. What to blog about? Of course you should blog about your film, your filmmaking experiences and your screenings, but you should also consider blogging about subjects that relate to your film and your film’s audience. This will make your project relevant to them on a broader level and keep them coming back to your site. One simple way to come up with information to blog about is to use Google Alerts. We received a weekly Google Alert about “graffiti” and “street art” and select a few top articles to blog about.

My live workshops are coming to London on May 8th-9th and Amsterdam on May 12th-13th. Hope to see you there!

I want to know what you think! Comment here or on my blog, or @Jon_Reiss on twitter, or on the TOTBO Facebook page. Check out the book Think Outside the Box Office. I look forward to hearing from you.

Interview With Cassidy At SXSW

This was published today on Living Proof Magazine.

SXSW INTERVIEW | FILMMAKER JON REISS
By CASSIDY

Jon Reiss has spent the last 30 years making badass documentary films about punk rock, the rave scene, and graffiti. You have almost certainly seen his film Bomb It, a feature length documentary about global graffiti culture. The film has basically become the seminal graffiti film of our generation.

Usually when a filmmaker has that kind of O.G. status you can expect an old-school hollywood mentality, and a shitty attitude. Jon has neither of those. He is chill and down to earth. And when it comes to filmmaking, Jon is on the cutting edge. His book, Think Outside The Box Office, is a bible for D.I.Y. film distribution and marketing. Jon became somewhat of a guru of this (surprisingly) new field after he self-distributed Bomb It.

These days Jon is a tough cat to get a hold of. He splits his time between traveling to film festivals and conferences to educate filmmakers about how they can self-distribute their films, and filming for his new project: Bomb It 2. Keeping with Jon’s focus on the future of filmmaking, Bomb It 2 is a web-series that will be released through Babbelgum.com.

The End of the World Entertainment crew tracked Jon down in a freight yard in Austin, TX where he was filming a piece for Bomb It 2. Jon spoke on his career, the future of filmmaking, and why making movies is still fun. The interview is embedded, and the trailer for Bomb It is below. You can follow Jon’s adventures on his site and on twitter.

Note: check out Jon’s gear setup. Yes, one of the most important graffiti films of all time was made with about $3,000 worth of equipment. Dope.

International Film Fest Breda – Bomb It Screening!

If you’re lucky enough to be in the Netherlands, don’t miss the upcoming screening of Bomb It at the International Film Fest Breda!

March 25-29

http://www.filmfestivalbreda.com/

Scope Art Fair Tomorrow!

Bomb It! will be featured at the Scope Art Fair tomorrow, March 8, screening from 2-4 pm, and I will be speaking on the panel that follows on Street Art in Transition.

Be sure to come check it out – Scope is the largest Art Fair in the world – more information here.

SCOPE Art – New York – Basel – Hamptons – London – Miami – Scope Foundation
Scope Art Fair – 355 West 36th Street – 3rd Floor – New York, NY 10018 – 212.268.1522 – info@scope-art.com