Well, I'm glad I asked.
First of all we're at what I consider to be a transitional stage in culture, media, industry, and history. We're in between the end of a republican dominated political landscape and on the verge of what may be either the opposite or a true balance of power for the first time in a long time. The habits of entertainment consumers are now split between traditional home entertainment viewing and on demand and personal digital programming. The music and film industries are seemingly suffering because of these changes but I think these markets can still produce financial successes but the endeavors must be more innovative.
The Jack Mackey Project is a fat sack of stanky innovation.
This project is unique in that it's married to a music project in a way no other film and album have been. I've seen docs about the making of an album, and even seen when making the doc might arguably even have an effect on the album (see Metallica: Some Kind of Monster ) but this is probably the first project of it's kind where the film and the album's very existences are dependent upon one another. Just the fact that it's two separate products in one that can ultimately stand on their own is rare.
Than there's the content. Hip hop has taken hits and been a victim of stereotyping for years. It's all gangsta or misogynistic, materialistic, misguided posing. Or it's self righteous, judgemental, not at all fun preachin' and hatin'. Anyone that really follows hip hop knows it's not really that simple but they also know that unfortunately, sometimes it is. However our culture, hip hop and as African Americans in general is a whole lot more rich and gray than that.
How many black films come out about a world full of thugs gangstas and ghetto es? How many come out about a world filled exclusively with buppies who work in the ad industry and play golf and racquetball?
Both of those are false looks at us. We're a lot more complicated than that. Jack Mackey, the film and the album show the truth about the world alot of us walk in. I personally know students, law enforcement officers, lawyers, doctors, drug dealers, rappers, weedheads, thugs, a pimp and a bunch of hyphenates. That to me is more truthful than thinking we never cross paths with people that are different from us.
By the same token my immediate circle are by no means angels we indulge in our share of vices and by and large believe in standing up for our families and ourselves as and with each other.
Being a black can mean constantly walking a tightrope over any number of potential social circles, morals, and destinies. The Jack Mackey project shows this by being a hip hop movie about friends smoking drinking, cursing each other out and being generally obnoxious while simultaneously engaging in philosophical discus ions about the nature of art, debates on the best way to help a friend live up to his potential, and a group of us banding together to make two quality projects. We all took this task seriously and ambitiously, fully understanding that if we executed this right we could, on top of creating good art, be chipping off our own little pebble of history.
30 August 2007
29 August 2007
"We live raw!"
Indy film making is a bitch. A sexy one with a whole lotta money in the bank but a bitch nonetheles. In the past couple of days since I started capturing the footage for The Jack Mackey Project (20-mickyficken-4 days and counting) I've gotten a couple of hours of sleep and shit has been catching up with me and I'm in a pickle of sorts. Having already poured all my personal resources into the project and in debt, yesterday I woke up to find myself booted. My fault, totally and my responsibility to fix so, while I should be capturing footage with Kofi right now, I'll be instead going to get a cab and be driving throughout the weekend at least, to get the car out of the auto pound.
I don't mind the work or the grind, it's the fact that I should be grinding on the movie itself that pisses me off at myself. Between the car getting booted and me putting so much time into the movie instead of driving the cab and bills steadily mounting up as a result, you can imagine I'm not the most popular person in my household or even my extended family right now. Shit I was supposed to be moving out of my house this weekend because of an amicable breakup with my daughter's mother. My last minute reprieve has not been helped by the financial bottomless pit I must seem to be becoming. But you know what?
Fuck it.
We're gonna get this project done, it's gonna be the shit, and we'll get something out of it. It's clear as day to me. Everyone who is sacrificing with us by choice or involuntarily by being in our proximity will reap the benefits of this success. Kof was on the phone with Agile last night and said something that's the key to what this whole project- the movie itself and our endeavor is about: "You gotta get creative as fuck when you don't have that bread."
That's what this whole thing is about. The idea to put somebody on the spot and force them to live and die by their imaginations. We put Agile on the spot and he stepped the fuck up. He didn't only record an album in 24 hours, he made what I consider to be an instant hip hop classic. So now the balls in our court and we ain't gonna drop it, no matter what. This is is what life is about, living and dying by your heart, your mind, and your wits, and your balls.
This is living and I'm having a muthafuckin' ball.
I don't mind the work or the grind, it's the fact that I should be grinding on the movie itself that pisses me off at myself. Between the car getting booted and me putting so much time into the movie instead of driving the cab and bills steadily mounting up as a result, you can imagine I'm not the most popular person in my household or even my extended family right now. Shit I was supposed to be moving out of my house this weekend because of an amicable breakup with my daughter's mother. My last minute reprieve has not been helped by the financial bottomless pit I must seem to be becoming. But you know what?
Fuck it.
We're gonna get this project done, it's gonna be the shit, and we'll get something out of it. It's clear as day to me. Everyone who is sacrificing with us by choice or involuntarily by being in our proximity will reap the benefits of this success. Kof was on the phone with Agile last night and said something that's the key to what this whole project- the movie itself and our endeavor is about: "You gotta get creative as fuck when you don't have that bread."
That's what this whole thing is about. The idea to put somebody on the spot and force them to live and die by their imaginations. We put Agile on the spot and he stepped the fuck up. He didn't only record an album in 24 hours, he made what I consider to be an instant hip hop classic. So now the balls in our court and we ain't gonna drop it, no matter what. This is is what life is about, living and dying by your heart, your mind, and your wits, and your balls.
This is living and I'm having a muthafuckin' ball.
27 August 2007
26 days and counting...
Right this second, the most important thing in our lives is getting a rough cut of The Jack Mackey Project together by Sept. 22. Why Sept. 22?
Well as I said before we're determined to be in Park City, Utah come January, when the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals take place. Period point blank- if we've got what we think we do and we can make the submision deadline- Sept 24th than we can be sure to maximize our investment into this project. So as of right this minute we're going to cop another camera to use as a deck (that we'll ultimately return when we're done) and start uploading this footage. It's about 30 hrs. worth and than we're gonna chisel it into a recognizible beast before we take it to a pro editor for an extreme makeover. So we're looking at spending as much of this week as possible digitizing and chopping this shit. Here we go...
Well as I said before we're determined to be in Park City, Utah come January, when the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals take place. Period point blank- if we've got what we think we do and we can make the submision deadline- Sept 24th than we can be sure to maximize our investment into this project. So as of right this minute we're going to cop another camera to use as a deck (that we'll ultimately return when we're done) and start uploading this footage. It's about 30 hrs. worth and than we're gonna chisel it into a recognizible beast before we take it to a pro editor for an extreme makeover. So we're looking at spending as much of this week as possible digitizing and chopping this shit. Here we go...
24 August 2007
The Jump Off
Over the last two months, my producing partner and I have been working on a Hip Hop Documentary entitled The Jack Mackey Project:
The genesis of the project was the desire to see hip hop music created in more Jazz like condition's crossed with the psychological exercise found in Lars von Trier's Fem benspænd, De (2003) (The Five Obstructions). We crossed that with a bunch of live cats and came up with something we feel is really interesting. On one hand there's foul language and smoking and drinking (not that any of that is negative in and of itself but) but on another there's the essence of hip hop and deep philosophical discussions about the nature and purpose of art. And that says nothing about the quality of images and the music that came out of the experiment. Needles to say. We're very exited about the project. So much so that we're now, broke as fuck from the work we've done so far, dealing with personal situations, and a general misunderstanding of what we've got from almost everyone around us, racing against time to get a rough cut to get into the Sundance or Slamdance film festivals. When we say that people look at us like we're crazy, but I can see it clear as day. I've basically started blogging to chronicle this journey and to have something published that amounts to: "I told you so" when shit comes together. (not to mention the inevitable book deal) :)
Over the next month I'll post so friends and fam can see what we're doing and understand the scope of our ambition. Check out what we do with this shit.
The genesis of the project was the desire to see hip hop music created in more Jazz like condition's crossed with the psychological exercise found in Lars von Trier's Fem benspænd, De (2003) (The Five Obstructions). We crossed that with a bunch of live cats and came up with something we feel is really interesting. On one hand there's foul language and smoking and drinking (not that any of that is negative in and of itself but) but on another there's the essence of hip hop and deep philosophical discussions about the nature and purpose of art. And that says nothing about the quality of images and the music that came out of the experiment. Needles to say. We're very exited about the project. So much so that we're now, broke as fuck from the work we've done so far, dealing with personal situations, and a general misunderstanding of what we've got from almost everyone around us, racing against time to get a rough cut to get into the Sundance or Slamdance film festivals. When we say that people look at us like we're crazy, but I can see it clear as day. I've basically started blogging to chronicle this journey and to have something published that amounts to: "I told you so" when shit comes together. (not to mention the inevitable book deal) :)
Over the next month I'll post so friends and fam can see what we're doing and understand the scope of our ambition. Check out what we do with this shit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)