Filmmaker Danny Perez brought his experimental film “ODDSAC” to the Mudbox on Friday, Feb. 18 as part of the Critical Approach Film Series.
“ODDSAC” was the product of four years of collaboration between Perez and the members of the band Animal Collective. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January.
Animal Collective’s Brian Weitz (more commonly known as “the Geologist”) joined Perez to discuss their film.
The screening began with a visual collage of Perez’s installation performance at the Guggenheim that incorporated an Animal Collective soundtrack with video, sculpture and gigantic costumed creatures. The elaborate visuals gave a taste of what was to come in “ODDSAC.”
Perez’s creation was, in a word, trippy. The 53-minute film featured new Animal Collective tracks, which ranged in sound from more standard tracks to dissonant, otherworldly audio.
Absent of a real narrative structure, “ODDSAC” featured instead a series of twisted vignettes featuring a woman fighting as her house disintegrates into tar, a man playing drums in a field of rocks, a family on a camping trip whose faces are consumed by marshmallows and a massive food fight in a forest spurred by a nightmarish glittering fish-man.
The stunning visual and ethereal soundtrack had a hypnotizing effect on the patrons of the Mudbox. Visually “ODDSAC” was a stunning kaleidoscope of a film that served as the perfect counterpart to Animal Collective’s trippy soundtrack.
After the film, Perez and Weitz held a question-and-answer session to shed some light on their creative processes in making the film and the more humorous moments of their collaboration.
“It was as simultaneous as we could make it — that’s why we call it a visual album and not a movie or a music video. We shot all the live action stuff first and from there we started making demos, and then [Perez] would recut the scene and send it back to us and we would rerecord the music, so we’ve been passing it back and forth for three years or so,” said Weitz.
In a welcome change in tone, Perez and Weitz played up the more humorous aspects of making the film, joking about child actors gone wrong and mishaps involving low-budget props.
“I cannot believe they convinced them to give us money to make this thing. What they asked us for was a tour documentary,” Weitz said.
When asked about plans for future projects, Weitz and Perez both laughed.
“We’ll make a roadtrip comedy,” Perez deadpanned.
After the success of “ODDSAC,” let’s cross our fingers for a Perez-directed, Animal Collective-scored “Wild Hogs II.”
mmcdermott@theeagleonline.com
