About this project

This short, experimental documentary will combine B&W, slow-motion portraiture of members of the Cascadian Black Metal community with footage of them in wide, color landscapes, and non-digetic interview audio. I DO NOT in any way want to try to analyze or explain Black Metal culture, rather I’d like to give a deeply impressionistic view of members of this community. This will largely be accomplished with the emotive and aggrandizing qualities of portraiture which, using slow-motion, building sound design, and forest and snowy locations will have a genuine epic feeling.

The primary, driving aesthetic of this film will be texture. We will use high contrast color correction to mimic the look of burned and dodged still film portraiture. The color footage will feel like the color is bleeding in the frame. I will use solemn, earthy colors, browns of the woods and the bleak pale of steely snow landscapes, punctuated by blood red and the violent greens of the Northwestern Hoh Rainforest.

Imagine falling snow, mist, tattered fabric in the woods, drops of blood on ice.

The audio will be scratchy and disembodied, as if it is found audiotape from another time. It will be non-digetic, meaning that the viewer will never see band members speaking in shot, just hear their fractured, floating statements like ghostly, bold declarations which add tone rather than information.

Cascadian Black Metal is a particular geographically based iteration of the subculture with its own sound, ideologies, and aesthetics that warrant documentation.

I like individuals who are very committed to what they do. The Black Metal culture is one of extremes and necessitates bold, remorseless devotion. I find the music immensely rewarding because it doesn't care what anyone thinks, it has no risk of being diluted or diminished by a mainstream following. This will never happen. Black Metal music is true and I would like to create worthy images of its performers.

Wolves In the Throne Room's "Black Cascade" was my favorite album last year. My favorite director is Werner Herzog. Perhaps Herzog's approach to a subject like this would be a good reference.

This film will be more an art piece than a movie, like a painting brought to life – a styled, dark vision of the ecstatic truth of Cascadian Black Metal culture.

In terms of exhibition, this film will play in festivals, in galleries accompanied by Black Metal ephemera, and will be distributed on DVD. Eventually I'd like it to live on a website so it becomes free and available to a wider audience who would not normally access the Black Metal community.

The budget will cover travel and equipment expenses for the production. All help is greatly greatly appreciated.