Is Avi Impressed? – Part 2

Welcome to the second installment of Is Avi Impressed?, where I sit down with my dad and listen to him critique some of my favourite videos. The underlying purpose of this exercise is to sort through my father issues, which includes constantly vying for the approval of a man who is so ridiculously impossible to impress.

A quick briefing about my dad: He’s a high-brow, judgmental snob with an impressive list of filmmaking accomplishments. His resume includes Israeli cult and experimental films, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Littlest Hobo and most of the CBC’s prestigious news programming. He has a bunch of awards, including two Geminis aka Canada’s Emmy’s. Click here to read the first installment of Is Avi Impressed?, which proved to be ridiculously popular, to my surprise. In it, he defied Pitchfork by calling the video for Bronx Sniper by Mister Heavenly “a poor man’s Clockwork Orange.”

On the roster this week is the video Bad Choices, by the Shout Out Out Out Out, directed by my friends A.J. Bond and Chris von Szombathy. A quick perusal on both these fellow’s websites will conclude – and I’m putting it quite straight –  that they are both remarkably talented.

A.J. is a sharp and nuanced editor and director. When he makes a short film, it lives a full and robust life, making the rounds at film festivals, rather than go the tradition route most short films go —getting buried in the short video graveyard known as YouTube and Vimeo.

Chris is primarily a visual artist whose work makes me feel like my eyes might pop out of my head with amazement.  He is also my confidante when I’m having artist-related angst and uncertainty. He is a true artist.

To save time, I’m going to tell and not show my thoughts on their video in three short words: compelling, surreal and intriguing.

Well, we’ll see what Avi has to say, in his broken English, about it.

Avi’s summary: A guy gets up in the morning and can’t make up his decisions. The apples and oranges I understand but whatever with the mother and girlfriend. I didn’t understand that. Maybe it’s Oedipus syndrome?

Initial Thoughts: I like the effect. I like the lighting. I liked the Parkinson’s effect. Tourettes effect? How they made it shaky. He did it on an animation table to create all the effect? I wonder what macro he used.  The gimmick.

Overall:  It’s nice. It’s well choreographed.

Say one nice thing: It’s nice. It’s cute. There’s a few ideas there.

Were you impressed?: If you asked me to watch it again, I don’t think I’d be able to. I got the point. It’s not the type of thing that’s calling you to watch it again. But I like the band. It’s original.  As a filmmaker, I think they know what they’re doing.

Want to try and impress Avi? Send me a video at write@eliannalev.com or leave a link in the comments section below!

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