Brightest Young Things

It's a setup. Lets be honest.

 

 

I am the worst possible person to interview Eileen Yaghoobian, the Director of Died Young Stayed Pretty. I have followed the scene she is detailing for far longer. I know a number of the people interviewed personally. I have enough knowledge about the subject matter to have written several books around it including one international smash. In short, I am the over-educated diehard that is the very audience likely to be dismayed by the final product on the screen.

 

 

To say that my viewing was hypercritical would be an understatement.

 

I entered into our interview prepared to dissect and perhaps even question her focus in making this film. I was expecting things to get contentious quickly.

 

 

 

Instead, I encountered an excited voice that managed to talk ten times more than I do (which is really saying something) that forced me to rethink all my preconceived notions and to ditch my desire for a film made for a marginal audience and embrace one made for everyone to enjoy:

 

 

 

BYT:What inspired you to tackle the gigposter movement?

 

EY: A friend of mine sent me to gigposters.com.. at the time my brother had died and I was grieving and my friend knows my sense of humor and thought it would cheer me up. I just connected to the imagery, the graphics, all of the 70's kind of artwork in the posters. I liked the way that they used... I had done a lot of work in the past about the landscape of America - the americana - and I liked that they used the old images from the backs of magazines from a time when the sense of americana was golden and here it was regurgitated on a poster and I just connected to it on a gut level. I recall an image of a polar bear and he is eating these kids in a crib and it just hit me that kind of humor and I wanted to make a movie about the kind of dialogue that was happening in the posters and that is what drives the movie. What's going on in the posters and the artists sort of holding on to that golden time period and... did I actually answer your question?

 

 

 

BYT: It's alright. Your answers are doing just fine, don't you worry. They are a lot better than short answers.

 

EY: I just think it's wonderful. I just kept looking at them (the posters) more and more and it was related in a way as my previous work as a photographer had a similar theme that I was attracted to.

 

 

 

BYT: From there, did you set out to make something more along the lines of how the site was bringing together this community and then that kind of got derailed through the interviewing?

 

EY: No, never. It was always what was happening then. At the time... what I love about this movie is the small town, the industrial town landscape of America. The americana, these kitschy things, the pop culture. They are wonderful and I loved seeing those on a rock poster and I wanted to talk about that. Talk about a time that has gone by and a time that exists now and what they are doing - basically they are appropriating this anonymous time and they are putting it on a rock poster and creating this dialogue... Art Chantry talks about the "emotional makeup" in America and how that is shifting and you have these collectors of these things and they really are a piece of art now instead of a rock poster and... the emotional shift happened in America and Art points to this image of two children holding hands (from the 50s) and then years later it means something (more sinister) and it's how those images become twisted and how we got from this golden age in America and taking that and putting it on something that is supposed to be rock and roll and it's punk or whatever and...

 

 

 

BYT: Yeah, I get the cultural baggage aspect. I think that someone like...

 

EY: Well, it's not about the site as much as it is about - I mean the end result was unintentionally, but wonderfully in it's own way, maybe because I did a lot of my own research on gigposters because there are very few books to read on these people before I started the process and went through all the work they had been doing - but again it ended up being that the movie had this feeling - and there is so much information in it and it's so quick that it is kind of like gigposters (the site) in a weird way because there is lots of cool things going on. But because of my research... the style just took that feel and carried on.

 

 

 

 

BYT: A little bit in the way that the film is segmented reminded me of the way the threads are broken out - not as much now, but in the old days of having Frank Kozik and Chantry sparring over political things.

 

EY: Yeah. I could have done that movie too. I have the footage for it. But you know, the two guys fighting - but I just didn't want to do that. You hear those guys ranting about each other and you don't want to do that. They were just going at each other then.

 

 

 

BYT: They still do it now. They just have more people in the conversation I think.

 

EY: On the site, the people from the movie have all already checked out from that or they blog about their art. Kleinsmith and Ames Bros, most of them have checked out of really participating in the site. I mean Chantry was x'd out for years. When we were filming he was x'd out on gigposters.

 

 

 

BYT: I think that was a self imposed exile. He went back and deleted a lot of his comments.

 

EY: Right... right - so you've been following gigposters?

 

 

 

BYT: I am familiar. The xoxo. (Chantry replaced all of his previous comments on the boards with simply "xoxo.")

 

EY: I like that though. I don't know...

 

 

 

BYT: Art is the one that really plays that role to the hilt. Rob Jones is someone who is sort of an Art Chantry in training, if that makes sense? Art really has it down to a masterstroke at this point.

 

EY: (giggles)

 

 

 

BYT: The same way that Tom Hazelmyer has the grumpy old punk guy down.

 

EY: That's great.

 

 

 

BYT: I am sure you had tons of footage and a million ways to paint this but I was surprised at how prevalent Tom was in the movie, until I felt that he really personified the grumpy old man voice that is so prevalent in the scene, Did you see him as filling that role?

 

EY: Well, that's what the whole thing is about. The "look at me, how come I'm not glorified." There is that attitude. That attitude that comes with the whole scene - even in the music. This feeling that maybe they are superior because they have the biggest record album collection or I know this better than anybody. Do you know what I am talking about? It just comes with that scene.

 

 

 

BYT: To me, some of the most poignant pieces in the film for me is when Rob Jones is having this long-winded explanation around Elvis and the phone rings in the middle of it. Or Noel can barely be heard over the old lady in the back of the bbq joint. To me, a lot of the people came off as the most human when they seemed like people that obviously have a lot to say, but no one is really listening to them.

 

EY: (laughter) You know what it is? I am shooting solo and it's just me there and that's me being a shooter. I've shot for 20 years and when you are a shooter you have your antennas up, and when you have your antennas up you become aware of everything on location and you instinctively have to get it. It's natural. You follow your gut. So I first put Noel away from the background, based on the walls, but I could hear this wonderful thing happening - because that's the place and he is telling me all this stuff and we hear these people in the background. I thought it wasn't going to work but I thought it would be really lovely to have these two conversations happening at the same time. So I placed him again so that we could see the place and the people and it was this cerebral thing that I did. I did the same thing with Seripop, where the street and the posters on the street and they go on top of one another and it builds, so I had it while they were talking as it fit what they were saying. And with Noel I thought it was amazing and the things they are saying are very smart and that was the most amazing thing for me - how in depth they were about everything and how aware they are about everything that is going on and around them. I mean, Noel is predicting the recession and it's 2005 and then this thing happens in the background where this guy is trying to get his wallet out of his back pocket and he can't until the teller sort or leans in and takes it from him and I thought it was kind of wonderful. If I hadn't placed them and had this narrow idea of what I was going to get, I would have missed all that.

 

 

Does that answer your question or did I totally not answer you?

 

 

 

BYT: That's alright it's...

 

EY: I mean. the distraction is the best part of it.

 

 

 

BYT: I'm going to go rapid fire on a couple things real quick. More yes or no or quick answers.

 

EY: Okay.

 

 

 

BYT: I was actually curious - did you ask the artist's to put up their own work or were so many of them actually hanging their own stuff in their studios?

 

EY: No. That's the last thing I wanted. I wanted this naturalness about it. I was living with them and they put me up so I was sleeping on their couches and I could never set it up like that. They just have all of that stuff.

 

 

 

BYT: It's interesting to see what other designers have hanging on their walls. At the moment I have a Jesse LeDoux, Seripop and a Haley Johnson printed by Thomas Scott at Eyenoise. When you see Tooth with a Bobby Dixon Scarface style poster behind him that doesn't suit any of his own work.

 

EY: But the characters look like him! His hair was all flipped up like that. I don't know if you noticed but it really matched him at the time.

 

 

 

BYT: Who had the best collection of kitsch and collectibles?

 

EY: God... well you know, of course Art Chantry has loads, but so does Rob Jones.

 

 

 

BYT: Are you going to give them a tie?

 

EY: (Laughs) Well maybe. I guess Chantry since he has been around longer. He wins.

 

 

BYT: It is obviously a good collection of witty people - what is the best line? For me it's Connie saying "Jesus never took a bad picture."

 

EY: Isn't that great? He always knew how to pose. (Laughs) What's funny about it is it's always that Jesus.

 

 

BYT: Right. I love that they use the same head on different bodies.

 

EY: I actually personally like it that she doesn't think that Clint Eastwood is a man. I really like that one.

 

 

BYT: That might top the Jesus one.

 

EY: (laughs repeating the line.) It just kind of says everything about it, the whole iconic image.

 

 

BYT: Who had the messiest studio that you visited?

 

EY: Well... oh my god. I can't answer. I am so bad on one point things. Did you see Bryce's (Isle of Printing) I mean it isn't messy but it's just loaded. Brian Chippendale - it wasn't that it was messy, but you saw his space, it was just packed. I mean... did you mean messy or like chaotic?

 

 

BYT: Messy. I think Brian's space kind of fits his work in the way that it is jam-packed from the top to the bottom.

 

EY: Right. I wouldn't call that messy. I would call that active.

 

 

BYT: His life is obviously like that.

 

EY: Creative.

 

 

BYT: What's going on with Brian's hair at the end?

 

EY: I think he cut it himself. I didn't ask him about it but he is a very good looking guy (giggles.)

 

 

 

BYT: Were you concerned about the diehards in deviating into the letterpress genre outside of the silkscreen printing.

 

EY: Well it is the same posters.

 

 

BYT: Yeah, but in the letterpress lineage I suppose Art Chantry would be replaced by Jim Sherradan at Hatch Show Print if you know what I mean.

 

EY: I did interview Jim and he just didn't end up in the cut. I have an MFA and I know the art talk and that whole world and if someone is giving me that I know what that is, but I don't want it in my movie. I didn't make a movie so people can sit there and pee themselves in their studios about how great they. That's not the film I wanted to make. I wanted to make a film that was personal, truthful and had an honesty and was transparent and I think that comes across on the screen at all times. I didn't want to go to their studio and have them sit by their wonderful work - and it is wonderful. I love the work. That's what drives the film. But I didn't want them to say how great they are and give me a pitch like they are selling something. I didn't want to put that on the screen. If that happened, then they didn't make the cut.

 

 

BYT: Thinking of people that might have fallen into that - what I noticed is that a lot the more design-centric firms aren't heavily represented. Your Methane, Decoder Ring...

 

EY: I interviewed all of those people. Decoder Ring I have hours of. I spent days with Methane. They were great too but I have 250 hours of footage. I covered all my angles. I could make 5 docs out of this. In the end, it wasn't about that - the designers vs. the illustrators. I purposely didn't put the credits there. You know, it's Connie and not Print Mafia because I come from the art world and why I've left the art world was that individualization that they do. I like to make a movie about the community and the dialogue that drives these posters - that was what drives the film. I didn't want to individualize the posters from one another. Purposely I often don't match the poster with the artist. I wanted people to delve into the world and let the posters also have their own voice and not be telling people what they should be thinking, so as a whole the movie is about the culture and the community. At end, the poster is coming from similar places. That bores me that conversation, the designer vs. illustrator. In the end they are all making rock posters.

 

 

BYT: Well...

 

EY: I am sure they were all honest, but I just didn't put them in the cut. The first cut was 5 hours long and at some point you have to make choices. You have to let the thing lead you. Everything ends up there for a reason. I have hours of Andrew Bird, but for that moment, what he says is the most important thing for that place in the movie. Same with Frank Kozik, same with Uncle Charlie.

 

Does that answer your question?

 

 

BYT: It does. From having spoken to most of these people, to me, there is someone like the Decoder, Methane, Little Friends that wouldn't have the personality of a Brian Chippendale.

 

EY: Yeah, yeah... I didn't go out trying to romanticize the idea but we all have a romantic notion of the underground and these guys are existing right on the fringes. I wondered if it even existed and I was in search of that and then the locations and the people led the film. I'm not answering your question am I?

 

 

 

BYT: How did you end up working with Mark Greenberg from The Coctails? I thought the music was a huge component. I think there was an easy route you could have taken and indie-rocked it up and it made a huge difference that you had a real score.

 

EY: That's great. One of the few notes I had for Mark was that I wanted no indie rock. Some people get angry at that, asking where's the rock? i didn't want to make a music video and it would have been that. I did try it but it would have been so horrible. I had this song from The Coctails on a John Waters Christmas compilation and I was able to get introduced and so I cut a trailer and he loved it and came on board and has been part of the movie from the very beginning. We worked with this archaic printing and it's hot and sweaty and old school in this digital age and we tried to match it with this kind of deconstructed type of music - the antithesis of the rock you would expect to hear and it's wonderful.

 

 

BYT: It comes across that you were synchronized early on. One of my favorite parts, from the editing and music coming together, is not when anyone is talking but when the old craftsman are mixing the inks.

 

EY: That's Buster! Mark scored to that cut! How lucky was I that I was there as he was mixing that ink?

 

 

BYT: The whole process gives that honest dignity. That encompasses it for me just as much as a Rob Jones Elvis/penis poster. I suppose those two things together - the Buster and the Rob Jones.

 

EY: You mean the Jones story?

 

 

BYT: No. I think what you were getting at is that not only were these people fighting against what they would consider the mainstream but they are applying their trade in an archaic, primitive way that really has no business existing.

 

EY: Isn't that amazing? I love that?

 

 

It's the primitive that we are attracted to.

 

 

I am glued to digital and I love it and I need it to make this movie, but I need to know that these guys are keeping this alive.

 

 

It's a proud moment in time.

 

 

 

Died Young Stayed Pretty screens tonight at the Corcoran with an introduction from Eileen!

 

6:30 p.m.Corcoran College of Art and Design
500 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006

Corcoran member rate $10. General public $12