Continuing our preview of the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival which gets underway March 9 in Austin, Texas, SHOOT turns its attention to the Re:Generation Music Project, a documentary feature directed by Amir Bar-Lev who is represented for commercials and branded entertainment by RSA Films.
Produced by music-focused entertainment studio GreenLight Media & Marketing in association with RSA, the documentary has found an ideal venue in SXSW in that it too marries the worlds of film and music. Made in association with the Grammys and sponsored by Hyundai Veloster, Re:Generation follows five noted DJs–DJ Premier, electronic duo The Crystal Method, Pretty Lights of dub-step fame, Grammy winner Skrillex and producer Mark Ronson–as they remix, recreate and re-imagine five traditional styles of music. Ronson creates his take on jazz, Skrillex on rock ‘n roll, Pretty Lights on country music, DJ Premier tackles classical, and The Crystal Method forays into soul. Each artist collaborates with another artist or artists from each respective genre. For example, The Crystal Method hooks up with soul singer Martha Reeves (of the Motown group Martha and the Vandellas).
The collaborations speak to the past, present and future of music–the history entailing artists taking a crash course on the roots of the musical genres they’re grappling with as Pretty Lights, for instance, travels to Nashville to get an education on country western fare, getting exposed to a recording of the folksy crooning of Burl Ives, among others, who provide creative influence. The present and future are somehow embodied via the creative collaborations themselves as musical tastes and genres mesh to create distinctively original new music–all the while providing insights into the often elusive artistic process.
Ronson, for instance, created a New Orleans jazz mix in “A La Modeliste” that features an all-star cast of Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Trombone Shorty, Zigaboo Modeliste, and members of The Dap-Kings. DJ Premier enlisted NAS and Boston’s Berklee Symphony Orchestra for his “Regeneration.” And Pretty Lights’ “Wayfaring Stranger” showcases vocals from LeAnn Rimes and Dr. Ralph Stanley.
Re:Generation is screening at SXSW as part of its Special Events program. The SXSW exposure will come on the heels of two days of the documentary being showcased in some 175-plus theaters across select cities nationwide–the first run coming on Thursday, Feb. 16, followed by an encore screening yesterday (Feb. 23). The film had its premiere at a red carpet event at Graumann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood on Feb. 9.
Director Bar-Lev has a filmography which includes such feature documentaries as Fighter, My Kid Could Paint That, and The Tillman Story, the latter two earning nominations for the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize in 2007 and 2010, respectively. Bar-Lev was also co-producer of Trouble the Water (directed by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin) which was nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar in 2009. This body of work–marked by documentary acumen with underlying music sensibilities–drew the attention of RSA which was looking for a filmmaker to take on Re:Generation. Tom Dunlap, an exec producer at RSA and one of the producers of Re:Generation (along with RSA president Jules Daly) reached out to Bar-Lev, who eventually earned the opportunity from GreenLight to direct the assignment. Bar-Lev said that shortly after embarking on the job, he felt simpatico with RSA, resulting in his joining the company’s roster for commercials and longer form branded projects.
Bar-Lev noted that this was his foray into the branded/advertising world and he’s gratified that Re:Generation works as a film unto itself. “It was my first time working with a creative director [GreenLight’s Nick Davidge, one of the film’s executive producers] and it was a great experience,” related Bar-Lev. “We shared an obsession with music, I was passionate about my ideas and brought them to him. He had some great ideas and we came together, balanced some things out and found that our visions complemented each other’s quite nicely. The film doesn’t play like something branded. It works as a film and yet fits into this unconventional creative campaign they have developed…As a music lover, I’m glad to see the film shows that it can be wildly entertaining to watch people make music.”
Upon first hearing of the idea for Re:Generation from Dunlap, Bar-Lev couldn’t help but smile to himself. “I came up with an idea like this eight years ago,” he recalled, “and got it set up as a pilot on a network which then became Spike. It was one of those horrible TV experiences where they developed the idea into the dirt. The project never went to air. I had described it as being Iron Chef for DJs. But this project [Re:Generation] is a much better version of what I had come up with. Plus the times are different. The landscape has changed. People didn’t care all that much about DJs back then. Now they have arrived.”
SXSW lineup
Bar-Lev is but one of assorted directors with spotmaking ties who have films being presented at SXSW. Among them are directors Jonas Akerlund (repped for commercials by Serial Pictures) with the feature length dark comedy Small Apartments, Kevin MacDonald (handled by Chelsea) with the documentary Marley, Emmett Malloy (half of The Malloys directing duo repped by HSI Productions) with the feature Big Easy Express, Joe Berlinger (repped by @radical.media) with the documentary Under African Skies, Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky (a duo repped by Washington Square Films) with the film Francine, Matt Piedmont (handled by PRETTYBIRD for spots) with his feature filmmaking debut Casa de mi Padre, and Jessica Yu (Nonfiction Unlimited) with the documentary Last Call at the Oasis.
Screening their short films at SXSW will be directors Matt Lenski (whose spotmaking roost is Supply & Demand Integrated) with his Meaning of Robots, Bill Plympton (Acme Filmworks) with Summer Bummer, Julie Pott (Hornet) with Belly, and Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (who direct spots under the Henry & Rel banner at Moxie Pictures) with A Brief History of John Baldessari.
And showcasing music videos at SXSW will be directors Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, a duo repped by PRETTYBIRD) with Battles’ “My Machine,” Keith Schofield (Caviar) with Duck Sauce’s “Big Bad Wolf,” and Trish Sie (repped for commercials by Bob Industries) who co-directed with the band OK Go and Pilobolus the OK Go clip “All Is Not Lost.”
(See our SXSW preview in SHOOT and SHOOTonline, 2/17, for further details on each of these features, shorts and music videos.)
