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This is the series poster for Three Marks, Too Many Signals. A body of work that includes the film Three Worlds, the film Man, the film Canyon and the Canyon music EP.
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knock.knock - one of Amir's movies:
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35 Year Old Man - another movie by Amir
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"The visual work of LA’s own Amir Motlagh is something rivaled only by that of the more auditory variety. Artists come in all capacities and mediums. In a place like Los Angeles, the amount to choose from becomes so plentiful that standing out can be the first and last key step of one’s career. That said, it’s pretty safe to admit that the filmmaker shown off here has done just that." - CANYON review, The Microcinema Savant
*(https://microcinemasavant.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/canyon-amir-motlagh/)
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5/24/17 UPDATE - Amazing New Perk! - Sabet original Flowers of Love, $1350
Only 1 available, only through and during the IndieGoGo campaign at this price. Mixed media original 13" x 19" by Sabet. This piece is very special. Not only is it one of a kind, it represents a directional shift and growth for Sabet. "Flowers are symbols of complex passion for life, eternal yet finite." - Sabet. Includes downloads, Blu-Ray.
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5/20/17 UPDATE - New Perk! - French New Wave books & Three Marks
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About the book FrencH New Wave by Jean Douchet - "The last word on the French New Wave as viewed by one of its most influential commentators, this glorious book examines the golden days of that era, year by year, from 1955 to 1964, through beautifully-reproduced stills, movie posters and contemporary reviews from numerous sources. Jean Douchet, a staff writer on Cahiers du Cinéma during the New Wave's heyday, has written introductions that trace emergent themes in the films of Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Marker, Chabrol, Malle, Resnais, Rivette, Varda, Eustache, Astruc and Demy. French New Wave is unsurpassed as a history of the most influential movement in cinema history.
"Here is a lavish history of the film movement that spawned the careers of Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and a number of other important contemporary filmmakers. Douchet... considers his subject from almost every possible angle."--Library Journal. "A landmark in film scholarship."--Cineaste
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5/18/17 UPDATE - New Perk!
Baby Original by Sabet - $20, only 30 of these available
2.75" x 2.75" print of an amazing painting by award winning artist Ali Sabet. Original art work on the other side.
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5/10/17 UPDATE - New Perk!
5" x 7" art pieces by Ali Sabet - for a $40 donation
sample:
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Below - Images (ungraded) from the new film Three Worlds:
(images from Three Worlds, Man, Canyon will be used for perks that include prints from the three films)
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Introduction
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Amir Motlagh, from the film Canyon
Hello,
My name is Amir Motlagh and I’m a writer/director who has been creating works for the last 15 years. My films are focused on life, its unraveling and our attempts at finding beauty in unlikely ways & places. I stress the subdued, but always approach the process of every new work with a fresh take so I’m not beholden to the past.
I’m focused on innovation and process and love mixing the real with the scripted, to push beyond just a traditional fictional framework. I’ve been using both professional and non-professional actors in many of my work from the beginning, having had a background as an actor. One thing that drives me is when I can strip moviemaking to its core fundamentals. And then, start from scratch on the next project. Bottom up is a philosophy I strive for.
In the last couple of years, I’ve been focused on a series of works titled THREE MARKS, TOO MANY SIGNALS. Therefore, I’m here today. To raise the remaining finishing funds for two feature films, THREE WORLDS, and the feature film MAN - and to raise funds to distribute them/get them out to the world. The THREE MARKS project also includes the already released visual album and single take short film CANYON.
These works are a culmination of a process that I started many years prior when I fell in love with cinema, its poetic nature, and the digital (DV) revolution. I hope you join me on this journey and support this campaign and help me ship these projects to you (and make them available to the rest of the world) so that my little heart might touch yours.
I’ve been hesitant to go the crowdfunding route, but I do love the idea of collaboration and bridge building, and this is exactly what crowdfunding is at its core. We are building something together, even if it’s a short-lived community. With your support, I can share these works with you, because ultimately, that’s the main aim. To get them into your hands. A little piece of me (no, not like that) to you. I mean that in the gentlest, sincerest way possible.
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Previous work by Amir
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Earlier films by Amir Motlagh are available to view on Vimeo or YouTube
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What are these films about?
First, some backstory here. These two films represent the end of my attempt at a completely bottom up, deconstruction of storytelling after the introduction of digital cinema. For me, the process is tantamount to the finished product, and by shifting how things get done, I can attempt to get at different truths, ones that require a different angle. And so, both these films aim for that, but each goes about it in completely different ways.
THREE WORLDS have been one of my longest running projects. Although mostly fictional, much of the process was like documentary filmmaking. Because of the themes and nature of the work, time and its progression were an integral part of the project. I started shooting parts of it in late 2013 and finished with principal photography in 2016. The post process started in 2014.
MAN, on the other hand, had strict rules in place for a taut, streamlined shooting schedule. We filmed that in December of 2015 over three weeks.
MAN is an unfolding of existence within a strict short period of time, and the process of making it was similar; done in a short period of time. THREE WORLDS was the opposite, spanning a long distance of time both in the making-of process, and inside the story being told in the movie.
MAN is a semi-scripted, slice of life story told in a fresh, experience centric style that explores a man’s relationship with friends and family in today’s technology centric world.
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A scene from MAN
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A still from MAN
THREE WORLDS is a unique, introspective drama that delves into a character's multiple perspectives in different points of space and time. Time, history and his personal choices change the course of his existence. THREE WORLDS is a drama using elements from science fiction to reveal a character trying to find his way out of a maze.
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A scene from Three Worlds
Both works and the supplemental piece CANYON are my attempts at looking at the modern problem of storytelling using a different angle. Together they share a similar story. But exist apart.
CANYON short film, w/ music (visual album). The CANYON EP is available as a perk on right side of this page, perks section.
All three deal with modern distraction, the longing for something missing and our way of reconciling modern technology and its effects on our lives.
One of the big ideas that has influenced me was a throwaway quote from Francis Ford Coppola in which he described a future of filmmaking wherein with the simplest of tools, we are able to touch a great number of people. A second idea that has made a home in my head was from the late great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. In his documentary 10 ON TEN, standing on a hill, he points to a freeway down below filled with moving cars and states; "Everyone has a story". This is something I truly believe in.
We all have stories, and we are getting them daily. This is me taking that short form, the YouTube, the Snapchat, the Instagram and sculpting it into cinema.
While not a major theme, cultural inclusion is a part of both works, as I’m essentially working from a first-generation Iranian-American perspective. Iranian cinema has always been a major influence, and it presents itself here in subtle ways. When I started I had nobody to look up to that reminded me of my own experience. That is slowly changing, but I would love to contribute to the furthering of this. Your support pushes cultural inclusion further, even if we are only moving the marker a small distance with these two projects. A great American cinema landscape is, to me, naturally one with healthy diversity. I have full confidence we will get there, and these projects are a step in that direction.
The Team
I had tremendous help making these films, from a team to whom I am grateful and indebted. My friend Charles Borg, producer and co-writer on MAN, who runs the successful script consultation firm Smash To: Script Consulting, has written and produced NUVOtv's boxing series KNOCKOUT. Bryan Tuck, my co-editor on THREE WORLDS who, ironically enough, edits the animated series TRANSFORMERS: ROBOTS IN DISGUISE, and whose knowledge of American Cinema (and DVD collection) is staggering. Sujewa Ekanayake, our Campaign Manager, who has produced six features and runs the blog DIY FILMMAKER. He saw a rough cut of THREE WORLDS and offered his help because he believes in the work. Ali Sabet, the award-winning artist and designer who has done work for and collaborations with giant brands like Montblanc, Unicef, Lincoln, Farhang Foundation and Thayers, did our titles and posters for all the works in the Three Marks series. Nima Rezai, my co-producer on the music side of CANYON, also put his amazing multimedia firm Merge Factory at our disposal for help in shaping some of the unique visual experiences in THREE WORLDS.
And I had help from a number of incredible actors who all work in TV & film, including Keaton Shyler, Rachel Sciacca, Samantha Robinson, Gregory Linington and Rey Deegan. We were lucky enough to get the Chicago musician Stephen Holliger from Swim Ignorant Fire to do the music on MAN. My DP on CANYON, Andrew Yuyi Truong, has filmed campaigns for Apple, Billboard, Complex Mag, Hypebeast and many others.
What We Need, Where it Goes & What You Get
This money goes into several things across the two films, with the bulk of donations going towards post-production for THREE WORLDS, including finishing up the sound mix, color grade, hiring a composer, music licensing, titles and some VFX work. The second thing is having a healthy budget for film festivals, screeners, poster art, and advertising for both projects. The third is prepping the films for distribution on all available platforms, including some limited edition physical releases. One idea is tackling distribution much the same way independent musicians do now. A hybrid distro solution whereby we retain a certain amount of ownership of our content. This is in the preliminary stages but that is what I’m considering. I will update donors here about how things are shaping up regarding distribution as the project progresses.
To give a more concrete breakdown on where the money will go; about 50% of the money we are raising will go directly into hiring talented individuals and companies to complete post production on THREE WORLDS. Another 20% will go to the post production for MAN and the remaining 30% will go into advertising, screenings, screeners, distribution aggregators and general distribution costs related to bringing the films to market.
SOME OF THE SPECIAL PERKS
Check out all of our amazing perks on the right-hand side section of this page. We will highlight interesting perks in the coming days.
Here are some especially interesting items:
Art pieces by award-winning artist Ali Sabet. Available with several perks. See list on right side of the page, starting with "2 of 7 CANYON art pieces" perk. Most of these perks are signed by the artist and the limited edition museum quality rag prints (LE) ones are certified (21 total for each piece) and numbered for this special run. The Limited Edition prints are 30" x 20". To see larger images of these pieces go here - http://www.mirsmusic.com/store/
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CANYON art pieces by Ali Sabet. Available as perks.
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Photography by Lisa Francesca Gallo. See perks info on right side of the page - "3 of CANYON art, photo session" perk.
About Lisa's work - "Lisa has been a photographer in the greater Los Angeles area for over ten years...While focusing on Creative Portraiture, Lisa also enjoys and has experience in Set, Event, Apparel, Product, and Real Estate Photography. She has been published in LAWeekly and LATimes for stills of LA based theatre productions..."
More info here - http://www.lisafrancescaphotography.com/
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Script consulting. See perks info on right side of the page - in "2 CANYON LE Museum Rag prints" and "Producer credit, 7 art pieces" perks.
From Smash To: Script Consulting's website - "As a script-advisor, treatment-consultant, voice-over writer and ghostwriter for a variety of production companies such as FUSEtv, Dragon Eye Films, CAI Studios, Right Brain Films, NUVOtv, and Mighty Treehouse Productions, (amongst others), my experience spans all spectrums of entertainment: writing feature and short films, TV pilots, reality, sports- docuseries, webseries, and animation."
More info here - https://www.smashtoconsulting.com/about
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Previous work by Amir
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DVD Art for KHOOBI (2011) and WHALE (2010)
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The Impact
These films provide an alternative to an otherwise homogenized culture of content. By supporting this work, you help establish the truth in the idea that with very little, giant things are possible. Not just for this, but for anyone who has ever dreamed of going an alternative route, or forging ahead in territories unmapped. But also, we’re having lots of fun together, no?
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Previous work by Amir
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Risks & Challenges
The challenge here is the same challenge in creating. Is there enough will? Can you push through the setbacks? I think the answer will be yes - with your help.
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Previous work by Amir
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Other Ways You Can Help
If you cannot spare the money now, please pass info about this campaign forward to your contacts and social media followers, and hopefully, when you get a surplus over the next 30 days, please come back and support this project and become a key part of our Three Worlds/Man community.
You can also share my YouTube / Vimeo links, check out any MIRS music and buy any film works available. Many of my works are available to watch online, but also, you can purchase VOD or DVD of earlier work.
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THANK YOU!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I look forward to reconnecting with old friends and making new ones through this project. And I look forward to sharing my new movies (labors of love for myself and many others) with you and the world - with your help. Thanks!
- Amir Motlagh
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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL - An Interview with Amir Motlagh about the new films and his filmmaking work thus far, from DIY Filmmaker blog:
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Filmmaker, actor, musician Amir Motlagh has directed over 15 films to date. Motlagh's films are often fiction and documentary hybrids that examine modern life as lived by creative characters - often Iranian-American artists, played by Motlagh. Individual identity, family, assimilation, the past, creative struggles are some of the themes that Motlagh tackles in his work. We spoke with him as he prepares to finish and release two new features - THREE WORLDS and MAN. The two new features and a visual album called CANYON (featuring music by Amir's band MIRS) make up a project called THREE MARKS, TOO MANY SIGNALS.
DIY Filmmaker blog's Sujewa - Hello Amir. Thanks for talking to DIY Filmmaker blog about your filmmaking career and new projects. For people who are new to your work, what made you want to become a filmmaker and what are your earliest films?
Amir Motlagh - Thanks for having me. I can’t really recall if it was something specific that drove me towards filmmaking. I think it was a combination of things, one of which was that I had just finished an intense couple years of acting training, and during the auditioning process, I felt a sort of dissatisfaction with the work I was called to read for. At the same time, I was introduced to the work of John Cassavetes which totally blew my mind. Sitting and watching HUSBANDS on the big screen was nothing short of revelatory. Now, I had been interested in film strictly because my mother was a cinephile, and I had grown up watching foreign film, or heavy adult drama from a pretty early age. Those things, coupled with the DV revolution, provided an opportunity to experiment.
That’s how it started. I wrote a concept, and within a short time, my friend TN had access to camera equipment from his internship. We "borrowed" the equipment late one night, and went off to film my first film over a weekend. After we finished, we returned the equipment late one night, and thus everyone was satisfied. I had no way to edit the film when it was done at the time. 6 months went by and I acted in a Japanese production and made a friend who had a tape to tape editing machine. We cut the film late nights, after my classes (I was enrolled at UCLA at the time) in the old Charlie Chaplin building in Hollywood. Leaving at around 2 AM when the bars/clubs were getting out was always interesting.
Sujewa - What was your experience with your first feature film WHALE?
Amir - I really have fond memories of making that film. It will stay as one of the more purer experiences I’ve ever had. It mostly taught me how to stay with something even when it seemed like the end was an impossibility. This was the first time I tested, or better yet reverted to a sort of autodidactic method for feature length work. WHALE is also elliptical in storytelling, which is something I often come back to. This was a design feature but also practical. While filming WHALE, I was in grad school. It was impossible to do a straight production because of time, so with the rules set from life circumstance, I created a feature based around these natural barriers. The opposite of hierarchy and efficiency. This process was very much in line with the DIY ethos that was burgeoning in cinema at the time, borrowing heavily from the music world.
Sujewa - Thus far, not counting the 3 new films in the works as a series, what are your favorite films from your catalog of films? Or what titles might certain people want to check out first if they are just starting to watch your movies?
Amir - I don’t know. I like the new ones. I think they’re interesting and I had a good time making them, for the most part. The way that these three works overlapped with my limited time available, however, might not be recommended for the future. Things sort of compound when working this way. I never engaged in multi-tasking however. The method always insisted on a recovery time, between projects to get into the state of mind, or a sort of flow. This is why this method is not sustainable, because the time it takes to go between projects keeps widening. It’s not a flip of a switch. You are not dreaming in the project, nor relying on a confident intuition until that switch happens. And when it does, it takes an equally long time to get out of that trance, and into another one. Roughly, a week of pondering, coffee, and scribbling in notebooks.
Sujewa - What's it like being an indie filmmaker artist in LA while pursuing commercial work?
Amir - Not sure if that word “indie” makes any sense in the context we are in now. There really is no separation anymore, so filmmaking is just another word for content. Wedding videos are labeled “short films”. This becomes a Pirsig (author of the philosophical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) type of commentary on quality, so, I’ll pass on a more elaborate answer other than we somehow still can identify the differences. I like to work in two distinct platforms. One is the pure creative drive, and the other is the commercial enterprise. For example, one of the my favorite recent films is the John Wick franchise. So, I have projects that encompass both spaces, although I’ve not yet had the opportunity to take those larger, commercial projects on in the narrative feature film space. If the opportunity arises, great. Aside from that, I do direct commercial work as well, and I enjoy the turnarounds, scheduling, etc, but there is always something missing. So, having had the opportunity to work on THREE WORLDS, MAN and CANYON in the last several years was a sort of cleanse. A going back to the basics for me.
Sujewa - What's the new series Three Marks, Too Many Signals about? What made you want to tackle such an ambitious project?
Amir - THREE MARKS, TOO MANY SIGNALS is the banner for three works. The two feature films I’m currently raising money for - THREE WORLDS, and MAN, and a visual album released in late 2016 called CANYON. I like to think in sets - that's how my mind works best.
The circumstances of my living situation, having moved out to Laurel Canyon put me into a different space of thought, since, it increased the distances this area (Los Angeles) is famous for. Driving a long time from point A to B to see human faces. Also, since THREE WORLDS was from the beginning an on-going, morphing type of film, everything that came into existence was another reflection of that reality. So, CANYON and MAN became an extension of one singular process. They shared similar concerns, locations, themes, easter eggs, but also, they can completely stand alone. They are grouped together because I feel together they come the closest to representing that LA reality. But they all have their individual stories. I did approach each one from a bottom up filmmaking approach.
Nothing about the productions was typical. Living in the canyon though had a major impact on my life. For me, it was the equivalent of moving into the woods to work on a novel. That old trope that might have lived longer as marketing then reality. But, it did change my perspective because it was quieter, more secluded than I was used too. It was a retreat. I read more than I had in the past several years. I practiced zazen (seated meditation from Zen Buddhism). I enjoyed doing the dishes. I enjoyed Roscoe and Buckley - my two pit bull house guests. And it helped me find the distance between the subjective reality of living and the subjective reality of creating. Obviously that kind of thing is kind of hard to explain in an interview - but, from that process, we got the three works.
Sujewa - I've seen a rough cut of Three Worlds and I thought it was an excellent doc-fiction hybrid movie with drama and suspense and with some sci-fi elements. what made you want to make that kind of a movie?
Amir - THREE WORLDS was my alternative, and really, a reaction to the frustration I felt as a commercial project I was in pre-production for fell apart. The process forced me to reexamine the creative instinct and how to overcome the barriers to creativity that we all face. I took the leap after that other project crumbled (for the time being, we will get that up and running again).
Sujewa - What was the process of making THREE WORLDS like? Was it a difficult film to shoot? What kind of technology did you use in making the film. The cinematography is amazing - gorgeous, beautiful - how did you and your team achieve that look?
Amir - I shot the films using a varied toolkit. Practically every type of capture medium was used. Some of the primary gear were the Red Epic Dragon, the Arri Alexa, varied BlackMagic type cameras, a host of prosumer/consumer grade gear like DSLRs and even down to low-grade tech, including analog tape.
The filmmaking process was always in reaction to real life. Regarding whether it was difficult, I can say that, it was, in the simplest sense, not ordinary. Like life and its unraveling, the process of THREE WORLDS itself mimics the flow of impermanence, flow of time, and I'll explain further. You might be able to say something like that about every film, but, not as a design feature. The movie was shot piecemeal and over an extending period of time (three years), and in some sense, it was a make your own adventure, but with a constructed core. The magic here, for me of course, occurred during the editing process with my co-editor Bryan Tuck. Tuck's favorite movies, as far as I understand, are within Spielberg’s body of work. We differ, not completely, but we do, and this is why I opted for a co-editor as an opposite force. To take this unfolding material and create a coherent whole while managing to strike a through line.
Sujewa - What was the motivation for making MAN? to me, it seemed like an interesting day-in-the-life-of movie. Also, it is shot in a unique, rarely seen in movies way (without giving too much away).
Amir - MAN is somewhat the inverse of THREE WORLDS in how it deals with time, space and process. Since we went that route with THREE WORLDS, we created a set of rules for MAN to constrict it as it related to the story. In that way, MAN and CANYON are siblings. THREE WORLDS, a distant relative. My fascination with Mono no aware ("...a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence, or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life." - Wikipedia) and Wabi-sabi ("Wabi-sabi is a concept in traditional Japanese aesthetics constituting a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete."[2] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, specifically impermanence, suffering and emptiness or absence of self-nature." - Wikipedia) became a starting point.
Sujewa - How did the visual album CANYON come together? What are you doing with your music these days?
Amir - I started collaborating with Nima Rezai, an LA-based musician who plays this incredible instrument called the Chapman Stick. He’s one of the best at it, but he uses it as a compositional instrument as well. So, we started to make sounds and experimenting with a combination of sounds to see if making songs together was actually possible. At that time, I was thinking of putting together a solo MIRS record, and out of some sessions with Nima, it seemed like a new record was possible between us. So, I started the writing process, and came with the idea that the universe of the record should be tied into a moving image. Nima is a visual artist as well, so, it just made sense. And when this happened, or better yet, when it was decided upon as a thing that would exist if we put in the work, all the other influences of the other work I had been putting together started working off one another. The songs in CANYON relate both to the visual representation, but also, to the larger context of THREE MARKS TOO MANY SIGNALS. It's not a one to one tradeoff. That would be silly. It’s a consciousness sharing itself through mediums. We shot CANYON a week before production on MAN started. They share a lineage. As far as future music, I have one visual album left. I like to think in this conceptual way between the sound and the image as the entry point, it’s a more interesting approach for me.
Sujewa - What are the distribution plans for the 3 news films, the series, and when and where can people watch them?
Amir - They’ll all have a separate journey for discovery, but at some point, I’d like to present them together. Film festivals, then other screenings, distribution over web most likely will be the path for them. I'll post updates on my website (www.amirmotlagh.com) screenings and other distribution related things happen. People who are interested in these works can sign up for my mailing list and I'll send them info when the movies come out. I look forward to getting these works out to the public as soon as possible. Thanks for the interview questions.
Sujewa - Thanks Amir. Good luck with the THREE MARKS series completion and release.
