Creative Cutting: Advanced Digital Editing Workshop

Participants wishing to explore the more advanced features and capabilities of Final Cut Pro are encouraged to take this hands-on workshop. This open lab-style workshop will give participants in depth knowledge of colour correction, chroma keying, compositing, titles and motion graphics, keyframing, working with multiple formats and the tricks to make the best of your time while working on your projects. Participants will also be introduced to sister programs such as Soundtrack, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro. This lab will be delivered via video projector and participants will work at individual editing stations together as pairs. Participants are also encouraged to bring their laptops if they are running FCP version 6 or higher.

Dates: Sat Jan 7 (10am-4pm), Sun Jan 8 (10am-4pm), Mon Jan 9, 2012 (6pm-10pm)
Registration Fee: $125 members | $155 non-members
Participants: Maximum 10 participants - 5 spots available through Winnipeg Film Group (925-3456) + 5 spots available through Video Pool (949-9134)
Instructor: Jaimz Asmundson

"The Magus" screens at MIX New York

"The Magus" has been selected to screen at MIX NYC, the 24th New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, which runs November 15 - 02, 2011. It will screen as part of the "Fantastic Magik" program on Thursday, November 17, 2011 @ 9:00pm at The MIX Factory.

The ecstatic, the fantastic, the dark and the strange converge in Fantastic Magick for a new edition of homoerotic love spells, witches and devilish art. Here you will find tricksters conjuring spirits of the past as well as blazing trails for all that is to come through sex, inversion, the occult, and other forms of ritual behavior. In Sorciéres, Mes Soeurs, we find women living in defiance of social expectations, and in WHOEVER WHATEVER, we find a more obscure yet equally magical take on a defiant woman. In Aquarius, a love spell is cast, where in The Magus and Jerk the Circle, we observe rituals with more obscure ends. From the directly subversive to the obscurely strange, queer magic and ritual infuse the screen with delight. This program delves into the roots of its own creation only to tear asunder your assumptions from the start. - MIX NYC Programming Committee

"The Magus" screens at Antimatter

"The Magus" has been selected to screen at the Antimatter Film Festival, which runs October 14 - 22, 2011. It will screen as part of the "How to Explain It to My Parents" program on Wednesday, October 19, 2011 @ 9:00pm at Open Space. The Festival is currently in it's 14th year.

Also screening in the program: Deus Ex Boltanski (Robert Gardner | USA), Four Cubic Feet of Space (Tony Gault | USA), How to Explain It to My Parents: Arno Coenen (Lernert & Sander | Netherlands), My Film Festival Entry (Neil Needleman | USA), Albumleaf (Paul Turano | USA), Tony Conrad: DreaMinimalist (Marie Losier | USA).

Dedicated to the exhibition and nurturing of film and video as art, Antimatter has grown into the premier showcase of experimental cinema in the west. Encompassing screenings, installations, performances and media hybrids, Antimatter provides a noncompetitive festival setting in Victoria, British Columbia, free from commercial and industry agendas.

Since 1998, the quality and creativity of its programming, commitment to audience development, and respect for filmmakers and their work have made Antimatter one of the most important media arts events in Canada, and the world.

"The Magus" screens at Gimme Some Truth

At long last, The Magus will have it's Winnipeg premiere at Gimme Some Truth in Manitoba, Canada, which runs October 13-16, 2011.

The Magus will screen alongside the feature film The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry (Ethan Higbee and Adam Bhala-Lough ) on Saturday, October 15th at 7:00pm at Cinematheque (100 Arthur Street).

Gimme Some Truth is a unique, four day documentary forum that includes panel discussions, master lectures, workshops and special screenings – all intended to provide filmmakers and audiences alike the opportunity to discuss creative, ethical and technical issues related to the documentary form. Gimme Some Truth is produced by the Winnipeg Film Group, in partnership with DOC Winnipeg.

"The Magus" screens at Incubate

The Magus will screen at the Incubate Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands, which runs September 12 - 18, 2011.

Screening alongside The Magus are the films: Invertebrate (James McAleer), Lazarov (Nietov) and The Ill Mannered Milk Man (Wayne Horse). The films will screen at the Film Foyer (Louis Bouwmeesterplein 1) on Saturday, September 17th at 10:00pm.

Incubate is the annual celebration of independent culture in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is a festival exhibiting a diverse view on indie culture as a whole, including music, contemporary dance, film and visual arts. It brings more than 200 cutting edge artists in an intimate context to an international audience. Black metal next to free jazz. Refreshing art next to inspiring debate.

"Kanye West Apologizes to George W. Bush" screens at the Festival of (In)appropriation

"Kanye West Apologizes to George W. Bush", has been selected to screen at the Festival of (In)appropriation at the Los Angeles Filmforum, Sunday September 18, 2011 at 7:30 pm.

Founded in 2009, the Festival of (In)appropriation is a yearly showcase of contemporary short (20 minutes or less) audiovisual works that appropriate film or video footage and repurpose it in “inappropriate” and inventive ways. In this program, we bring together a selection of 14 recent films that appropriate footage from diverse sources with vastly different results, demonstrating the range of approaches contemporary filmmakers are taking in repurposing found materials. Indeed, these films push the boundaries of the “found footage” film, raising questions about how we define “found footage” filmmaking in an era in which ever more materials are available for reuse in ever more complex ways. We believe that together, these films reveal how (in)appropriation is flourishing at this social and historical moment. - Jaimie Baron, Andrew Hall, and Lauren Berliner, Curators

The program includes: Lucky Strike (Shashwati Talukar | Taiwan), Interdimensional Headphase (Dillon Rickman | USA), Camp (Peter Freund | USA), Jive (Steve Cossman | USA), The Homogenics (Gerard Freixes Ribera | Spain), Ceibas Epilogue: The Well of Representation (Evan Meaney | USA), The Voyagers (Penny Lane | USA), February 2008 & June 1967 (Mark Toscano | USA), Tusslemuscle (Steve Cossman | USA), Avo (Muidumbe)/Granny (Muidumbe) (Raquel Schefer | Portugal), Kanye West Apologizes to George W. Bush (Jaimz Asmundson | Canada), Self-Destruction for Eternity (Wei-Ming Ho | Taiwan), Palindromia (Lab Collective | France/Greece/Spain), A Reasonable Man (Brian L. Frye | USA).

"The Magus" reviewed in Film Threat

Jaimz Asmundson’s The Magus is a high-energy cinematic experience that investigates and illuminates creativity as a spiritual or magical endeavor; one full of angelic beauty, but also overseen and fleshed out by demonic extremes.

Starting out simply enough, a man (C. Graham Asmundson) wakes up and begins going about his normal day-to-day routine. He works a bit on an art canvas, gets himself together and walks out of his home and into society for a short stroll. The mood is quiet and peaceful, until the man finds himself at his destination and begins to descend deeper and deeper into the Earth via a dark, foreboding tunnel system. From society to the underworld, the man makes his way to a brightly illuminated room consisting of completely barren, though bright white, walls.

What happens next is a ceremony of stripping down to the basic nude form, seemingly offering up the clothes as a form of purity sacrifice for art, as the man sets about painting all four walls while completely nude. The act of creation is furious and explosive and beautiful… until the man whit washes the walls. Of course, sometimes you can’t keep good art down, and the true imagery and power of his paintings remains, and won’t go away easy.

Everything about The Magus succeeds. From the simple opening to the visual and audio feast of the acts of artistic birth, death and stubborn rebirth, the film just pulses with an infectious energy from which you can’t turn away. Just by watching the short, I felt energized and inspired, maybe not to paint in the nude, but to create something. Easily one of my favorite short films of this year.

★★★★★, Review by Mark Bell, Film Threat

"Magus(re)Genesis" to premiere in Iceland

"Magus(re)Genesis" a collaborative, expanded cinema performance, by Jaimz Asmundson and Jeremy Pillipow, will premiere a the Lókal International Theatre Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland. The performance deconstructs their two previous film collaborations (Drawing Genesis and The Magus) into an improvised, live multi-channel, full-dimensional experience.

The performance will take place 9:30pm on September 2nd, 2011 at the Iðnó Theatre as part of a program of other artists from Winnipeg, which is being presented in partnership with nuna(now). The festival runs September 1st to 4th, 2011 at various venues.

The program includes the premiere of the production of "Sargent and Victor" by Deb Patterson, a screening of short films by Matt Holm and a Collage Party facilitated by Paul Butler and Caelum Vatnsdal.

"The Magus" Wins At I Festival Lume de Cinema (Brazil)

Winnipeg filmmaker Jaimz Asmundson‘s quasi-documentary portrait of his artist father C. Graham Asmundson, The Magus, has won an Artistic Contribution award for International Short Film at the I Festival Lume de Cinema, which was held on July 15-23 in Sao Luis, Brazil.

The 12-minute film ostensibly documents the artistic process of the elder Asmundson, as he descends far underneath the city streets into a hidden studio. Safely ensconced in his private retreat, the artist begins dramatically painting abstract images onto enormous canvases while the audiences slowly begins to understand that they are watching a magic ritual.

As the film’s pace begins to race furiously, the paintings explode across the screen, revealing hidden worlds in their midst.

Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film reviewed the movie earlier this year, saying:

Film as Satanic ritual has never really evolved into a full-fledged subgenre even with the still continuing interest in the work of Kenneth Anger. But, every once in awhile, one will come across a great underground movie that treads heavily in the dark arts.
Jaimz Asmundson‘s The Magus is one of those films.

Via @ Badlit

"The Magus" Original Score - Available for Download

The original score for the short film "The Magus", composed by by Jeremy Pillipow, is now available for download as a digital release.

"The Magus" screens at the Lume International Film Festival

"The Magus" will have it's international premiere at the first annual Lume International Film Festival, which runs July 15 to 23, 2011 in São Luís, Brazil and is run by Lume Filmes.

The film is part of the Short Film Competition and will screen before the feature WHITE AS SNOW (Selim Gunes | Turkey) with the short film, THE FOAL (Josh Tanner | Australia) on Wednesday, July 20 at 9pm.

"The Magus" screens at Fantasia

"The Magus" has been selected to screen at the 15th Annual Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs July 14 - August 7, 2011. It will play as part of the "Celluloid Experiments" program on Saturday, July 23 @ 2:15pm at the J.A. de Sève Cinema.

From the Fantasia website:

Every year since 2006, Fantasia has devoted a programming block to audacious, boundary-breaking short films. Allow yourself to be overwhelmed by this fever dream that defies traditional cinematic laws of time and narrative structure. See the sounds, hear the images! It’s like a symphony of the imagination. We’ve assembled for you over 20 singular works that together make up a voyage to the heart of the mind’s eye, a dreamlike mélange of tones and colours. Though CELLULOID EXPERIMENTS has always reserved an important place for international films, this year’s edition is dominated by a selection of creators from Quebec and Canada.

Direct from Spain comes Kote Camacho’s LA GRAN CARRERA, in which a documentarian revisits a morbid incident at the Lasarte Hippodrome in 1914. American Ben Ridgway returns with the world premiere of his bewitching animated short TRIBOLUMINESCENCE. Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski offer L'ANNÉE DE L'OR, a delirious creation accompanied by the music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Syl Disjonk presents a work in progress, the nightmarish ETHEREAL CHRYSALIS, which already earned a Special Jury Prize at the most recent edition of Vitesse Lumière. Richard Vézina shares a slice of eternity with the world premiere of MEMENTO MORI. Andrew Milne experiments in 35mm with PHANTASM, a Quebec premiere. Among the NFB’s newest gems is LES JOURNAUX DE LIPSETT by Theodore Ushev. Masterful! Jaimz Asmundson captures a visual performance impeccably with THE MAGUS, a Montreal premiere. Rhayne Vermette breaks apart all the eye captures in R SEYMORE GOES NORTH, a Montreal premiere. Fans of Burton Cummings and the Guess Who will love the hilarious NEGATIVIPEG, a poetic recreation of an awful event, by Matthew Rankin. As we do each year, we’ve reserved time for the finest moments of Dérapage, an event of audio-visual exploration founded by the students of UQÀM’s graphic design department. This year we’ve selected the intriguing CATS by Jocelyn Leduc, the architectural vision of foulmalade.org’s OHM, the apocalyptic ÉLÉMENTS by SIM Éric Mc Guire et the reverie THE PAGE’S WING by Federico Campanale. A must! TIND (this is not design), a well-known Montreal collective, present BLITZ and NORD’EST. From the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema come Emma Michelle Owen with INSIDE A FORT MADE OF SHEETS, Jenni Tannahill with JUMP, Tina Nawrocky’s DESERTED, Yoshino Aoki’s THE DOOR, and David Martineau Lachance and Chelsea Owen, each directing a double shot with L'AUTOPORTRAIT/PYROMANTEIA and MOTEL/BEAR AND THE CAPTAIN. And finally, Lawrence Côté-Collins knows what buttons to push with FUCK THAT.

—Marc Lamothe (translated by Rupert Bottenberg)

Here is a trailer of the program, featuring clips from "The Magus":

"The Magus" screens at Gimli Film Festival

"The Magus" has been selected to screen at the Gimli Film Festival, which runs July 20 - 24, 2011. It will close the "Life is Heavy" program on Friday, July 22 @ 3:30pm at the Aspire Theatre. The Festival is currently in it's 11th year.

Also screening in the program: "Deeper Than Yesterday" (Ariel Kleiman | Australia), "Lucky Girl" (Alexandra Grimanis | Canada), "The Hollow Man's Tragedy" (Jorge De Guillae | Spain), "Infinite Struggles" (Corey King | Manitoba), "[Punctuated]" (Dermot Daly | UK).

"The Magus" reviewed in Border Crossings

In Issue 118 of Border Crossings, Tom Kohut wrote a fantastic piece on "The Magus" for the Crossovers section, the full review is below:

"Goths!" screens at Cinema Spectacular in Edinburgh, Scotland

Goths! On the Bus! will screen at Cinema Spectacular in Edinburgh, Scotland at An Exercise in Bad Taste, a two-day event devoted to the devilishly delightful world of Bad Taste Cinema.

It will screen as part of a special program of short films curated by Edinburgh's Horror Festival, Dead by Dawn, alongside the feature film, Rubber, by Quentin Dupieux and a series of live performances.

"Goths!" Screens at MUFF!

The 6th annual Montreal Underground Film Festival presents 3 nights of wild and wooly short films from around the world at various venues around the city on May 12-14.

The fest kicks off with a lineup of 8 short films, plus the World Premiere of Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare’s Main Attraction, about a magician and his resident freaks fending off an eviction from their home. DeGiglio-Bellemare is a member of the Montreal media arts collective Volatile Works and features special effects by underground artist Rick Trembles and Andy Mauro. Also in the Opening Night kick-off is the not-to-be-missed hilarious music video Goths! On the Bus by Karen & Jaimz Asmundson.

Then, the fest continues on the 13th and the 14th with several programming blocks of short films hailing from Canada, the U.S., Germany, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Finland, the U.K. and other countries.

Some standouts in the fest include Zachary Epcar‘s retro-futuristic look at people disconnected from their urban environment, A Time Share Unlimited; Leslie Supnet‘s quietly introspective animation How to Care for Introverts; Kevin Lonano’s dark and surreal circus romance Carny; and his brother Brian Lonano‘s low-fi sci-fi hit Attackazoids!.

For more info, including screening locations, please visit the official Montreal Underground Film Festival website.

Via @ Badlit

"The Magus" screens at Hot Docs

The Magus will screen in Toronto at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival alongside the film Dust. A Sculptor's Journey by Jeanne Pope.

The films will screen Sunday, May 1st at 9:30pm and again on Wednesday May 4 at 1:00pm.

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America's largest documentary film festival, conference and market, held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 2011 edition of the Festival runs from April 28 to May 8.

For showtimes and to purchase tickets:
http://www.hotdocs.ca/film/title/magus_the

Multimedia artist Jaimz Asmundson turns the camera on his visual artist father, documenting his dad’s incredible artistic practice over a six-month period. Using multi-format film processing and an evocative musical score, Asmundson intuitively explores the mind-altered states of creation in this cinematic manifestation of his father’s occult experiences. - Michelle Latimer

"Goths!" screens at the Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival

Goths! On the Bus! will screen at the 5th Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival (April 28 - May 1, 2011). It will screen alongside other super8 films from around in the World in the Competition 1 Program, which screens on Thursday April 28 @ 6pm and Saturday April 30 @ 2pm at the Squeaky Gate.

The Cambridge Super 8 Group is dedicated to the exhibition and creation of Super 8 film as a crucial art form in its own right.

As well as the annual festival, the Cambridge Super 8 Group has been active in programming a multitude of screenings, director talks and educational events in the city of Cambridge and in East Anglia.

Cambridge Super 8 is also committed to promoting new work and developing critical discussion as well as developing collaboration with other festivals.

Jaimz & Graham Asmundson on Cineflyer Radio

"The Magus" premieres at FIFA 29

"The Magus" will have it's world premiere at the 29th Festival of Films on Art, which takes place March 17-27 in Montreal.

It will screen before the Documentary feature "Olafur Eliasson: Space is Process", by Danish filmmakers Jacob Jørgensen and Henrik Lundø.

The films will screen at the Musée d'art contemporain (185 rue Sainte-Catherine O.) on:
- Saturday, March 19th @ 9:00pm
- Sunday, March 27th @ 1:30pm

Editing 101 - May Workshop @ Winnipeg Film Group

The WFG is now taking registrations for my next Digital Editing 101 workshop, which will run May 14 - 16, 2011. Sign up now, these things fill up fast!

In this three day, lab style workshop, participants will learn the basics of editing including: setup and interface, logging and capturing video, editing tools, project workflow and aesthetics, and how to sync sound and image. Also, participants will be introduced the basics of media management, effects and transitions, and outputting final projects to tape, dvd, blu-ray and the web.
This lab will be delivered via video projector and participants will work at individual editing stations together as pairs. Participants are also encouraged to bring their laptops if they are running FCP version 6 or higher.

"Goths!" screens at Prairie Scene

"Goths! On The Bus" will screen as part of the One Take Super 8 Showcase at Prairie Scene in Ottawa. The free screening curated by Alex Rogalski will be held on April 27 at 8pm at the Mercury Lounge (56 Byward Market Square).

"Spanning a decade in Saskatchewan and five years in Winnipeg, the 20 films in this showcase offer a wide range of filmmaking styles. Working within the confines of editing in camera and not altering the original footage, each film possesses its own charm and succinct message. A number of these films have screened internationally, representing the eclectic prairie perspectives seen through a small gauge camera. The results offer an increasingly rare opportunity to see the magic of cinema in a celluloid form"

Manitoba:
Arlea Ashcroft & Andrea von Wichert – Snapper Doodle; Jaimz Asmundson – Goths! On the Bus!; Clint Enns – The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse (1940/2010); Mike Maryniuk – Fish Arms; Heidi Phillips – Spin; Sunny Sidhu – Singh; Danielle Sturk – a(éo)liens; Leslie Supnet – sun moon stars rain; Curtis Wiebe – Rocket John; Aaron Zeghers – Chaos Theory.

Saskatchewan:
Brent Braaten – Typewriter Oceanus; Shawn Fulton – Low Life; Jennifer Gennutt – Z Day; Eric Hill – Wind Up! Kyle Ketchemonia – Confidential; Terry Mialkowsky & Shannon Jardine – Belt Buckle/Quonset Hut; Dianne Ouellette – Bootalicious; robert.daniel.pytlyk. – Still Life; Jennifer Sparrowhawk – The Last Time I Saw You; Daniel Suchoboki – Singularity on top of a Duration.

"The Magus" review on Cineflyer

"Asmundson's use of editing as alchemy creates a stylized, hyper-kinetic, cinematic manifestation of the occult experience. This being said, the strength of the film does not lie in its glittery production values – the strength of the film ultimately lies in the atmosphere it creates and in its many possible interpretations."


Read the full review here: http://cineflyer.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/invoking-magical-resurrections-two-mystical-films-by-jaimz-asmundson/

"The Magus" soundtrack profiled on Ad Noiseam

"Jeremy Pillipow / Cakebuilder's tribal sounding score is a perfect match for this films rapid fire editing and dark psychedelic topic."

Read the full article: http://www.adnoiseam.net/news/cake-builders-soundtrack-to-the-ritualistic-movie-the-magus

Kanye West apologizes to George W. Bush (remix)

The way Kanye West's Today Show apology, for saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people", should have been: face to face.

"The Magus" review on Bad Lit

"Jaimz Asmundson has crafted a exquisite short film honoring his father. What begins in a very familiar-looking real world eventually leads us to a strange new reality that is disorienting and unknown. As much as Graham conjures up his art, Asmundson has conjured up a vision that is extraordinarily startling, beautiful and terrifying to behold."

Read the full review here: http://www.badlit.com/?p=12609