How did Encyclopedia Pictura get started? Did you & Isaiah Saxon know each other in school?

Isaiah founded EP in school, later partnering with Sean Hellfritsch. I was already out of school. He saw some photos I had been doing, so he approached me to be a collaborator and member of the group. This happened at a point where I was feeling like working on my own projects independently and I had some judgmental ideas about music videos, so I was pretty peripheral for a long time - doing some effects and sharing the shop with him. I built several of the hero puppets and prosthetics from his designs, like the blue river god in "Wanderlust" and the blobman prosthetic in the Zion I video.

 I also did a couple of films from my own designs with Isaiah and Sean, using prosthetics, sets and backdrop painting. One of them is nearing completion called "the Tale of HIllbelly", which was done under the collaborative name of Mangello Tipperary, but I think now we may release it under the EP name. I think at a certain point we were working so closely on our projects that it seemed ridiculous to be under separate roofs. So after Wanderlust was done I really came on in a creative way to EP.

The connection between Isaiah and I go way back. Our parents were friends when we were toddlers but they hadn't seen each other in twenty years. The first meeting on the phone was a real surprise encounter and childhood harkenback.

What were your first projects? For whom?

My first professional job that anybody would be interested in hearing about was as a fabricator on "the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" - 25 stop-motion puppets that appear scattered through the film. The building of stop-motion puppets is kind of like classical art for filmmaking and I think it was a good place to start. We also got to work in the ILM model shop with all the old Star Wars models - and old Starwars modelmakers! This led to some work for ILM - that was a bummer even tho I really learned a lot, they were getting ready to downsize the model shop.

It was my supervisor on the Life Aquatic - Martin Munier - who I ended up sharing a modelshop in Hunters Point with for a couple of years. He's the hardest working person I know - he now works in Portland for the company that just made Coraline. At one point we had worked together - for that Jamie guy that eventually became one of those Mythbuster guys - and that's how we first met.

It was after a couple of years working as an effects modelmaker that I got the skills to make photographs look at like paintings. That was freeing for me because I was able to make all kinds of illustrative ideas I had but weren't suitable for fine art painting or sculpture. I started looking at the photographs of Charlie White, Jeff Wall, and Cindy Sherman and seeing Matthew Barney using so many effects techniques I thought 'i could do it, they're just using rubber and photoshop'. 

So I asked a photographer friend to show me the ropes and made photos for a while. The photos seem a bit quant to me me now, but I could still see doing more of those. In film you can use a model for a lot more, but with photos you just get one shot and you're done, you can really do much else with it - so the process isn't very efficient. Plus art photos have pretty limited viewership and I don't think the gallery scene is very healthy right now.

Where do you find inspiration?

Just having a clear mind creates the conditions where inspiration can happen.

Being with a group of people is a great resource. I think about what Francis Crick said about making sure you're never the smartest person in the room. If you just ask them what they're into they'll tell you all sorts of good ideas. Mixed in are all kinds of themes that aren't supposed to appear in films - these are actually the best backbone for a film. So, I just listen to what people are talking about and think 'they're interested in it - maybe other people would - would it be cinematic?' but it has to appeal to you most of all since you'll have to own it creatively. 

I also try to steal my favorite passages from paintiings or films that I liked. Some of the best ideas are transferred genetically this way over centuries so we don't need to be guilty about it. Most ideas are genes we pass along without even thinking about it, anyway.

Getting in the right frame of mind is key. It's about your surroundings, too. Responsible drug use will free up the creative mind and let in a little chaos, but if you're living alone in a squalid apartment you probably will just be bummed out. I would also never consider it a substitute for being in practice or having experiences, but creativity has an irrational side, I think. I've started running over the last few months and I've found that my ability to draw has improved. Also, non-religious meditation is good for getting a clear slate. 

Cross-country road trips are very good for coming up with elaborate plans, but it makes a lot of CO2 so maybe just a long hike alone is better.

What are you working on now?

Right at the moment we're building a creative community in the hills of Aptos, which is just two hours from San Francisco. We're all from this area so it feels pretty suitable to be here for us, but we're laying the groundwork for a collaborative setting where we can bring in collaborators from outside and have the forest be a part of the dynamic. So much better than the warehouses with blackened windows that most films seem to be made in. We're inviting people to contact us who have skills in Computer Animation and Horticulture and Farming to join.

There's an existing house on the preperty. But we're building the new infrastructure from the ground up - we've been building an outdoor kitchen, a kitchen garden, humanure bathrooms, and terracing the hillsides to absorb rainwater. Also, we've been doing managed grazing with goats of the overgrown areas, which also provides us with copious amounts of milk. Eventually, we want to build living structures and a studio/village that operates sort of like an art residency or hostel. We spent six months hosting and participating in a permaculture class here, so we could have some confidence that the space we're creating will be holistically managed by its members - human, animal and vegetable.

We've been moving forward on a kids adventure film that incorporates themes of farming and technology and will be in 3d. This would be done over the next five years, give or take.

We're currently finishing up compositing on a short film entitled "The Tale of HIllbelly". As a result of the incoming wave of work and the crucial deadlines the project was on hold but I've been gradually wittling away at it. I'm actually glad to have had a chance to feel out what the final look is supposed to be and have been painting over photos of built models. Before, I think I had less of an appreciation for how much detail people can actually take in.

Any comments you'd like to make about the Academy of Art University? Your instructors? Fellow students? The environment?

I have a mixture of feelings about the Academy. A lot of people seemed to get breaks because their family was footing the bill, so they didn't take the work seriously. Often whole classes turned into mediocre settings. Or else students are personally borrowing so much money that they think they need to sacrifice they're own ideas for some career goal - as if getting A's equals some amazing creative job offered up upon graduating.

I also think its unfortunate that the Academy is located downtown because the financial district is probably the most uninspiring place you could be in SF and it made me very depressed. They need a campus, with trees and places that people can meet and talk that aren't lit by fluorescents. The dorm-tenderloin culture is terrible.

The neo-classical vibe in the fine art departments were pretty much in keeping with the 16-year-old fascination with anatomy and classical art that I had when I entered school. But working too long in that vein took me into a creative dead end when I realized there were no good contemporary models that I could emulate. The best paintings and sculptures are now being created with movements and sounds and are called films and video games.

When I started working for money in model shops I got around effects people who understood the practicalities of building a lot better than the people I encountered in school. What was demanded by professionals in real creative situations, although it was hard sometimes to be working commercially, made me muscular enough flex it a little myself. School didn't do that for me. 

 It's the connections you make, too. In school, meeting teachers like this is hard. I know the academy has a policy of hiring professionals, but it seemed pretty loose to me. The professionals are, not surprisingly, out there practicing their profession.

But the crucial thing is that I think the school is aging well. Their tools have attracted enough tapped in, motivated students who could make the into school more of a cooperative. 

I know now that there were people there, Isaiah for example, who were talented and heading through with purpose - struggle to locate them. Trying to find collaborators in school was not a priority for me, but if I was there again it would be. I realized later that's the main thing art school is for.

On the other hand, if you took the fifty thousand dollars you spent at school, got an apartment, and just spent the same amount of time you did at school in practice, collaborations and internships - you'd break even. The advantage with this approach is at the end of four years you have the relationships that you need, relationships are the most key thing after your own skills. So, if your internship was well picked you're already in the world that you aspired to be in. most people consider doing this but few do cuz you really seem to have dropped out to parents, or whoever.

My grandmother died part of the way thru school, which made it easy for me to pay off my loans. But I didn't really have a backup plan. If that hadn't happened I'd still be worried about how to pay it off, like Sean and Isaiah are now.

If you're practicing on a daily basis you're already doing fifty percent of what people think they need school for. Now that the internet is awesome, you shouldn't have much trouble finding the specific details you need to make stuff. Instead of waiting around to be told how to do it, I would take that fifty thousand and rent a studio with some friends, live there and make stuff.

Having said all this I appreciate the encouragement and support I did get from teachers. I made professional connections and got jobs through school, which I was too shy to get myself. I think the library there was invaluable and the access to computer tools and film equipment are an amazing resource that I was able to take advantage of even though my major was sculpture. 

Any advice for others wanting to enter the world of independent film making?

I don't think there is any model for entering that world. There's too much changing now to prescribe a course to follow. Even the idea of independent filmmaking seems like a misnomer, when you think about how collaborative filmmaking is. I would advise people who don't know how to start to find people working at a high level and do whatever it takes to stand nearby and steal their methods and work with them. 

Also, it's amazing what we can accomplish when we don't need to get credit. Give yourself over to the work and be around people who care about the message and you'll grow and get satisfaction. If you retain a little of your individuality and follow your nose about what looks good and bad you'll be able to come correct when you have some creative control over a large project. 

If you're into risking it all you should spend your own money and your parents and friends money and not expect to do anything except amazing work. Consider it your gift to the world that may result in a future opportunity. But you won't see justice play out in this system, you may not even make good work. But in ten years you might... The only promise that's kept is that when your project is finished, you have experience. Try to work in a methodical and simple way so you can do again if it works.

Follow your nose. If you don't know how to do the bold work that you know you ought to be doing, think about what makes your own stomach knot, your pulse rise, your eyes avert. Any of these things have a visceral meaning for you and will be enough to sustain you in the long late hours. Run it by people that you respect first - regular people who have no connection to the world of film or art but who seem like the people you'd want to reach. if you can make them comprehend what you're sayiing and react viscerally by simply describing what you imagine to them, then you probably have it by the tale. Take blank looks and confusion seriously, you'll be spending the next few months or even years of your life bringing this into reality. 

If you want to have creative control eventually over the visual side of you films, learning to draw is key. Anything that can be drawn can be a blueprint for a film crew or effects studio to recreate filmically, so drawing is describing, drawing is writing.