Pleasure and Subversion 
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How does an impoverished filmmaker realize the works his febrile imagination conjures when the external world is so uncooperative? With a penchant for writing dark erotic thrillers and confrontational psychodramas derived from my days trying to peddle screenplays to mainstream production companies coupled with a fascination borne of both genuine aesthetic affinity and necessity with the underground no-budget DIY approach of many of the subversive artists I admire I envision a fusion of performance-oriented body art, elaborate language and sensationalistic narrative. The possibility of finding wiling and suitable on-camera talent for such a venture (A series of projects) seems remote at best despite whatever percentage-sharing and guaranteed minimums out of profits deals I am willing and committed to offer and see through. Extensive nudity, sexuality and the necessity of impeccable performance (No matter how many takes, angles and editing gymnastics are required) is a very hard sell. I believe in idiosyncratic characters, vivid and even poetic dialogue and powerful performance wherever possible; in subject matter rooted in the body, the locus of human experience, pleasure, dread, communion and commerce. The eccentric shotgun marriage of Russ Meyer, Ingmar Bergman (chamber plays), Kurt Kren and R. Kern, Jacques Rivette and early Roman Polanski, Koji Wakamatsu and Shuji Terayama, Tsai Ming-Liang and Harmony Korine with Jess Franco as well as non-cinematic markers such as photographers like Nan Goldin, Noboyushi Araki, Ellen von Unwerth, and Performance Artists like Marina Abramovitz, Penny Arcade, Karen Finley, and VALIE Export is unlikely to draw many actors my way. Even my original proposal of a movie sufficiently strong in narrative terms and more or less operating within a highly marketable genre (Combined with highly marketable skin on display), a substantial fee out of first profits and then a 50% net deal in perpetuity from then on for the lead performer didn’t elicit the hoped for response. However, the request, supplication really, for collaborators remains ongoing.


For the time being such projects as Conspiracy of Bodies, Naked Mirror, and Nights of Chimera remain in limbo.

(I currently have in place an aggressive strategy to bring traffic to my Website in order to promote my novel. However, I will augment these activities to ensure the widest possible audience, dissemination, distribution and profitability for upcoming video work as well. Excerpts of the finished movies will be available on my site and used to promote DVD sales via the site and other outlets. Every effort will be exerted to seek publicity and distribution in as many media, venues and territories as possible).  
















DONATIONS AND CONTEST.

Please contribute $10 to help facilitate the completion of my movie Actor's Breakdown by sending me a donation via PayPal to sir.r.l.smart@gmail.com Include your name, e-mail address and location in the accompanying message.  I am hoping to reach $600 to pay for outstanding post-production costs.  At the end of the one month donation period a name will be drawn at random nd the winner will win a free copy of my novel Madonna 666.  Contest begins July 28th, 2012 and ends August 28th, 2012.

If you want to facilitate the production of low budget movies that are equal parts New York Underground and NC-17 Art film (In the mode of 9 Songs, Sex and Lucia and In the Realm of the Senses, to name a few) then please donate.  Thanks. 






ACTOR'S BREAKDOWN

Heidi is a young actress obsessed with success and stardom, flattered by the presence of an unknown, unseen cameraman who stands by as she talks about her life and aspirations and her good news that a Hollywood producer is giving her a special tryout. When she arrives for her audition she continues to be the object of the camera’s relentless gaze as the unseen producer puts her through a harrowing series of “performances” that seem to be designed to push her over the edge. Actor’s Breakdown is already shot and is now in post-production.  

Images above by Nan Goldin and Ellen von Unswerth   Their presence on this page is temporary.  They possess the tone, the general sensibility of what I seek to do both for the still photographs that I will replace them with here on this site and more importantly in the video features I intend to produce.