Wholphin

Directed by: Gabriel Judet-Weinshel

Liner Notes:

Facechasers was originally commissioned as a music video for the Norwegian electronica/jazz band Wibutee. The concept was the solidification of a generally apocalyptic sensibility I have, which, despite its expression in this film, remains well-contained (I’m actually quite agreeable, although I do have near-daily visions of mushroom clouds on the Manhattan skyline). We shot on a huge beach on Long Island, keeping the camera low to give the illusion of endlessness. The actors wore latex masks in the stifling sun. Because I’m not much of a mask maker, the masks had to stay on for the duration of the day to avoid tearing, and thus created much well-deserved rancor from my former friends.

The attack dogs are actually a single dog puppet I created from chicken wire, cardboard, coat hangers, acrylic paint, fishing wire, and papier mâché. After a protracted dog-building period (I sometimes wonder if I didn’t draw it out just to be able to tell people, ‘I gotta go home and work on my papier mâché attack dog’), I called up some good friends (unsuspecting friends who had not been present on the day I wrapped other former friends in latex and bid them walk with dog-less dog leashes under hot sun), put the attack dog (which was quickly and incomprehensibly dubbed ‘Poopsy’) in front of a greenscreen, and assigned one friend to the hind legs, one to the front. We discovered Poopsy’s head jiggled believably of its own accord when the legs moved.

Some point in this process, well before the estimated 200 hours of compositing work to complete the film (among other things, taking the green-screened dog and fitting her believably in the live-action background), I awoke one night to find myself itching all over. Poopsy was close by, lying by my bed like a sentinel. I tried to go to sleep, but kept itching. I have no pets (other than the paper mâché variety), and am a reasonably clean creature myself, but I was displaying all the symptoms of flea infestation. The itching only grew worse, and I was eventually forced to eek across the street to a friend’s house, knock on the window, and take refuge under a different roof. To this day, I have no idea how Poopsy got fleas.

Biography:

Gabriel Judet-Weinshel refused to wear shoes until the age of ten, and wore mainly hand-made animal suits for nearly the same period of early development. His films and music videos have been shown at a lot of small and medium festivals in the US, as well as in a few random countries like Egypt, Hungary, and Croatia (these countries did not fly him there, so he had to take their word for it that the movies actually played). Nickelodeon, the Trio Network, FOX, CMT, and MTV have also shown his work, to his dismay. He had the fun and terrifying experience of directing Martin Scorsese in a short piece giving tribute to actor Victor Argo that screened at Lincoln Center. When he’s totally out of money, Gabriel juggles machetes and fruit at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, that is if the tumblers aren’t there first.

www.waxwingfilms.com

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