ALFRED JARRY & 'PATAPHYSICS
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In this 2 minute animated documentary, an oral report on French writer, Alfred Jarry, is given stop-motion treatment with the help of talking t-shirts, flip book pages, and time-lapse lino-cut printing. Jarry is best known for his play, Ubu Roi, and his pseudo-science, 'Pataphysics.

A film by Skizz Cyzyk. Starring The Tinklers (Charles Brohawn and Chris Mason), with Jason Willett, Rupert Wondolowski, Skizz Cyzyk, and narration by Charlie Ogden. Theme song by The Tinklers. Musical score by Blister Freak Circus.

ALFRED JARRY & 'PATAPHYSICS is an excerpt from the feature length documentary, ICEPICK TO THE MOON, about Rev. Fred Lane and the Raudelunas arts collective of Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the Seventies. In ICEPICK, Fred Lane and Raudelunas were influenced by Alfred Jarry and 'Pataphysics, so I needed a quick way of explaining who Jarry was and what 'Pataphysics is. To make this, I recycled some animation techniques I first used in a music video I directed for The Jennifers. Fred Lane's Shimmy Disc labelmates, The Tinklers, star in the film. Poet, musician, and book store owner Rupert Wondolowski makes an appearance, as does musician and record store owner, Jason Willett (both Fred Lane fans who have been very encouraging towards ICEPICK). Narration is provided by Charlie Ogden, the emcee who first introduced the world to Fred Lane as part of the Raudelunas 'Pataphysical Revue in 1975.

Spring of 2013 was spent in pre-production: making the flipbook pages, recording and logging the audio, then matching the t-shirts to the audio so that the mouths looked in sync with the dialogue. The whole project was shot on a Canon 60D DSLR camera. We started shooting at HonFest in Baltimore, MD in June of 2013, and finished that August. Other locations included Druid Hill Park and a pier in Fells Point. Over the course of 5 t-shirt shoots, Charles had to change shirts a total of 604 times in 2100 photos (roughly 70 seconds of animation). Each t-shirt shoot included a couple "shirt wranglers," one who would take shirts from Charles and another who would hand him the next one. There are 13 different shirts for each color, though Chris only wears one of them. Rupert had to hold up 204 flipbook pages, while Jason had to hold up 325. I did the lino-cut copy of Jarry's famous Pere Ubu image. Though the lino-cut printing was the only footage shot as live action, I pulled selected single frames from the footage in order to speed it up and make it look more animated.

FESTIVAL SCREENINGS:
Oxford Film Festival, Oxford, MS, Feb 2014.
Atlanta Film Festival, Atlanta, GA, March 2014.
Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, IL, April 2014.
Kansas City Film Fest, Kansas City, Missouri, April 2014.
Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore, Maryland, May 2014.
Annecy International Animation Festival, Competition Short Film. Annecy, France, June 2014.
Artscape (America's largest free arts festival), Baltimore, Maryland, July 2014.
The 11th Annual Squeaky Wheel Animation Fest, Buffalo, NY, August 2014
Focus of Animation, 19th edition of Milano Film Festival, Milan, Italy, September 2014.
Ottawa 2014 International Animation Festival, Competition Short Film, Ottawa, Canada, September 2014.
The 1st OLHO Animation Film Festival, Porto, Portugal, September 2014.
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Film's Animated BAFICI, Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 2014.
London International Animation Festival, London, England, October 2014.
Indie Memphis Film Festival, Memphis, Tennessee, October 2014.
The 16th Wiesbaden International Weekend of Animation, Wiesbaden, Germany, November 2014.
Cucalorus Film Festival, Wilmington, North Carolina, November 2014.
CutOut Fest International Animated Short Film Festival, Querétaro, Mexico, November 2014.
RxSM (the Self-Medicated Film Expo), Austin, Texas, March 2015.
Victoria TX Independent Film Festival, Victoria, Texas, March 2015.
Northwest Animation Festival, Portland, Oregon, May 2015.
GEORAMA Animation Festival, Tokyo, Japan, February 2016.




Skizz gets interviewed at The Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Market (Annecy, France)
about Alfred Jarry & 'Pataphysics: http://youtu.be/-qW82cFd7BY

Skizz gets interviewed at the Oxford Film Festival, about Alfred Jarry & 'Pataphysics:
http://youtu.be/oqtwdxlE-6w

Take 5 with “Alfred Jarry & ‘Pataphysics”, Skizz answers five questions from the Oxford Film Festival.