CLEAR AS MUD
While Mumblecorps sounds like a public assistance program for the phonetically challenged, the term names a new filmmaking movement. According to the Austin Chronicle, the phrase was coined by Mutual Appreciation sound mixer Eric Masunga at the 2005 SXSW festival to define young filmmakers “working independently, producing microbudgeted slices of twentysomething life, marked by a fumbling inarticulacy in their talk and an exacting clarity in their attention to interpersonal dynamics.” For those of us, like the characters in these film, who find language a stumbling block, Cinephiliac provides a flow chart to make the whole thing, as you can see, crystal clear. Cinephiliac’s Aaron Hillis explains his creative process.
I’ve tried to anchor to SXSW 2007 films, since if I put in every name/film with overlap, I’d be playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon all the way back to Dziga Vertov. (For instance, the white lines of distribution are entirely specific to Benten Films, the official collaborative leap between LOL and Fish Kill Flea.) While I haven’t, say, distinguished between Craig Zobel’s position as a producer of David Gordon Green’s George Washington compared to Mike Tully’s role as hair and make-up, my point is the tangled web of interconnectedness itself, not all-encompassing accuracy.
In the upcoming issue of Filmmaker, Alicia Van Couvering gives full report on this new movement.
