Howdy folks! It’s Jack here, everyone’s fav fixer upper project.
You’ve all seen me grow from making small video knock offs in my basement to making feature films like Mechanical Heart which bring entire communities together. Well, finally after years of hard work and education, it’s time for me to make one of the most important projects of my life: my film thesis.
I’ve had many school projects that I’m sure I’ve talked your ears off about, but none of them compare to this piece. This is the culmination of my work for the past four years of my life. A way to show this school what I got. Going to a school like NYU Tisch is extremely stressful and competitive. To be honest, I’ve had a hard time finding my niche. My work has always been about discovering myself and changing the people around me. It’s hard to find your place where many other artists value things like popularity or conventionality. Despite all this, I decided to reject those ideals years ago and focus on one thing only: what a piece means to me.
I create because I love and I love because I create. And I love this current project that I’m working on. The piece is probably the most spiritually significant project I have ever undertaken and it is appropriately titled “Jesus”. Jesus is a film that explores the darkest side of the human experience. It's a film that means to question the objectivity vs subjectivity of one’s spirituality. Before I get too deep into this, I’m just going to stop myself. I notoriously HATE talking about the meaning of my work because I don’t believe my interpretation should dictate the audience’s opinion or views. Instead I’ll give you the skinny. The meat and potatoes one could say, or rice and beans if you’re vegan.
The Piece:
Jesus is a piece that discusses these spiritual themes of Messiah and salvation through the eyes of a monster: GG Allin. If you’re unfamiliar with Allin, a google search will quickly tell you why I call Allin a “monster”. GG was a man with no rules, no morals, and no boundaries. He lived his life exactly the way he wanted to and destroyed many things and people in his wake; including himself.
Through his bizarre and extreme behavior, Allin would claim his actions had a higher spiritual meaning. He was the self branded punk rock messiah; demonstrating how life should actually be lived and here to free us from our mundane accepted existences. In a sick twisted way, he was his own special kind of christ figure. This piece is using the final day of his life (which ended with him covered in his own bodily fluids at an afterparty) to explore the larger themes of spirituality in Western society today. Through Allin’s lifestyle and beliefs I want to explore how these might relate in the most unlikely ways to Western faiths, specifically Catholicism and Thelema.
What’s Gonna Happen:
So, I don’t like doing things easily. This project is not going to be your run of the mill biopic. It’s not going to be a biopic at all, actually. Rather, you can think of it as a Vaudeville show from hell coming straight from your subconscious. After all, this film is not ABOUT Allin, but rather using his story as a means to talk about a much bigger question. We’re going to be incorporating various mediums of performance art from dance, music, reenactments, montage, sculptures, stop motion, and animation to explore these themes.
Our Pirate Crew:
As of right now, we run a tight ship here but we are super excited and always in over our heads, just the way we like it.
Currently I’m heading the project as the Director, Writer, Cinematographer, And Editor. I like to wear a lot of hats because I have a lot of hair.
Our producers are Sam Kaminer and Evan Cerniglia. Two able bodied Bosuns keeping the captain in line and making sure he doesn’t fall over the rail from leaning too far.
Our production designer is Sophie Hamernick, one of the finest shipbuilders on the seas ready to make our project the slimiest and tackiest punk rock set straight out of a John Waters wet dream.
Our animator is Jordan McLaughin. A fine drawer of things all the way from the fine state of North Carolina, it’s been his dream to be on a project as filthy as this.
Our choreographers are the amazing Sydney Zusman and Gabby Pogel. Now, Sydney she’s a smart one, coming from Columbia University. I don’t know why she gives us the time of day but she’s damn good. Gabby on the other hand is a degenerate from the good old Pittsburgh. Gabby and I have a history together as a director and choreographer duo, with some of the most iconic parts of Mechanical Heart being choreographed by her, a true talent.
And most importantly YOU, the community.
My art would not exist without the community of people it is made by and belongs to. My art may be created by me, but it belongs to the community, all of it. And that is why I have come here asking for your help as a community. The school has granted us a small amount of funding to make this film happen, and frankly it’s just not enough to happen in a place like NYC. We are running this production at its most efficient levels of cost already and we still have a large deficit we need to fill. We are using this money to mostly pay for locations as well as art design as there is a lot work to be done with the sets.
Another big pain in the butt with costs is licensing of music. As with all of my projects, I use an extensive amount of music from other artist and I want to make sure these artists receive the correct compensation for licensing of their work. I want sure that this project can be seen by many people, not for my ego, but because the public has the right to it. My work is by the community for the community so I’m asking for your help in any way you can give it.
If we have any excess of budget after the production is over, all of the money will be donated to RAINN, an organization dedicated to aiding victims of sexual assault. We have our incentives and goals listed below and I hope you can take your time to pitch in and make this dream happen. Thank you so much and I look forward to raising hell with y’all.
