Filmography of gibbs chapman

gibbs chapman c/o non productions

P.O. Box 410172 SF, Ca. 94141-0172

nonprod@yahoo.com

gibbs chapman has worked in and around audio/visuals in San Francisco since 1984. As recording engineer, he has been involved with hundreds of recordings ranging from Thinking Fellers to Marianne Faithful and additionally has worked on composing, recording, and/or producing many music and sound pieces, and sound for film for American Playhouse, among others. Mr Chapman has become active as a cameraman and audio manipulator for film and video, working on hundreds of shorts and features and has written, directed and resourcefully produced numerous films of his own. He is also owner of non productions, a small audio/visual factory in San Francisco and works as a technician and consultant in recording studios, post-houses and performs myriad duties from negative cutting to lens repair in an effort to finance his personal projects. Mr. Chapman is also a senior projectionist and collection inspector at the Pacific Film Archive.

(as writer/director/photographer/editor/sound designer)

• mother mortar, father pestle (& the nocturnal panic of 2008) 35mm, B&W, 72min, wip

a sweaty, claustrophobic noir and a weekend seminar on the irrelevance of human achievement in geologic time. And a 4-night-step program seeking to correct the behavioral dysfunction known as “religiambition.”

All the brother wanted was to snag some new numbers for his ride but there’s a sick immigrant who seeks medical attention in Plato’s DMV, and further a worried religious woman who prays for nightbus service may just have to create her own 7 pound bundle of joy that is the afterlife. Meanwhile Mr. Doe Ahvrage confronts the last supper club which reviews his injustice prior to his trek in the rolling hills of the lost souls in which if you are so lucky - or not so - to chance upon an archeologist who will tell you all about the insignificance of your efforts – you may have a shot at rebirth. And if you think this is confusing, wait ‘til you (don’t) see the gritty black and white details.

• push button: a history of idleness & ignorance 16mm, color, 16min, 2004

In the modern era, the combined elements of human innovation and dementia have led us into a new relationship with our time and energy, one in which the quest for a current immediacy or an ease of operation has created a culture of lethargy and ignorance of new proportion.

push button - a history of idleness and ignorance is a film, setting out to describe the journey from hunter/gatherer to sloucher/slacker and the dangling carrot of "leisure" time. Additionally, the piece is a call to action, to crush the monstrous cancer known as advertising and the salivating hyenas of consumer-dollar extraction.

This piece was funded by a grant from San Francisco Film Arts Foundation, and is part of the 2004 Film Arts festival.

• turbine: russian scissors 16mm, color, 4min. 2002

A commissioned alternative "music video" for (firstly) DVD release, to accompany a musical piece called russian scissors by the euro-trash parody techno ensemble, turbine. The band's only suggestion was that the piece visually contain some reference to a pre-elite-seized San Francisco, and with this in mind, "out came the box of miscellaneous SF singularities and urban landscapes."

• an examination of exhibits A(1) through E(5) 16mm, color, 19min, 2001

A mysterious film about mystery and the human insistence on order from chaos.

Via its 5 departments: the scientific, the academic, the romantic, the psychological, and the critical, a filmic surgery mounts the evidence submitted - the remains of our culture. A quest structurally influenced by its subject, this regurgitation, pre-occupied with its own insatiability, realizes that people, places and things are inherently interesting only when one does not have enough information about them.

This film won an award in Ann Arbor 2001, and also screened at Chicago filmmakers g. chapman mini-retro 2001, the Saint Brooklyn NY Straight out of the machine 2001, Southwest film center Albuquerque NM alien anomalies 2001, Blue Screen Austin TX alien anomalies 2001, Foreign Cinema SF trailer 2001, Pacific Film Archive Berkeley CA retrieved images 2002, Fine Arts theater Berkeley CA short and shorter of it 2002, the Blockhouse Portland OR 100 minutes 2002, Yerba Buena center for the arts SF Bay Area Now 2002 and screened at the SF Cinematheque's post-industrial speculations, March 13th, 2003

• for 'swell' 16mm, color, 4 min. 1998

A commissioned alternative "music video" for broadcast, to accompany a musical piece called make up your mind by the Beggars Banquet recording artists swell. This piece is a vaguely lyric-associated series of pseudo-narrative vignettes, using new and found materials, following a character through psychological testing, surgery preparation, participating in a Magritte painting, viewing the props in the piece in a store display and watching a time-lapse sunrise.

This piece was broadcast extensively in Europe (where the record label operates) on Euro MTV and in clubs. It has also participated in music oriented cinema shows such as San Francisco's own other cinema: new music/old movies. It also screened at the SF Cinematheque's post-industrial speculations, March 13th, 2003

•your tax dollars at work 16mm, B&W, 3 min. 1997

Occasionally, one wonders what "democratic" processes accomplish. Your tax dollars at work, a moment of legislative nebulum, prompts the obvious follow-up question: What are we paying these people for? In addition, the precision razor applied to this found material is meant to draw attention to the changing nature of evidence in our mediated and technological times.

This short film has participated in many programs of re-contextualized found material such as Outsiders 16 at Filmhuis, Arnhem Holland and Doverfest, Belfast Ireland, Zoobizarre, Bordeaux France and is included in most of mr. chapman's body of work shows, and also screened at the SF Cinematheque's post-industrial speculations, March 13th, 2003.

•m. hallisey's tire dance 16mm, color, 3 min. 1997

This is a document of the NY choreographer Margaret Hallisey's tire dance, performed at Context theater in NYC in 1997. Margaret went on to perform the piece in conjunction with the film at other venues including NYC's PS1.

•if only I were big enough, I'd kill you (a love story)16mm, clr, 90min. WinP

An urban guy - he’s unhappy, why? It’s not clear. He has an interesting job, sexy girlfriend, a relatively stable, free society, so, what’s the problem? He decides to live on an old farm because he thinks he might be happy there, living more simply, working harder, being alone. It doesn’t work out - perhaps because depriving oneself things, which one knows one can easily acquire, means nothing.

Mr. g. chapman's second dramatic feature, was shelved after shooting only 2 sequences due to apathy and guilt related to too much favor-cashing during the previous feature film. One sequence was made into a short called scene 23 from a larger work, in which a women speaks candidly with her substantially disabled lover.

•the intellectual 16mm, color, 3 min. 1996

There are but a few brave men willing to explore the dangerous ideas that can bring them down. When opening Pandora's boxes, one must adhere to the appropriate safety procedures or face certain fatal falls.

This short film has participated in many programs of re-contextualized found material and screened at San Francisco's Castro theater as part of the Docker's Independent film festival 1998, Minna street Gallery SF pretty but stupid 1998 and is included in most of mr. chapman's body of work shows, and also screened at the SF Cinematheque's post-industrial speculations, March 13th, 2003

•...higher animals 16mm, color, 70 min. 1995

Doomed to be mysteriously connected to the essence of life, square peg Audrey Muse wrestles undauntedly with the future machine of western civilization. Squatting with a bumbling undesirable and an obsessive criminal handyman in the anarchistic zone outside the new world order, she naively launches illegal social commentary. And in a world without plants, animals or reliable oxygen, begins the inevitable journey into cynicism and disillusionment.

"Mr. chapman should've called his debut effort 'weekending'." - J. Boyreau, Chronicle Books SF

"A hallucinatory anti-commodity, involving squatters, sexual frustration, and synthesized food." - C. Stephens, SF Bay Guardian

SF Cinematheque presents Victoria theatre SF 1995, Chicago Underground Film Festival 1996, Other Cinema SF presents spectacle 1995, Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor 5 Nights 1996.

•meet the thinking fellers 16mm, B&W, 7 min. 1993

A collaboration between a mr. g. chapman and the musical phenomenon known as thinking fellers union local 282, this series of vignettes scored after filming, surveys the love between the eyes and the ears during the 3-month period of wedded bliss. Destroying the MTV commodities, this circus of unassociated notions, caused the participants to later be heard mumbling, "I don't know what we were thinking, and I wouldn't do it again without certain assurances."

This film has been widely screened, on tour with the group all over the US, Canada and Europe, and at the Helsinki FF in Finland Carnival 1995, European film college in Ebeltoft Denmark 1995, Chicago UGFF 1996, Minnesota College of Art & Design 1999, Cal Arts Valencia CA 2002, Filmhuis, Arnhem Holland Outsiders 16 2002, Festival dei Popoli Firenze Italy 2002, Image Film and Video Center Atlanta GA mini-fest '96, and has sold many copies to individuals through distributors - in the US by revolver usa, SF CA., in Japan by Japan overseas ltd., Osaka Japan, and in Europe by Jack Stevenson film distribution. The piece is also included in most of mr. chapman's body of work shows, and will also screen at the SF Cinematheque's post-industrial speculations, March 13th, 2003.

•man of unfoundedness 16mm, color, 25 min. 1991

Vance Frear, stricken with an irresistible urge to return to the womb, attempts to maintain through a day in the life. After making it to the doctor's, he'll really need a stiff cup of tea, an easy woman and couple of rounds through the girl from ipanema.

"Gibbs, I like your film." - Jonas Mekas

Anthology Film Archive NYC 1993, Other Cinema SF new experimental works, 1992

•red carpets, brass placards and other items 16mm, color, 3 min.1990

A news bulletin regarding a group of vandals, comments on the morally corrupt and misdirected priorities of capitalism.

•exteriors 16mm, B&W, 3 min. 1989

A document of four women's conditioned beautification processes, examines the negative consequences of society's unrelenting construction of a female model image that is inherently unachievable.

•controlled logic and binary co. 16mm, B&W, 3 min. 1989

A parody of vocational computer science training suggests that society cultivate the intellect with which human beings are born before installing all faith in artificial versions and a small group of elite computer dictator/programmers.

These three experimental public service announcements were designed to be shown consecutively from unmarked storefront windows in a looping fashion.

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•some music Audio CD, 60 minutes, 1996

In addition to mr. chapman's other Audio releases, this soundtrack compilation containing 24 music or sound pieces, written and/or produced by mr. chapman for use in his films, was released in 1996 on the Bent record label and is distributed worldwide by Revolver USA.