Sauna + Hot Dog Last Supper

Snacks is at last stretching down into the back leg of our shooting schedule for "GASA". Specifically, it is also the "Part I interludes" phase. Don't allow me to expand on what that means, because it will be esoteric jumble that may only ever have meaning to Dan and I. Briefly, I can say this - We shot the movie backwards (sort of), and the "middle beginning" consists of "interludes", autonomous "vibe" pieces that wedgie themselves into the bigger picture of the film - but retain non-narrative spirals in and of themselves. In each interlude, the lead "wretches", played by Snacks ourselves, are "tested" by a series of tortuous "pleasure" routines inside of an infinitely huge computer system.

Just about a short week or two ago Snacks crammed three shoots into a sublime pocket of October weather, two of which went towards visualizing the "sauna scene" concept......




The sauna itself exists in the backyard of the one quarter Danish/one quarter American/one half Portuguese marriage partnership of Jenny Graf Shepherd and Jorge Martin. They bought a sauna in it's entirety from a fellow on Maryland's Eastern Shore and it was delivered a contiguous whole via flatbed ------- all the way from the Eastern Shore to that exact spot (see above photo) in Arcadia, Baltimore (sort of the lower left ventricle of Lauraville, NE Balt). It's a fine item, this sauna, smelling sweetly of wood fires and high quality seasoned cedar.

Since this part of the movie occurs inside of a computer, the spaces are meant to be "2D", mere simulacrum or projection. However, the simulacra have teeth, and in this particular scene, those teeth sink into some hot dogs.



In the above photo you will see Dan "preparing" a hot dog for a "movie magic" moment in which it will fly perfectly between the toes of this lovely person....




Kat Sotelo. Performce artist extraordinaire, she is the anchor of the scene, and she ministers over her charges as well as her victims with succinct efficiency.

When the wretch portrayed by myself arrives into the sauna simulacrum, he is in worse tune than a west baltimore church basement piano, and Kat must burden herself with the necessary task of "tuning" Tom. She is soon assisted by a second tuner, portrayed by Katherine Ralston - of Baltimore's Annex Theatre. Hot Dogs, in one dimension, can be thought of as "tuning forks".

In the topmost photo, one can see the entire cast for the scene. Several "musicians" are required to "play" Tom, now that he's been "tuned". Big thanks to our players - John Kahn, Sam Shea, Katey Truhn, and Ami Dang.

Consistently throughout this entire movie our lead characters (US) are treated very badly. Use and abuse are interchangeable. Use IS abuse. Note how hardcore deadly Kat looks from the POV of the person's face she is slamming her foot into.

Every expert victim tuner who lives in a computer sauna must be armed with a "quiver" of hot dog tuning forks in her towel.

Jenny and Jorge were fine hosts, and their superb sauna shall be immortalized in our "art". The first shoot was rather chilly for our nearly naked toweled persons to be prancing about in the backyard, although we eventually got the wood stove in the sauna kickin' and that was plenty heat to warm the hot dogs and also our scruffy souls as well. There was an eventual late night hang and also we dined on the weenies too 'round midnight or so.

The second shoot we did a week later, and my gosh it was a lovely Autumn eve of the best kind - those humid breezey patches of tropical air we get waltzing occasionally through Bmore from the Caribbean during foliage weeks.

Here's a parting shot of the sauna, languid in the the October night....

GASA Lab shoot

Dan and Tom put in a nice piece of labor this past June constructing the "Lab" for GASA. Throughout the film, and especially during the intro, scenes take place in a grimy "science lab", inspired partially by the "clean" space stations of kubrick, partially by the "dirty" spacestations of the russian "Solaris". There is also the clumpy top heavy kitsch space stations of "the Jetsons" or Vadim's "Barbarella" in there too, along with the cardboard christmas light twinkle of the orginal star trek's "bridge". We put in some long hours, including a very late evening the night before the shoot. Great thanks upon THEEric Franklin, who besides helping us with camera work during the shoot, also came out the night before to do a bit of construction. This set still partially exists in the Kitchen of Dan, 5th floor H+H bldg, Bmore.


Dan expressed interest in the set being white, to get that "Kubrick" feel.




note the Nintendo controller and VCR carcass.


thanks to Florian from the Whole Gallery, H+H bldg, for the contribution of these Dream Machines. They were mounted to turntables and set to revolve in mirrored cycles.

the night before the shoot we sure burned the midnight shampoo. at the last minute we were inspired to remove the metal tubing from the dryer exhaust to make a "transporter beam".



above pic prior to bzz cut.

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the next day, 11am comes on strong for our "stars", 75% of whom had had some drinks the night before. Dr. Drew was the half of Matmos that entered the set not hungover from the previous eve's saturnalia.


Much thanks go to Ed and Cameron, the "soft haired boys" (term c/o Merril Feitell), who portrayed lab cabana boys. Here Grace Bedwell applies eye makeup to Ed. Grace continued with her role from our first shoot - a sinister harvester and project manager for "GASA".



Martin Schmidt, when first approached about his role in the GASA lab scenes, asked, "am i being typecast as a 'science guy' again?".

He was superb playing his nearly natural persona.

Here Eric and Ed at work....

Buzz cut scene with Grace and Dan...


Above photo Dan directs Grace, post bzz.

Tom directs Martin post Bzz.

Lastly, Cameron's mouth as trash compactor....

This scene has been edited. We worked on the sound design while at Steim in Amsterdam. We have shown this scene to numerous friends/family as well as to an audience in Amsterdam and to an art class at Maryland Institute, College of Art (thx to Stephanie Barber). Although not finished to 100%, this has been our first scene to help us see how our vision of the film back in the drawing phase will feel once carried out with edits and sound design.