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NYCU at the Apple Store Soho NYC December 11

Posted 12.06.12 by Nick Ravich

Hey folks, I’m excited to announce that my New York Close Up co-producing partner Wesley Miller and myself will be part of a screening and discussion at the Apple Store Soho, New York City.  It’s this Tuesday, December 11 at 7PM, free and totally open to the public.  The event’s entitled “Creating the Portrait of an Artist: New York Close Up and Etsy,” and along with Etsy’s Senior Video Producer (and NYCU project friend) Tara Young, we’ll be talking about the pleasures and perils of producing short form arts documentaries for the web.  We’ll be screening films from the New York Close Up and Etsy catalog, and the discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A.

This is really the first public discussion of the New York Close Up series from the producers’ behind the scenes perspective.  So if you’re in the New York City area and want to learn more about the project’s whats, whys, and hows straight from the source, this is the time to do it.

And if you don’t already know about them, Etsy produces some great documentary shorts highlighting their (extremely large) roster of artist vendors.  Best way to check them out is to visit their blog.

Hope to see you there.

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Degrassi vs 90210? Erin Shirreff takes a stand

Posted 10.12.12 by Nick Ravich

CAPTION:  Artist Erin Shirreff with Justin Martin in her studio (Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 04.20.12.)  Production still from the series “New York Close Up” © Art21, Inc. 2012.  Cinematography by Rafael Moreno Salazar.

Folks, our latest film is live – Erin Shirreff Takes Her Time.

One of the many pleasures in producing this one was getting to know Erin Shirreff and uncover her not immediately obvious Canadian-ness.  After our initial shoot in her Greenpoint studio – when she was still in the process of creating the video work Lake (the central focus of today’s New York Close Up release) – Erin passed along a YouTube link for a series of short films, produced and broadcast in Canada in the 80’s, that depict various Canadian national parks.  Films that Erin saw many, many times on television as a child (and judging from the YouTube comments, a whole generation of Canadians did as well.)  Films that are a loose but still significant inspiration for not just Lake but Erin’s general sensibility.

Un-Canadian as I am, I was totally hooked by the shorts’ instantly recognizable, early 80’s film to video texture, and the oddly melancholic tone.  Fortunately we were able to bookend our film on Erin with excerpts from a couple of the Parks Canada shorts.  But we were only able to include just a small portion of the interview detailing Erin’s unexpected history with these films.  So for the Canada-ophiles among you, below’s a more extended excerpt from our original interview:

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Josephine Halvorson Wins Some & Loses Some – A Web Original Interview

Posted 08.20.12 by Nick Ravich

Our first film with artist Josephine Halvorson – Close Encounters with Josephine Halvorson – just went live on Friday.  Please welcome her to the New York Close Up family by watching early and often!

When we first met with Josephine she was really excited about the kinds of story-telling possibilities that the New York Close Up documentary project can provide.  Especially the potential to tell the “making of” stories that are really central to her experience of her own work.  Well, in this first film we were able to tell the rather funny and vegetarian-alienating tale behind the making of “Carcass” (2011), a painting Josephine created on-site at a slaughterhouse in Iceland.  But over the course of a lot of conversations with Josephine, it was pretty clear that there was another on-location story that really needed to be told, the California-spanning saga behind her painting “Mine Site” (2011).  Unfortunately, it was just a little too intricately plotted and quietly tragic to fit inside the constraints of a happy-go-lucky 6+ minute New York Close Up episode.

So in the spirit of extending our films’ documentary spirit to the project website – and Josephine’s own search to incorporate the documentary into her practice – we present a fully illustrated, e-mail-original interview with Josephine about the creation of “Mine Site.”  And just as significantly, the painting she wasn’t able to make.

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David Brooks Builds His Times Square Dream House

Posted 07.13.12 by Nick Ravich

Well, with the housing crisis and all, he could only get the rooftops done. Check our latest video – David Brooks Tears the Roof Off – to make sense of it all.

David is a man of many words, many of which we just weren’t able to fit into the 7+ minute final film. So below is a more extended interview with David about his Art Production Fund-commissioned public artwork Desert Rooftops (the work featured in the film), south Florida as the “Sixth Borough,” and the importance of getting the skateboarders’ seal of approval.

Nick Ravich:  Why is south Florida so important for you? What’s the relationship between New York City and Florida?

David Brooks:  South Florida does receive an abnormal amount of traffic from New Yorkers, both in its heydays of development, and today with its proximity to New York as a getaway or cultural siphon. Thus, much to the chagrin of the locals, it is sometimes referred to as the “Sixth Borough.” Ugh. More importantly, south Florida is an extremely rare confluence of land, coral, freshwater, brackish water, saltwater – the nexus of the Atlantic seaboard, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and Everglades watershed.

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Eddie Martinez Is Ready For His New York Close Up

Posted 06.16.12 by Nick Ravich

Hot off the Mac Pro tower (well, hot off the Mac Pro tower yesterday), our latest film – Eddie Martinez Whistles While He Works.

I have to admit – shooting the material that forms the heart of this film, an afternoon in Eddie Martinez’s studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn – was one of the more intense, enlightening, and privileged shoot experiences I’ve had on location for the New York Close Up project.

It was our second shoot day together.  The crew showed up – just myself, the very gifted camera man Rafa Salazar, and a compact HDSLR camera package – at the studio and Eddie immediately dived in to a new painting.  I really mean dived in, spray painting before the primer had time to truly set.  Before the shoot, Rafa and I had talked about a handheld, stalking, almost predatory approach.  The operative metaphor was a boxing match, and we were Eddie’s opponent, bobbing and weaving in and around Eddie as he in turn boxed against his painting.  I knew from previously shooting with Eddie that I wanted to visually dramatize Eddie’s very physical process with our own kind of pointed movement.

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