Born in 1956 in Burbank, California, as a child Andy and a group of friends produced a series of Super-8 "trick" films a la Méliès. In high school, he made his first documentary, a Super-8 account of the demolition of a metal mansion designed by Richard Neutra for Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. At UC San Diego in the mid-1970s, Andy re-approached cinema in a more rigorous way, gaining inspiration from the films of Michael Snow, Standish Lawder, Jon Jost, James Benning, Pat O’Neill and many others. Around 1978 his films became saturated with language, but since then he has tried to gesture and suggest rather than state explicitly, and to keep his films non-language-specific. Deeply concerned with the grammar of cinema and music, his own films are a blend of structural and personal concerns, and he often starts first with the soundtrack in mind. Andy has lived in San Francisco for over 28 years with his partner, filmmaker Jack Walsh, and is currently Educational Distribution Manager at Frameline. His first actual collaboration with Jack Walsh, utilizing video footage shot in 100 San Francisco hotel rooms, is currently seeking post-production funding.
Andy Moore's website: www.reelmind.com/andy/
It's midday in sleepy San Diego. Everything is moving sluggishly in the hot sun. Kind of spooky. But night falls quickly and multiple drum rolls signal the onset of the night, the hectic breakneck buzz of crass neon and porno marquees, cars hurtling through the "bad" part of town, hyped up nightlife glitz. An impressionistic portrait of urban glitter and grit that moves to a rock beat.
1977, 16mm, b&w/so, 5.5m, $20
ROOM LIST is a "tour" of a room and the objects in it. The narrator tells you about his personal belongings, their origins and uses, and the systems of organization governing their placement. The film draws attention to details, demonstrating how one person structures his living space on functional as well as sentimental grounds.
"... a short yet very good autobiographical film; its value extending beyond the academic domain. The revealing honesty achieved in the work is particularly striking. This self-examination is realized via a novel filmic structure, devised to survey the contents of his room on an item by item basis. The obsessive materialism is effectively shoved out of the room on the screen and into the laps of the audience, forcing a response. Unconsciously, yet inherently, the film is a more definitely American statement than Apocalypse Now." - Louis Hock
1978, 16mm, b&w/so, 20m, $60
SOUND AND VISION, STATION TO STATION is a two-part film about consuming and producing music. Part one is an aerial view of someone sitting at a table, consuming food, drugs and music while making color drawings on white paper. Part two shows a man's first encounter with a saxophone, live and authentic. Both sections have very bright, dense colors.
1978, 16mm, color/so, 10m, $30
I heard some old pipe organ music which suggested "desperate fear" to me, and I envisioned a relentless series of faces looking terrified, as if they were in a horror movie and had just seen some terrible monster. I had about 50 people do two things for the camera: act horrified, and act relaxed and blissful. The resulting footage was edited to conform to that particular piece of organ music which is heard on the soundtrack. At once terrifying and comical.
1983, 16mm, b&w/so, 2m, $20
SHADES OF MEANING is a short, poetic meditation on music and meaning in cinema. "Aurally iconographic" music fragments have been decomposed, then re-composed into loops and patterns, and combined with eclectically chosen imagery shot mostly in the western United States. The result is both a reflection of the artist's sensibilities and a commentary on commercial media values.
At once a celebration of visual beauty and a semiological investigation into how musical codes and imagery combine to create meaning, SHADES OF MEANING has been called paradoxical, mystical and elegant, pregnant with multiple meanings and a powerful tool for reflection.
Awards: SF Int'l Film Festival; Black Maria Film and Video Festival.
1986, 16mm, color/so, 10m, $30
A film of gestures rather than statements, SPLIT DESCRIPTION utilizes a concentric split-screen technique to present a kaleidoscopic moving montage of three diverse locales (in California, Massachusetts and New York). The different zones within the frame interplay, while the hairline borders between them become crucial junctures of vanishing/becoming. The soundtrack, ranging from dead simple to deliriously intricate, collaborates in the collage. Virtually nonverbal (except for some Morse code), the film is a "magic viewing box" designed to cut the viewer free from narrative expectation and instead serve as a tool for reflection on space/time/sound.
Awards: Director's Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1995; Honorable Mention, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 1995.
Exhibition: Film Arts Festival, 1994; Charlotte Film and Video Festival, 1995; Ann Arbor Film Festival and Tour, 1995; Big Muddy Film Festival, 1995; Mill Valley Film Festival, 1995; Slam Dance Film Festival, 1996.
Collection: Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore
Note: No optical printing was utilized in the making of this film. - A.M.
1994, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25
Includes: SPLIT DESCRIPTION, SHADES OF MEANING and HISTRIONIC RESPONSE SECTION
See film descriptions above.
1994, VHS, 20m, color/so, $30 Home; $100 Other