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Written by Max Stout
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Tara Beyhm is an award-winning filmmaker, who is currently enrolled in San Francisco State University's graduate program. The Dollhouse, Beyhm's 10 minute animated short, has been screening in festivals nationwide. The film won "Best Animated Short" in the Reel Women's International Film Festival
Glubdub:
I really have to tell you how blown away I was by your film. It was subtly overwhelming. It brought me back into my own childhood, and a rush of those feelings and memories swallowed me up. Looking back on that time now, makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Its always cool when something, anything, can transport you that fully, even when it conjures up a little sadness. The story is such a happy sad one, and it feels so honest, where did this story come from?
TB:
The Dollhouse is a true story. When I wrote the story I was thinking about why I am the type of person I am. I’m an artist, I’m resourceful, I really don’t mind working hard to get the things that I want, and people born from privilege who don’t appreciate the things they’ve been handed, really bug me. This event started all those feelings for me. It was the first time I realized that I was different from some of my friends.
GD:
We tend to exaggerate and embellish in order to tell a better story, but in general, the essence is the same, with or without the added fiction. How much of this story is really you,? Is this straight from own your childhood or were there parts borrowed from someone elses life?
TB:
I really didn’t embellish very much. I changed some names. The whole story about how unbelievable Suzanne’s dollhouse was is completely true, the whole part about manhunt is completely true, Joey’s dollhouse was designed while looking at a photo of me sitting in front of the Dollhouse I received for Christmas (I have such a sour look on my face in the picture!) and Suzanne did gasp and say that our new car was financed! Basically everything that happened is true except how closely Joey and her father worked on fixing it up. I haven’t shown my dad the film because of this.
GD:
Your narration is amazing. You have this quality in your voice that makes you want to hear the whole story. It has a Peanuts Christmas Special feel to it, where the stories told by someone who’s part adult and part child.
Why did you choose to tell the story this way?
TB:
I struggled with the decision to use my own voice forthe narration. I feared that it might lessen the quality of the film. (A lot of more successful animated films will have a big named actor doing the narration) I held auditions and had other people read the narration and it felt strange because this story is based on my personal experience. I found that I was directing actors to read the lines exactly how I would read them which, I know, is being a bad director. Finally, I just read it myself.
GD:
The way the film is put together, the visual editing and the sparse bits of sound and music, was dead on. It was like watching a pop-up book come to life. Its great the way you mix different styles of illustration, the way everything moves inside each scene, and from scene to scene, feels so real.
Is this what it looked and sounded like in your head before you started making the film? Or did it evolve into this over the course of the project. How surprised are you by what it evolved into?
TB:
That’s great that you felt it was like a story book. When I was working on it I kept telling people it was my animated comic book. I had a deadline for the film because I made it as a student project. I’m a grad student @ SFSU and for our first year we are required to make a short film. We can’t advance to the next year until we’ve done this and we had from Dec-May to complete our films. When I presented the script, my advisors thought I was crazy. They were like you can’t make a 10-minute animated film in 5 months...Save it for your thesis film, etc. I got really offended by this and was like you don’t know me, and you can’t tell me! And I went away and made my film. I love animated shows like Dr. Katz and Home Movies where there’s a lot of dialogue and instead of showing a bunch of talking heads or difficult
animation, they just cut away to some small but great detail like a bowl of pretzels, in the case of Dr. Katz. So, I cheated a lot in my movie, the animation is really sparse but I think it’s funny. I’m not into really flashy animation for the sake of being flashy. I think great animation focuses on story and characters
GD:
I always pop on the special features of any movie I really like, because I’m fascinated in the process of how art is created. I love watching a painting evolve, and I love the moment of inception of a song. I love how the parts of a film are put together to give it life.
What went into making this film? It must have been like building a robot. .
TB:
It was like putting together a puzzle. Because it started off as a short story it was a bit easier to figure out some of the visual elements I wanted in there. In the story I described things like the fantasy Joey has about drinking lemonade on the porch. So instead of the narrator talking about this I show it. I really tried to show the things that I could show and not talk about them. First I recorded my Narration and the actors’ parts. Then I storyboarded the film and created an animatic. An animatic is basically just creating a mock up of your movie by filming the storyboards with all the narration etc. I knew around how long my film would be before I even started. So I had still drawings as place holders on a big timeline. Once I’d finish animating a scene I plug it into the timeline to see how the timing was working and to make sure I like how things were flowing. |
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Written by Administrator
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SEED IN THE SAND, to be completed by the end of 2012, will be the second film in Christiane Cegavske’s stop motion animated trilogy which began with BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING. 
Though this film takes place in the same world, it is in a distant time and place from the land where Blood Tea and Red String took place. The creatures here are similar but of another race. Seed in the Sand opens where Blood Tea and Red String ends, in the live action world inhabited by the masked woman. She is in a meadow now, dressed in a red coat carrying a red bag. After digging a small hole she reaches into the red bag, pulls out the large golden gem and plants it in the ground. When she has departed, small white creatures with long pointy ears and red beaks emerge from their tree top nests to tend the spot, watering and weeding it, until one day a sprout emerges. 
This sprout grows into a large bush with leaves of book pages and a white cloth pod sewn up with red stitching. After dreaming of an island shrine, one of the white creatures plucks the precious pod and goes away with it across the sea of sand in a boat made of a discarded map, abandoning his mate and their egg. On his journey, he meets a trio of gem mining island dwellers, covered in black fur with pointy ears and black beaks, who are keen to have the pod for themselves. As he makes his escape from them, his very life is in danger when he meets a ferocious blue sea monster intending to drag him down under the sand to its lair. The island dwellers remain in hot pursuit crowded into a teacup rowing with a silver spoon. 
Moments filled with love and tenderness, eyes filled with dangerous greed, heroic acts and adventure all await the viewer in this new film from Christiane Cegavske. 
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Toxic Lipstick - Be Careful What You Ask For |
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Written by Max Stout
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A few weeks back when it was time to launch the New Look design of Glubdub, I started sending out Myspace messages to bands that looked interesting. I saw this one band, Toxic Lipstick , that looked interesting and asked them if they would tell me their story. Of course I usually encourage people to tell the more interesting, even bizarre moments of their story. I've even gone as far as to suggest that fiction would also work. Sometimes a combination of both is what I get. Be careful of what you ask for, you might get it, and be tickled pink by it. 
Glubdub:
I really like your music. Its like disturbing cartoon video game music.
What inspires your sound?
Toxic Lipstick:
pure techno, ponies and loosing the bass in your pants.
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GD:
Your stuff is more than pure techno though, isn't it? There's some really great melodies dancing around the oddest feel. You guys should play inside a giant arcade and jam with the sounds of pinball machines and skee ball games. How did the band form?
TL:
Our band is really hard-hitting with a strong message of best-friendship. Life without a bestie is like life without pants, a bit cold, quite awkward and in some countries, punishable by death. We first met each other at a high-school dance competition, promoting 100% control, no drugs no alcohol. We were in other bestie relationships but we ditched our loser posses and got to know each other via a few AAA batteries which we smoked under the stage. The next week god gave us a keyboard and told us to start a band and spread his word; or maybe that was my brother, he also has a beard (and he's 8!!). Nonetheless, that was the start of Toxic Lipstick.
GD:
Really, beyond the ponies, what do you two draw inspiration from, what are you thinking about when you sit down and write a song? TL:
When we write a song we're often thinking about what is gonna perfectly compliment a triple dipped, brown acid shafted inside a flirty anus. We also think about important issues like how to gain more weight in the breast region, and cure wet-bottom disease, which is currently plaguing koalas everywhere. We often imagine we're in a techno circus with heaps of spiked punch, popcorn and fire-aerobics, and the clowns won't let anyone leave until they collect everyone's pants. GD:
I love when the bass gets lost in my pants. I've been to shows where the music literally lifted me off the ground, and punched me in the stomach, and when I finally landed, I could feel the music at first nibbling, and then eventually chomping down on me between my legs. Thats said, I hope to hell thats what you're talking about.
How often do you lose the bass in your pants? Is this something that you are consciously setting out to achieve, or does the bass just disappear there with a mind of its own?
TL:
We do seem to quite often lose the bass there, but you could say it is accidently on purpose. On a cold winter's night with nary a sailor to come by, the intriging warmth of some fresh sub-bass can sooth the soul and then some. It can get awkward though.
GD:
What's with all the 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'?
TL:
the abundance of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx..s is a reference to our massive racks. |
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