Anna Cabrini Chronicles

Dorenfeld has experimented with combining animation with live action film and took it to an extreme level of breaking the rules. Using nervous cutting techniques to emulate the state of his subject, one feels unnerved at the start of the scene fragmented and splintered by the juxtaposition of his shots and cuts.

In his film, The Anna Cabrini Chronicles, he used 16mm film, digital, hand drawn animation and stop-motion combining many mediums. Inspired he claims, by “Madness. Actually lots of logic, emotions, and technical realities are at the core of why I chose to use so many different mediums to create Anna. The Anna Cabrini Chronicles, is a film that is actually playing back peoples deepest thoughts and ideas after being recorded on micro-cassettes…so immediately one must approach such a concept in a different light than a film that follows a straight narrative in what we tend to call reality. It shows the Second half of reality, the reality of an individuals mind and the thoughts, visions, and emotions that spiral in the catacombs of every living persons head.

Another inspiring aspect for Tawd was the fact that Trey Spruance and the Secret Chiefs 3 created the soundtrack. This was the first film he agreed to do music for a film in over 15 years. This did not leave Dorenfeld without the usual challenges.

“Yet we did not have the budget to shoot a full feature on 16mm film, especially a film that deals with 4 monologues…The ratio was too high for the cash…so we had to come up with a way to capture monologue and tell the story in the most visually captivating way without sacrifice. DV allowed us to shoot and shoot and shoot those monologues along with the short dialogue scenes without the concern of cost after the fact.”

The silver screen has held the captive eye of director Tawd Dorenfeld before he left a small town in Northern California called Petaluma for New York City where he studied film and animation. Tawd Dorenfeld’s feature experimental film The Anna Cabrini Chronicles won the Best Experimental Narrative Feature Award at the Silverlake Film Festival in 2007, and he has been hailed by small troupes as a cutting edge staring director who systematically pours himself into each illuminated creation.

Fueled by the emotions triggered by the suicide of his cousin, Tawd poured this catharsis into creating a monumental work. Of particular note is the high level of production on an almost non-existent budget. Apparently it took Tawd over six years to complete this epic labor of love.

“The stories are not far reaching; they are your neighbors, your friends, your cousins, sisters, and mothers, with a twist of everyone in all of it. Suicide is not a mystery. As a society, we cloak suicide with mystery because of the emptiness that haunts those left looking into a grave of a loved one that just wanted to be dead. Sure this is a slight generalization because many suicides are a mystery, can’t be pinned down to one reason, one mental illness, one rebellious nature, and be assured the film does deal with this very issue of why? what? where? Death by life. These characters are individuals with a multitude of reasons for their mental collapse and those thoughts are not far from many of the things that confuse, upset, and depress you as well.

“I call them the A’s….Some did, some tried, my closest cousin definitely did after years of battling with her depression. She was the screwdriver driven into my cranium to get me to howl like a deer in headlights and find away to speak out about the unhealing terror of suicide.

“I am happy that my first feature was so important and socially valuable, yet understand that I would trade it for a night of laughter with my late cousin and just create a different serious and valuable film. So be it, thank Andrea, I believe there are many people who are appreciative of the creation of Anna Cabrini. Maybe we helped someone else.”

The modern day saga of a young filmmaker navigates the landscape of Hollywood making a completely uninvestable film for the sake of his passion and the vision haunting him. The story of the starving artist is alive in the bowels of Hollywood – or more accurately the sunny streets of Santa Monica in the filmmaker’s black walled apartment. Yes, his walls are painted black with a meandering of thoughts scribbled and drawn across like a child’s mind scattered onto construction paper. An open canvas surrounds Dorenfeld as his turtles raise their head for fish flakes. What would drive a man who has been given development deals by Dreamworks to take the path of inde film making with such a hard to sell subject? What is the path of accomplishing a project such as this?

“Passion, cash, passion, cash, obsession, and my megalomaniacal way of directing the Actors for The Anna Cabrini Chronicles. I stress this style of Directing for Anna because this was a film that had to be effective as it was designed to deter suicide, not just thrill and stimulate an audience into liking a good film. The characters in Anna had to either feel as real as possible and or so unbelievable that ‘no one could write that;’ a reaction only obtained by True Stories…We kind of accomplished that thanks to my phenomenally pliable and dedicated actors Samantha Deane, Michael Childers, and Bryan Trujillo. Many think Anna is a documentary, not because it looks like one, because it definitely doesn’t, but because people think Brooke’s real and that I got some crazy right to film her death. I rehearsed my actors 3 hours a day, 3 – 4 days a week for 3 months…add the actor practicing for 2 – 3 hours a day when not rehearsing with me…we wanted to strip the identity of actor leaving only their character in tact ready to die. Each segment was shot in separate years, editing and earning money between shoots.

SIX YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most Money was spent on Rent, Food, Gas, School Books, Pens, Paper, Gas, FILM! FILM DEVELOPING!! & FILM TRANSFER!!! Not to mention all the Hard Drives. I burnt through two computers in that time period too.”

Community is a thread noted throughout the careers of most of the artists who are able to accomplish projects such as this. Collectives are the popular term, where some recognize the strength in numbers can help elevate a few. When one looks at a filmmaker, often the fact that there are a dozen other bright stars who created the piece can often be overlooked. Tawd’s brilliant vision and dedication galvanized the energy of his peers to help him push his large boulder of a project up the hill. As no man is an island, Dorenfeld gained the support and respect of his community. As part of this journey, the one-man band expanded into crews like an amorphous swell of the ocean lapping the sand. A crew appears to drift back into the sea within a moment, foam and all.

“My producer, Elk 56, had a lot of stamina collecting and saving crews for the 5 years of filming. Our crew, like my animations, would morph on the snap of a finger, but always there, always dedicated and always willing to work for the art instead of the cash, I can’t begin to thank them all, I still do every time I see one.

The cinematographers would switch as well, all except Christopher Blakey (Unheard Music: X the Band) who was top billed as cinematographer for 6 years of dedication and access to his two beautiful Bolex 16mm cameras and Lisa Yu the most dedicated Camera Assist ever. The relationship between cinematographers and I was strange for film. I had cinematographers who not only were operating some great shots, but they were there to watch my back as I shot the majority of the film. I know how to make something unique on film, they knew how to make something perfect on film, so it was always a great synergy. Different camera-people for different shoots helped prevent burnout as well.

Our Make-Up department also was unique per story with a different make-up artist for each story. Now some people would pop in and out over the years like Thomas Schaefer credited as one of three Production Designers and Gore! Thomas is one of the rarest talents untapped in Los Angeles, what I used him for was his most basic skills, what he deserves to be doing is greater than Dark Crystal. He worked on everything except Merrick because Thomas was propping a System of a Down video during the Merrick shoot. So for Merrick I really got dirty and with the help of collage artist Mari Kono, UCLA art major Kirsten Oglesby, and other art monsters like Rubbergator, we built Merrick’s room, Brooke’s box, and all the Paper Mache’ PTA beasts and toys.

So we did stuff like that to get this done. But remember I wrote a film that was like 4 films in one with different characters in each story…this really helps when you can’t afford to finish shooting a film in 3 months or even 2 years.”

Kodak also helped; for every roll we bought they gave us like 2 free! This was at a time when Kodak was watching their sales drop because of Indie-Films going Digital…Kodak wanted to remind Indie-Film that film was still the coolest and best medium to create motion picture on. They are correct.”

Even with all this support, Dorenfeld accomplished a remarkable amount of work and deserves the triple credits he garners – “Produced, Directed and Animated By”. And this continues in his own unique way of doing the Tour to promote his film. He actually booked theaters instead of rented, and ran his own press campaign.

Every once in a while, emerges a person whose prolific mind churns out creative work like a machine – spewing their genius out with a force that seems inhuman…and it is. The frenzied blasts of genius are the hurricanes of our mind. Those that articulate it into reality are ones who accomplish greatness. It’s a wonder we can birth any significant works as artists in a time where artists eek a living working as waiters and secretaries. Our culture places art at the bottom of the food chain when it is the stuff of life, which feeds us. Performing in this environment is like climbing up a hill dragging a freight car, requiring the steel will of “I will do this”. Dorenfeld did. He created a unique and stunning masterpiece around tragic story telling. Reflecting the darker side of life, he used individual stories as chapters to break apart a topic into an intimate force one would tend to turn their head away from, but can no longer.

www.AnnaCabrini.com

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.