A. Love Production: Boulton Farm
Andrea produced the wonderful animated short “Some Like it Raw" which is a crowd favorite on the Vittles site. Earlier this year she finished another animation project profiling Boulton Farm, for the Jefferson Land Trust in Washington State.
"Preserving working farmland is a large part of JLT’s mission, and they were interested in telling the story of one of their current projects through my animation. I used all the standard material- wire-frame, needle felted dolls, paper, cardboard, fabric, and some clay. It was a true joy to make."
Andrea asks viewers to consider contributing to JLT so they might feel compelled to continue supporting community outreach projects like this one. Find them here: http://www.saveland.org/
Animal features: new nature documentary
Luke Moody compiles a list of animal features and talks about the endoscopic camera eye in the new nature documentary.
"Perhaps as technological development permits us to see the animal’s world much closer, from zoomorphic perspectives, the ethical position of new nature documentary will be one of deep empathy rather than distant sympathy, not a question of ‘how do we look at’, but ‘how do we see as’.
How do we feel and see as the animal? The answer is not simply attaching a camera to an animal’s head. After watching Leviathan it appears that a disembodied camera offers the presence and point of view of a camera body not the prosthetic host.
Why preference the position of the eye being the position of the body as a whole: the body-vision. What happens if we view the world from a camera attached to the bear’s claw, the whale’s fin or bird’s wing? Each body parts give distinct qualities of movement, texture and pace very different from the eye. Why not embody these movements? Would the human viewer become nauseous? Would this form of sensorial cinema be unwatchable?
On a very simple level: how do the new images we are afforded by these technologies make us feel when watched at length? I would argue that in the case of Leviathan they make us feel less human, less animal and more like an indestructibly prodding, endoscopic camera eye.”
Fresh Off The Vine
Thank you to all who came out to support Farmer Veteran on a beautiful August evening. Our deepest gratitude to Georgios, Matt, Ashley and all the staff and volunteers that made this evening truly one to remember.
Photos From Fresh Off The Vine by Kavanah Anderson + D.L. Anderson
Vittles Pick: OBA-CHAN by Mackenzie Sheppard — A touching and beautiful vignette of a 85 year old Japanese farmer that will make you smile when she says ”Apparently I am very strong!”
Orange Correctional Inmate Wayne Crocker, Jr., folds fine linen napkins into a fan shape for the annual volunteer dinner. Photo by D.L. Anderson
Vittles is proud to present our most recent documentary short “Cook School" - a profile of the popular food service tech. program for the inmates of Orange Correctional Center in Hillsborough, North Carolina.
This project was made possible with the support of the Southern Foodways Alliance and INDY Week. Thanks y’all.
Watch Cook School (5:58)
FV team members Mikel Barton and Alix Blair after the first day of the IFP Doc Labs in NYC. Heading home along with the food carts.
Vittles contributor’s D.L. Anderson and Mikel Barton recently spent a day in prison, filming food services instructor Nancy Gould and her students as they prepared and catered a volunteer appreciation dinner at Orange Correctional Center in Hillsborough, N.C. The forthcoming short doc is being produced in partnership with INDY Week and the Southern Foodways Alliance.
A long-time inspiration for our own work, SFA selected the Vittles story pitch as one of ten web-ready docs to support for a series that will be presented on their site in mid-May. Brooke Darrah Shuman will be editing the piece with a soundtrack by Orange Correctional’s own Ready Singers, pictured above.
Photo by D.L. Anderson
Brussel sprouts, cucumber, tomato - by Andy Ellison
A sharp knife is all we need to see the inside of our food, but a high-powered MRI scanner can provide a memorizing look at the anatomy of what we eat. Andy Ellison works at the BU medical school in Boston and over the past few months he’s been sharing some fantastic animated gifs of his calibration and quality control scans using assorted fruits, vegetables and other plants. Check out more on his blog: Inside Insides (http://insideinsides.blogspot.com/)
The fall season is starting at the Sutton farm and we’re getting ready for a full shooting schedule through the winter. Here is Alex Sutton out catfishing late one evening in Lee County, NC. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.
Charlotte finally pooped. Photo by D.L. Anderson
One Chicken At A Time
It was a right lively night of Chicken Shit Bingo at King’s, the perfect way to round out our Kickstarter campaign. For those of you who asked, we will be doing bingo again, most likely in Durham at Fullsteam Brewery. We’ll also be working on filling our incentives and developing other short documentary projects and screenings.
For now, we’re resting up, organizing and getting back out in the field to continue production on The Farmer Veteran Project. With the Kickstarter contributions shoring up a good deal of our budget, we anticipate many more months of traveling, shooting and editing on this project, most likely into 2013. Thank you to everyone who came out and supported us, to the businesses that donated prizes for bingo, we can’t wait to share the results with you.
Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird, Where’s She Goes No One Knows
If backing our KickStarter project on the internets just ain’t yer style, get out of the house and come on down to KINGS Barcade for a night of Chicken Shit Bingo and cold, cold beer this Monday, July 16th. We’ll have right pretty birds, plenty of prizes and some long, but often, odds. You’ll get to shout about seeing some tail feathers shake and support The Farmer Veteran Project .
As a point of clarification, Chicken Shit Bingo works more like a game of roulette. Players cheer on a beautiful hen until she stops on a numbered square and makes someone a lucky winner with a shake of her tail feathers. Squares will cost anywhere from $2 - $5 cash per game. The center square just happens to be a Duke Blue Devil (thanks to the beer ponging frat brothers across the street) and it costs four times as much to play there. But you’ll also win four times as much, so bet on Duke if you dare. Winners are given prizes and the option to donate half of their take to Vittles, which receives fiscal sponsorship from The Southern Documentary Fund, a registered 501 (c)(3). Mr. Blake Hartman will be providing some banjo music in between games.
Chicken Shit Bingo | July 16th | KINGS Barcade, Raleigh, N.C. | 7:30-10 PM
Free Admission (bingo squares are cash-only) | Facebook Event Page | Map
This Sunday night Capital Club 16 will be converted into a mini-movie theater, replete with zesty smoked paprika popcorn and top dog minis (you’ll just have to find out). We’ll be screening two carefully collected sets of local cinema and give a rallying call for the Farmer Veteran Project in the final stretch of its KickJumpStart campaign.
It’s sure to be a big group hug for Triangle’s filmmaking community. We all could use more hugs. Who knows? This gathering and screening of one another’s work could produce quite a lovely blanket of collective support. But it’s July and hot as hell, so let’s get naked and critique one another instead.
In that spirit, a medley of complimentary beer, wine, gourmet popcorn and fine finger food will be available. Admission will be sliding scale $5 - $500 depending on the quality of your knock-knock joke at the front. Both sets of films will run aprox. 40 min. and we might have cheap champagne (so dress to impress and remember to keep it on).
Some of the films we’re screening:
When Walt Whitman Was A Little Girl - Jim Haverkamp (12:00)
Some Like It Raw - Andrea Love (10:47)
Grandpa Gives You The Bird - Marc Maximov (10:35)
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Jessica and Alex Sutton, June 22, 2012, Seven Lakes, NC
It was a busy week(end) in Farmer Veteran land. On Friday, Alix and I headed out to Mt. Airy, NC to meet with, interview and film a new friend of the project, Anna Mann. Anna is a veteran of Bosnia and Iraq and is now farming poultry, fruit and nut trees and honey in an idyllic setting in the foothills of the NC mountains.
Then on Saturday, we headed out to the farm of the newly married Suttons, for a full day of wedding celebration. The day started with a farm tour, then a lunch with family and ended with a party that lasted late into the evening. It was full weekend and we look forward to adding some of the new footage to the film. Until then carry on!
-jeremy
Chicken Shit Bingo
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 | Pinhook Bar, Durham, N.C. | Free
If our KickStarter seems too hip and modern for you, come on out and support The Farmer Veteran Project by playing a game of Chicken Shit Bingo. You guess the square that the chicken will choose and then watch with delight while enjoying some sweet country jams and a cold beer until it happens. We’ll be at the Pinhook (map) with some pretty birds and long, but often, odds. You’ll have a good time, maybe even another beer or two. Here’s how it’s done in Texas.
6:30 to 9PM | Facebook Event Page |
Poster design by Sundholm
JML + DLA Mic Check, Photo by Alix Blair
We were thrilled to have a conversation with Frank Stasio on WUNC’s The State of Things to talk about Alex Sutton and The Farmer Veteran Project. There’s a real distinct and exhilarating terror to having a conversation live on public radio. Listen for yourself.
Alix Blair, Jeremy Lange and D.L. Anderson put the image of thousands of listeners out of their heads and had an enlightening discusion with Frank about the challenges of telling Alex Sutton’s story and how peeky toe crab sounds more like an affliction rather than an incredible soup that will be lovingly served up tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 20, at Vin Rouge. There are only a few seats left, so don’t delay, make your reservation before midnight tonight.
Speaking of midnight, that’s also when the Kickstarter match donation pledge of $1,000 from The Cookery will be up. Double your donation by backing our project now.
So there we were, up on stage, with the bright lights shining on down and a sold-out crowd waiting for some kind of an explanation. All year we’ve been waiting for this moment, planning our pitch and carefully crafting the product. There have been delays, second-guessing and wishful thinking, but the time had arrived … so we did it, we launched our KickStarter - 32 days to raise $20K dollars to help finish our most important project yet, The Farmer Veteran Project.
Thank you to Jeff Polish and all the storytellers for collaborating with us to bring The Monti to a wonderful crowd at MotorCo Music Hall for a fitting start to our online fundraiser. From the late-night habits of Whitney and Bobby to the hardcore Idaho meat scene to some serious scatological humor, the range of food-related stories were fascinating, hilarious and incredibly supportive of the mission of Vittles Films: to use food as a pathway to uncover deeper stories about people.
Vin Rouge Dinner Update: We only have 16 plates left for our special fundraising dinner this Wednesday, June 20th, at Vin Rouge. This is going to be an incredible meal with all the proceeds going directly to support the Farmer Veteran Project. Don’t miss out on this, make your reservation today.
Photo by Jeremy M. Lange
Ice cream!! For local Kickstarter donors.
Our friends over at the Parlour ice cream truck are offering a special for anyone who donates to both the Farmer Veteran Project and to their brick-and-mortar storefront.
Those who donate $25 or more to both get a root beer float with a scoop of your choice of ice cream in one of the Vittles mason jars. We especially love the Coriander Goat Cheese with Strawberry Swirl. Yum.
Take a look at their Kickstarter and donate!
They’ll send out a survey at the end of their campaign and record all the people who donated to both! The award will be redeemable at the Parlour Bus in 31 days!
The Independent Weekly, our media partner, featured a lovely photo essay in this week’s issue on the Farmer Veteran Project. Photos by Jeremy M. Lange, one of the producers of the film. Click the photo above to read the essay.
Get your Vittles at the Monti
MotorCo Music Hall
Thursday, June 14
7:30 p.m.
Storytellers:
Nicole Accordino
Aimee Argote
Joe Bushfan
Tanya Catolos
Sarah Vroom
Tickets are $15, available at http://www.themonti.org/events/food.
Vittles is a team of documentary filmmakers crafting stories about the intersections of people and food. The Monti is a non-profit organization whose mission is to create community through the telling of stories. This event will be hosted by The Monti’s Executive Director, Jeff Polish.
Vittles will also launch a Kickstarter campaign for the Farmer Veteran Project, our most ambitious project yet.