Staff Pick Premiere: "Charlotte" by Zach Dorn |
In this installment of Staff Pick Premiere, forgotten folk musician Lena Black discovers her fifty-year-old track "Charlotte" has been re-written to be a big music video. It is set after the song's release, the filmmaker Zach Dorn explores how the legacy of the song impacts Lena and her daughter Diane and the grandchild she has at 11 years old, Eli.
In a letter to the popular singer, Lena says: "There is a far higher risk of being forgotten, and the reason is not being recognized." This theme is repeated throughout the scenes in the film, as Lena's newfound fame reveals the past injuries. Through a string of almost-all-but-one conversation - including Lena's letter Lena Diane's phone call and Eli's tape Dorn creates a touching image of a loving family which is beginning to communicate with one another through the music of music.
In response to questions about his distinct style of film Dorn said: "I loved the conceit that we're exploring these connections, yet no family members interacted with. In presenting the narrative through monologues that are distinct I wanted the film to seem as if they had created different versions of the same track. There are emotional, physical and geographic distinctions, however I'm hoping that there is something that lies at the root of their struggles is able to be merged into the same song."
The song may sound familiar to anyone who has seen their family break up however "Charlotte" differs than any other family-oriented drama which we've seen on . With hand-made puppets and stop-motion animation, Dorn takes us inside their memories, lives and their imaginations to create an emotional intense journey.
Prior to the publication we reached out to Dorn to get more information about his inspiration as well as his method of designing and his process. Find out more on "Charlotte. "
The film's roots:
"In 2019 I created an animated show that featured the world's biggest sponge along with the popular TV show Gilmore Girls. Recently, as I was searching for tiny items within the faux-floral aisle of an Michael's Craft store, Carly Rae Jepsen's cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" could be heard over the speaker. The cover is incredibly upbeat as well as a delightful bubbly pop tune that's unusual considering Joni Mitchell's original version of the song is complex and hard to comprehend. It was uplifting that I really enjoyed the Carly Rae cover so much. Personally, I was more impressed by the version with pop lyrics while not quite as polished. However, it had the same enthusiasm as Joni Mitchell's version of the original. I was a bit annoyed and somewhat embarrassed about this, but I continued to think of Carly Rae Jepsen's rendition as well as Joni Mitchell's renditions of "Both Sides Now" as we had an exchange. This conversation eventually was the inspiration for "Charlotte ."
In making the script
"I wrote the initial version of "Charlotte" in the form of an audio drama that was like an Joe Frank voyeuristic drama, using miniatures of scenes without using puppets. I composed the story from the viewpoints of eight characters with particular professional or personal relationship , which was built upon the concept that is "Charlotte." When I took the time to get acquainted with the characters Diane and Eli felt to be the most fascinating, which is why I kept their stories in the same vein as Lena as well as pop-star T.Y.M. After I was aware of that I could grasp the story's plot and the characters, I spent many time trying to discover what I could do to help them make their tales interspersed."
HTML1 On the music collaboration
"When I was writing "Charlotte," I always thought of the singer Jenna Caravello in mind. While I was writing the story I had the opportunity to email an imagined Rolling Stone interviews with Lena Black as well as some faux diary entries. Based on this, Jenna composed the folk songs.
Jenna's track was sent to Zhenya Golikova, a girl I met through the web. In the year 2020 that Zhenya recorded the voice memo songs that I composed for one of my friends, which were silly and absurd songs about cats and marshmallows in addition to the longing for someone else, and the following year, Zhenya altered my lyrics to create beautiful ballads. The songs she composed have an old Magnetic Fields vibe like the song was written at sea by sea mongooses that were sea-going.. Jenna's track was shown to her and she asked for the pop version just a couple of days later . "
On the talk-show segment:
"So many female folk musicians in the 60s and 70s were not listened to or even considered. Folk musicians like Vashti Bunyan Karen Dalton, Linda Perrhacs along with The Roches, were largely ignored or put in terms like "freak folk" but were never treated as seriously as their male counterparts. It's a fascinating paradox in the fact it is seen as an art form that is evolving, while still bogged by an atypical form of gender discrimination that is unspoken.
While listening to these performers, I was imagining Lena as she is at this point of her career. In order to keep her status quo, her job would mean participating in the 70s Laurel Canyon lifestyle, party with the right kind of people, and then also taking an appropriate substance - all in a society run by males. But I don't believe she'd like the idea. Perhaps it was due to her motherhood perhaps and she could be in a position to comprehend all specifics. It's not easy to determine. The grief she was experiencing lasted the span of an entire lifetime. She was mourning the entirety of her career. What will she take on her frustration? What will she do when she's upset? with her daughter? in thinking about these issues, I tried to formulate the interactions that occurs between Lena and Sam with regard to the bond she shares with her daughter. "
On developing his unique visual style:
"In my 20s, and into my 20s, my job was to play the role of actor however I was never any skilled at it. I'm missing an eighth part of my brain. I believe it has caused a total lack of spatial perception. It was a pity that manipulating things or creating them with three dimensions was completely impossible. It was fortunate that I stumbled upon Toy Theater, a type of puppetry which was popular during the late 19th century in England. I started making tiny dioramas from Acrylics as well as matte boards, similar as pop-up books. I experimented with live-projecting cameras into them as I told tales of my landlord and deceased dog.
I'm obsessed by details of each and every object, no matter what the barcode on bags of Doritos or the shape of an McDonald's Happy Meal box. Due to my brain's numbness, I'm not able to create clear lines or create things in a way that resembles the real world. Therefore, I'm like an amalgamation of a thing that's crumbling and obsessed.
To create the characters, I collaborated together with animators from stop-motion Oliver Levine and Lily Windsor to develop a gritty and textural look that matched the film's hand-painted setting. As I wrote the script during the time of the lockdown as well as the censorship period, we traveled on the basis of long distances, Lily coming originally from Chicago sending tiny packages of llamas and Oliver left head sculptures on my doorway in Burbank . ">
The next stepis:
"Currently I'm working on a short documentary about Livia Soprano, the CGI Livia Soprano from the third season of The Sopranos, as well as the genetic disorder called BRCA2. The family I grew up in was an Italian American family filled with many personalities and eccentricities but by the time I was in my 20s, the BRCA2 gene had created ripple effects on families through premature deaths of members of the family.
In the year 2020, I viewed The Sopranos for the first time. The show made me feel like I were having a talk with my family again. This is the day I'm making a documentary on this event that recreates my family films using slow-motion and examine Livia's posthumous performance in relation to my own grieving process. . "
The article was published on this site
Article was first seen on here