5×5 : Night of the Hunter from mike ambs ☂ on Vimeo.

You can’t tell from the video above, because of how dark everything is, but Mike is really incredibly good at what he does. Here’s a video that he and his girlfriend, Erica Hampton, wrote and shot for the Cinemasports competition held during last Saturday’s Shadow Art Fair. Twelve teams competed in the ten-hour film making competition. (The rule was that all entries had to be three-minutes long, and include the following ingredients: a silhouette, instructions, an unresolved mystery, and the making of a pass.) Unfortunately, Mike and Erica missed the 9:00 PM deadline by about half-an-hour, so they were ineligible for the $100 Shadow Art Fair grand prize, but it’s still pretty damned cool… and incredibly well shot.

Ann Arbor Film Fest Cinemasports Challenge: Untitled from mike ambs ☂ on Vimeo.

[A slightly longer version of Mike and Erica's Cinemasports entry can be found here.]

I should probably leave the discussion of what went wrong to one of the technical guys, but, the way I understand it, we had things wired in such a way that two of the bikes were incredibly inefficient at converting human power to energy that the battery could use. So, we had one bike that was really pumping, and two others that were just contributing a trickle of electricity. And, unfortunately, the bike that was contributing the most was also really loud. So, at some point prior to the start of our feature, we decided to switch over to conventional power. It wasn’t the optimal outcome, but we learned a hell of a lot, and we still got to enjoy a terrific movie outside with some tasty beverages.

Here are a few short videos I shot early in the evening of the gang trying to get everything up and running.

We haven’t had a formal meeting yet to discuss where this leaves us, but my sense is that, all things considered, we’ll look back on this as a success. Not only did we have a great time, but, I think, we made some real headway in understanding what needs to be done differently in the future… If you’ll recall, the last time we did a live demo, we just had one bike, and things ended in a little plume of black smoke, as we maxed out our inverter and fried it. This time, nothing blew up. And, we actually charged a battery. So, I think we’re most of the way there. We just need to figure out how to optimize the system now, raise some money for a few more generators and stands, and deal with the sound coming from the bikes. All in all, though, I’d say we’ve come pretty damned far.

Thanks to everyone who came out and contributed, either by helping out directly, or by making a donation to the cause. (We raised $210, which should be enough, when added to our online contributions, to buy another generator.) And special thanks to Andy, Mike, Dave and Chris, not only for busting their asses during the show to make things work, but also for all the work they did in the run-up to the big event. They’ve invested a ton of time and effort in order to make something good for this community of ours, and they deserve a lot of credit for it. I think I’ve said it before, but I tend to think of this like a very local version of putting a man on the moon. It’s a huge puzzle, and we don’t have a lot of previous experience to go on, but folks in the community are really stepping forward to help make it happen. And, I’m convinced that it will. I really think that by the end of the summer, we’ll have it all figured out…. Thanks again for your patience and support.

• Bring an ID. Like I mentioned before, there’s free beer for those who contribute, thanks to the generosity of the folks at the Corner Brewery, but, for obvious legal reasons, we won’t be letting folks drink who don’t have valid IDs showing that they’re over 21. And, speaking of beer, depending on how many people show up, we may not have enough to last until midnight, so please try to show some restraint.

• Speaking of contributions, be sure to ring $10, as this is a fundraiser. The money that you give will be used to buy additional generators as well as to acquire the insurance, rent the porta-potties, and cover the rental fee for Riverside Park, so that we can have a much bigger, free event later this summer.

• If you have lights and reflectors, and would feel safe driving home after the movies, please bring your bikes. We need bikes on hand to plug into our power-generating contraption. Plus, it’s just cool to ride your bike to a bike-powered event.

• If you can, bring your own cup tonight, as that would cut down on litter and waste. I’ll go out and buy some plastic cups today, for those who need them, but every little bit we can do to keep plastic cups out of the landfill is probably a good thing.

• We got our FM transmitter, so we’ll be broadcasting the audio this evening. So, if you’ve got one, bring your transistor radio, boom box, etc. We’ll have some speakers set up as well, but it would help if we had people with radios too.

• Other things you might want to bring – bug spray, blankets and food. If you do bring food, be sure to pick up after yourselves. I’ll bring a few trash bags. Just be sure to find them and use them.

OK, that’s it for now. I’ll see yo all later, once the sun starts to go down.

This Saturday night, at about 9:30, or whenever it starts to get dark, some friends and I are going to get together on the banks of the Huron, behind the new VG Kids building, and test out the Cycle Powered Cinema concept. And, you’re invited. There could be glitches, as we’ve yet to attempt the projection of a real movie, but it should be fun regardless. As of right now, we’re planning to show a cartoon, a Buster Keaton short, and the Robert Mitchum film Night of the Hunter. And, thanks to a generous donation by the Corner Brewery, there will be beer for those of legal drinking age, at least until the keg runs dry. All we ask in return is that, if you want to join us, you donate $10 toward the purchase of additional generators, so that we can build-out a few more bikes and start showing free, bike-powered movies in Ypsi’s Riverside Park, which, hopefully, is where all of this is headed.

In the completed system, once we’re done, we’ll have at least eight bikes, and they’ll power the film directly, in real-time. For the time being, however, we just have two built. That means we’re going to have to start peddling earlier in the day, in order to charge a battery. We haven’t done the math yet, but I’m guessing that we’ll have the bikes set up at around 6:00, in case you want to arrive early and put in your time on the bike before the film starts.

Oh, and I should mention that the reason we have two bikes now, instead of just the one that we had at the winter Shadow Art Fair, is thanks to $200 in contributions from the Sidetrack, the Corner Brewery, and the old Elbow Room, as well as $214 in contributions from patrons of the Corner Brewery. Thanks to this infusion of money, we were able to build out another complete bike, and get the inverter, and other infrastructure pieces we needed in order to make a somewhat reliable system. (And, by that, I mean one that won’t blow up, like the one we had at the last Shadow Art Fair.) We’re still waiting on a few parts to come in, but Andy Claydon – the guy handling all the technical stuff – is confident that we’ll have them in time.

Oh, and this public unveiling couldn’t have happened without James Marks offering to let us use the VG Kids facility. Thanks to his generosity, we’ll not only have access to bathrooms, but a beautiful space on the banks of the river, and a large white wall to project our movies on.

Again, I think it’s worth reiterating that this is a proof-of-concept viewing, so things are likely to go horribly wrong. We’re hoping to have enough juice to project two hours of film, and big enough speakers to reach everyone in the audience, but you never know. So, we’re not making any guarantees. And that’s in part why I’m not publicizing this widely, and just announcing it now, a few days before the event… With all of that said, though, I do hope to see you there, for what promises to be an historic event.

Oh, and if you can’t make it, but would still like to contribute toward the project, you can do so by visiting the Cycle Powered Cinema page and clicking on the “donate” button… And, if you hate the whole idea, but still want to support something bike related, I hear that Jim and Forrest Karnopp, from Cafe Luwak, are looking for people to sponsor them in a Make a Wish Foundation bike ride. (Forrest will be doing the 300 mile ride, and Jim will be doing the 50 mile one.) They’re great guys, it’s a great cause, and, if you donate $20 or more to either one of them, you’ll receive a free breakfast buffet at Cafe Luwak. But, as the deadline is July 1st, you’d better do it now. Just click here to support Forrest or here to support Jim.

[Those of you who are new to this whole Cycle Powered Cinema initiative, can find my last update on the project, which is considerably more detailed, here... And I'm sorry about the graphic above, but Linette wasn't home to help me.]

A few other things… If the photo of me standing in front of the local strip club with a sign saying “DeNiro” doesn’t make sense, just click here for the context. Also, it should be noted that the image above could not have happened without the hard work of Naia Venturi, who made Puppet Mark, and Misha Grey, who worked his little arms and legs during the photo shoot.

Here, on the origins of Jamboman, is a clip from the Ypsilanti Citizen:

…The event’s official mascot, Jamboman, is a shining example of an out-of-the-box strategy. The yellow critter in the green cape will be all around town throughout the summer. People who follow the festival on Facebook and Twitter can get a heads-up on his upcoming location so they can take his picture. Organizers will choose the best photos and award free tickets to the event.

“If you see him, you better get his picture taken,” Sicheneder said…

I was going to kid around, and poke some fun at Jamboman, maybe even pointing out that, according to the Urban Dictionary, “Jambo” apparently, at least in some circles, means, “Someone who proffesses to be straight but is quite obviously a homosexual,” but, truth is, the little yellow guy is growing on me… Regardless of his sexuality, I think he’s a damn site better than, for instance, Izzy, the much maligned mascot of the Atlanta Olympic games. And, I’d be honored to be his friend.

Anyway, the reason that I post this is because it’s got me thinking that all the projects that I’m associated with at the moment need mascots. This website needs one. The Shadow Art Fair needs one. The bike powered movie project needs one. Dreamland Tonight needs one. Crimewave USA needs one. The Monkey Power Trio needs one… I don’t have anything to give as a reward, but, if you have mascot ideas, sketch them out, send them in, and I’ll post the good ones here on site.

update: Actually, come to think of it, I do have something that would serve as a prize… And I’m not kidding about this. Whoever comes up with the best mascot (it can be for any of my projects) will win a giant box of horrific smut, like it or not.

And, if you can’t join us for a beer in real life, consider joining us on Facebook, where we’ll be posting updates and the like from now on.

[Tonight's post is brought to you by Sean Hannity, who addressed a Tea Party group yesterday by calling them "Timothy McVeigh wannabes."]

On another personal note, I very much enjoyed seeing Martha Colburn’s Triumph of the Wild, having met her in Baltimore over a decade ago, as she was just starting out as an animator. At the time, she was living in a loft with a fellow named Jason Willett, and collaborating a bit with our mutual friend Jad Fair. (Remind me to tell you sometime about the week that Jason lived with us here in Ypsi after being stopped by authorities, trying to walk through the tunnel into Canada.)

[The image above is from Martha Colburn's Triumph of the Wild, which is a frantic retelling of American history in the form of living collage.]

And, as if the two hours of animation weren’t enough, there was also an active Q&A session with three of the animators who were in the audience – Karen Aqua, Laura Yilmaz, and Juan Camilo Gonzalez, all of whom spoke eloquently and openly about their processes, their influences, and the challenges they face as artists working in this medium. I was particularly struck by something Laura Yilmaz said. She said that she’d started out as a live-action director, but found the process of working with actors and the like to be too frustrating, which made me wonder how many other great animators came to their profession due to negative experiences in “the real world.”

One last thought… In retrospect, I don’t know if it was the best idea in the world for us – the organizers of the Shadow Art Fair, who were co-sponsors of last night’s event – to contract with the French collaborative Peepooh, which is kind of half performance art group, and half terrorist cell, to introduce the films. Here, for those of you who are interested, is what they came up with:

Oh, and if you do decide to go out today or tomorrow, to see any of the other great films the AAFF folks have lined up, be sure to head back to the screening room, in the back of the theater, to check out our friend Michael Flynn’s new “Pedal Powered Film Projector” installation, a spin-off of our Cycle Powered Cinema project here in Ypsilanti. It’s basically a recumbent bike setup hooked up to an 8-mm film projector showing an early color cartoon reel. As Michael is a professional exhibit builder, it’s very well done, and I think you’d enjoy it. I tried it out last night and had a lot of fun with it.

Right now, it’s mostly money that’s holding us back. So far, we’ve taken in $193.10 (and one weird Canadian coin) in donations. We have, however, spent quite a bit more than that, having bought motors, generators, DC-AC converters and the like. At the moment, we’re probably about $500 in the hole, but we don’t intend to stop. We’re committed to find a way to make this work.

The next step is to have a real test of the concept, with a few bikes. We could either do this indoors, at the Brewery, or outside, behind the new VG Kids world headquarters, on the banks of the Huron River. The idea would be to have two bikes, equipped with generators, feeding into a deep-cycle marine battery. People, under this scenario, would begin peddling several hours prior to the movie(s) being shown, in order to store up the power necessary to project the film. In order to pull this off, in addition to what we already have, we would need the following:

One more bike stand and generator, at a cost of $399.

A 25 amp fuse and holder, at a cost of about $5.

A Blocking Rectifier Diode, at a cost of $49.

A 12 vdc Regulator/Converter, at a cost of $235.

Another DC to AC Inverter, at a cost of $100.39.

TOTAL: $788.39

We would need five more generators to pull off a big show, where people are peddling to power a film in real-time, but this would take care of most of the infrastructure that we’d need.

[These numbers are based on a few assumptions: 1) that we can find at least two bikes, 2) that we can borrow a digital projector, 3) that we can borrow deep-cycle marine battery.]

We recently submitted a grant proposal to the Ann Arbor Arts Alliance. If it comes though, this beta test could take place as early as April. If not, though, we’re going to have to initiate fundraising activities. It’s something that we can discuss at the meeting, but I’m thinking that we could ask local businesses to contribute $150 or $200 a piece toward the project, which we’re convinced would, when up and running, draw several hundred people downtown (which would be good for their businesses). There are also plans afoot to add a “donate” button to our Cycle Powered Cinema website, so that individuals can contribute online, but it’s probably still a few weeks away.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Donald Harrison and the folks at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, who have been incredibly supportive of this project to the point of allowing us to present the idea at next week’s festival, where our friend Michael Flynn, a professional builder of science museum exhibits, will be debuting his own bike-powered projector under the Cycle Powered Cinema banner… If you’re in Ann Arbor next week, be sure to check it out.

For those of you not familiar with the Cycle Powered Cinema initiative, you can find background information here and video of our first test run here.

[note: That's an image of Michael's Ann Arbor Film Festival exhibit accompanying this post.]