Tsilindr - SoundSage

Behind The Scenes | Collision Fashion Film … Continue readingBehind The Scenes | Collision

Collision original music composition for Corker-Brown's fashion film featuring designs of the same name … Continue readingCollision

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In this episode of #SparkplugPodcast, we’re joined by Paolo Morena, The Mighty Small; a 21st-Century one man band using a vast knowledge of instruments and looping techniques to bring forward a full sound.

Paolo has been performing weekly gig livestreams every Friday night during quarantine, and we had a chance to catch him last week (April 17th) where Paolo discusses their upcoming acoustic album. We also discuss Paolo’s songwriting processes and go in depth about crafting albums.

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One artist who comes to mind by the very definition of “All in One,” and absolutely lives up to that title – he is so multi-talented and uses his broad scope of music knowledge and mastery often with looping pedals to literally be a 21st-Century One Man Band; I’m talking about Paolo Morena, The Mighty Small himself. And damn, can he play.

Paolo and I got put in touch through a mutual friend; of course we hit it off; we’re both idealistic artists who love what we do more than anything else. Paolo does live looping shows, you start with one instrument and ten minutes of building later he’s essentially up on stage singing with a ten-piece band.

First Last Words #01, Pre-Collision

Photography & Arrangement By Jonathan DeMelkon (Instagram)

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In this episode of #SparkplugPodcast we’re joined by Isaac F. Davis, a writer/director as well as the founder/president of Identity Production Studios.

We discuss Isaac’s latest film, Solo Orange, his upcoming work, as well as directing, emotion, and passion. Jonathan DeMelkon talks about Tsilindr and we share moments of our crews, running our respective production companies, and our experience telling stories.

Identity Production Studios LLC is a media production company specializing in professional film, broadcast, and live event production. Our slogan “Never Cease to Imagine” combines the ambitious mindset and full commitment we have to create exceptional quality results for our clients. We want clients to understand the image they envision is tied to their imagination.

IDPS’ Website

You can view Solo Orange for free on YouTube here
And read about it here on the IDPS Website

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Recorded during an evening commute last month, on this episide of Sparkplug on Tsilindr I speak with a friend and colleague, Cássio; we discuss communication, immigrants and moving to a new country, as well as the Chef’s love for cooking and putting love into one’s work.

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Well, we did it! I’m really happy I wrote this, there’s a lot I’ve always wanted to get out and share my story, and it’s just the beginning. I want my ideals of love and truth to be accessible because I genuinely think they’re worth reading. I don’t mean this with ego, I just genuinely want to share my ideologies. It’s a crazy time because the Covid-19 pandemic definitely inspired me to write this, novella, blog post, vlog thing – whatever it ends up being, at least it’s documented now. So now I could die of Corona and people could least now know what I was trying to do with my life.

I have so many things I haven’t said, but I am happy with the current format of this piece. It acts as a catch-up for all the times I didn’t write, freeing me mentally for more current and relevant thoughts to share. I want to go back and give some projects their own writeups, but again I breezed through to give the jist and catch up to the now. This is me where I am in life and you have access to many moments and ways of thinking which got me here.

There are many people I haven’t mentioned, many crew members and I haven’t even mentioned friends outside of work. I love you all, don’t worry. You are all beautiful people and if or when the time comes, I can’t wait to share our experiences.

This collection of writings was a little subconscious excuse to not launch Tsilindr, but it’s been productive, and there’s still a little of the backlog being edited. On the bright side, so many blog posts though! I feel like I know myself more than ever after writing all of this, which I genuinely believe is essential moving forward with this creative enterprise. I can’t wait to share Tsilindr with everyone and our future plans of various media released. I hope my words on love were well-received by anyone reading, and I hope this gave people stronger insight into my current paradigm.

Most of all, I hope everyone is staying safe. I wish everyone good health in these times and beyond. If you’re in isolation, I encourage you to write about your own life, or find a creative outlet in something. I have gained so much knowledge into myself through this form of expression, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one. I hope we can all make the best of Coronavirus in isolation (and for those who are in worse condition I sincerely hope you make it out okay, and encourage you to reflect on life and focus on love as well) and remember that we are all in this together, pretty much the entire world, in this crazy moment in time. We’re all humans living a collective experience, and it’s always worth smiling back more.

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The first position Rae, Ryan, and I were looking for to bring on to Collision was the choreographer. I was looking for someone who knew contemporary dance and ballet, was able to work with the emotional beats I had laid out, and was able to work with props. I wanted the piece to be felt, and choreographed improv suited us best for Collision. We met many talented choreographers but the one we went for was literally the last interview scheduled.

I met Akti Konstantinou the second week of January and just from her outfit I already knew we’d get along; it’s called taste, darling. We chatted about the vision, and I learned her approach. She loved the garments and loved the emotion; we were already bouncing ideas back and forth – after discussion Rae, Ryan, and I welcomed Akti to the Collision crew.

What Akti brought to the table was something very special. Of course, the dancers were some of the best I’ve worked with as well. I attended the first rehearsal which was mostly getting to know everyone, warming up, and getting into the vibe of the emotional arc. I was on a location scout with Rae and Ryan while the performers were rehearsing the second week; and I briefly spoke with Akti, but it’s one of those where I just knew that she “got it.” It’s my job to make sure all creatives involved understand what’s in my head, and I trusted Akti entirely to deliver; what I saw on the third rehearsal, the dress rehearsal, was so beautiful. Akti and I barely spoke in between and I just left her to it, and I love being able to trust people. The foundation was placed in magnificent fashion, I came in and finessed things like wanting to see more of an angry build, and making it more exponential, but I emphatically felt the emotional beats of Collision as they were happening in front of me, and it was so special.

From involving a choreographer, we built the rest of the crew. This was easier, as we had people to already call on and we could already vet the people we knew much more easily. I brought on a very good DoP I had worked with prior ages ago, Dave Wyatt – who again, trust. I said what I wanted, he made it happen. The lighting was great from Chris Wilson, a gaffer who I’ve worked with many times now. They rigged two large (1.2 HMI) lights on a forklift which was a fun experience; it really set the tone in real life as well as on screen.

Most importantly, we made both days. We got every shot we planned for and we wrapped on time. Absolute cheers to Rohan Reddy for that one. Every Assistant Director has their own methods, some are a bit yelly others are a bit one-on-one. The bottom line is if you can control a crew and manage time while working under stress, you did your job as an AD. If you’ve ever been on an independant production, you know that sentence is way easier said than done. Rohan is both likeable and authoritative; and as a director who can get carried away wanting the best performance possible, I absolutely need someone that checks all of the aforementioned boxes.

Here’s another notebook excerpt:

So we did day 1 yesterday and man does it look good – this is the most talented cast and crew I would have only dreamed of; except they’re real, they’re here, and they’re downstairs enjoying pancakes – what a beautiful delightful way to enjoy Shrove Tuesday. We get to depict emotion for a living, and people believe in what we have to say. I believe in Tsilindr and a strong fruitful future of bringing vision with heart to the world, always rooted in truth and love.

Let’s shine, day 2 is here and I’m more than ready to bring the vision of Collision to life. Let’s kick ass!

Honestly, if any one cast or crew member had changed in Collision, it wouldn’t have been the same production or product. I won’t name-drop everyone, but please know I love all of you for what you brought to Collision.

I’ve rarely been in a position to have someone else edit my own work. It’s a combination of not having met an editor I could trust as well as not having a budget (or lack thereof) to justify asking someone to dedicate so many hours in front of a computer. I’d known Ben Robertson-Kay (who was our DIT) for some time and I had heard only great things about his skills as an editor, so when it came up in conversation that I would be open to seeing someone else’s take on the vision, it was a no-brainer.

I spent the entire production process of Collision learning to root everything in love and trust, being surrounded by some of the best people I knew for the job. Getting an editor was the logical next step. I love editing, but fresh eyes bring something new always. Ben has ideals and focuses on the performance and the vision, he loves what he does and he loves telling a story through cuts. He gets what has to be done, and he pushes himself for the best product possible. His verisimilitude is palpable in his work. There’s that word again. I am so grateful to continue to expand the crew and it also lets me focus on the main thing for me – directing. I want Tsilindr to scale, so I can’t edit forever. I didn’t try to edit Collision, but I can confidently say that Ben’s edit is leagues beyond what I could have done.

Dave and I met up shortly after Collision with Aiden Tobin, the colour legend himself. Aiden has been my go-to since we met during Vive Le Rock. It’s come to a point where I know his style, he knows my style, and we just bash through looks and the colour grade. Love and trust. He knows way more about colour science than I probably ever will, and he’s a brilliant artist himself.

The way I approached the music to Collision was by only directing through emotional beats, not visuals. I sat down with composer Max Cambridge and told him the same emotions which the dancers and Akti knew. Curiosity to frustration building up to explosive anger until a moment of realisation and release with understanding that peace is good and we can’t let everything the world throws our way get to us. I also relayed this to Paolo Morena who is doing drums for us, as well as Richard Nash who is our guitarist. As I type this, we’re still working on the composition, and the virus slowed us down a bit. From everything so far and making sure they all understand the emotion fully, everyone is absolutely killing it and nailing the tone without even having seen the film. On our “Recording Day” we’ll go through the last batch of notes and they will finally see what they’ve been composing to. It’s fascinating to direct purely from emotion, they’re such talented people and I’ll write a lot more about the process once it’s done.

The most important thing is belief in the project. I can believe in it, no worries – it’s my job to and it’s my vision. Cool, but I can’t carry twenty people who don’t think the same way. We are artists and entertainers in a beautiful industry where we get to create, tell stories, and depict emotion as a job. Every crew member is crucial to making the vision happen, and I firmly believe every position creatively involved or not should both love and believe in what they are contributing to. We are a collective, and we all elevate each other. I know to always approach anything with love, no matter the position, and I know in my heart and through the proof right in front of me that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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I love old, tangible, slightly-less-effecient-but-much-more-worthwhile things.

I have so many notebooks. I made my first serious one to kickstart 2019, and from there my ideas exploded into so many projects, themes, and categories. I wrote a feature in one, which was a wonderful exercise and I will probably do it again. Not always, but I enjoyed it. I have one for comedy ideas, one for another feature that I’ve just outlined so far, one as a recipe book for my cooking vlog Tesseract Kitchen, one for Tsilindr, and many more. There’s a freedom that comes with just having the pen and not being bound by 1’s and 0’s. To me, it’s more intimate as well. I put love into my notebooks; they’re physical so it’s possible, but loving a machine just isn’t the same. I think we’re having the same thoughts after that last sentence. You can hold your notebooks and fill them with ideas and stories and look back on them like a photo album. I enjoy going over old notes or ideas multiple times and with each pass I use a different coloured pen to signify the passage of time and growth of the concept. Something something tablet and stylus, yeah not the same but it’s great too – there’s room and purpose for both in this world.

I’m looking over next to me now and I have the bookshelf with the Kodak Box Brownie Oli Prout gave me, a medium format folding camera my housemate bought to join the pretty shelf collection, as well as both the Zenits mentioned in my words over Photography. Analogue is special, and tangible is something I love.

When I first moved to London one of the first larger purchases I made was on two speakers, and I had wanted a record player for as long as I could remember. I’m not the biggest audiophile in the world, but if I’m buying a record player I would want it to be pretty good quality so it’s a one-off investment. For example, the speakers I have are mid-range and I will probably always have them. The thing about phonographs is you also need the vinyls to play, and that gets expensive. I realised what I honestly wanted was a method to play music start to finish, experience an album without a shuffle button, and have it on a physical format. Computers are distracting, so a tape deck it was! Did I say audiophile earlier?

I have loved going into record shops and asking what their cassette collection is like. Most of the time, one of the workers has to go to the back and pull out a shoebox half-filled with cassettes – sometimes they’re out in the open. If I get even more lucky there’s new cassettes from local artists; I have discovered some weird and beautiful music from record shops, and it’s quite entertaining to me going in to some massive stores to ignore the CDs and vinyls, but one I can stream for the same experience and the other isn’t in the budget for the time being.

With cassettes, you can also make mixtapes. I love assembling a bunch of songs of whatever the vibe is at the moment or a compilation of what I’ve been listening to over the past months to act as a time capsule. You can listen back to what you used to listen to, memories from that mixtape in particular, and look back on that part of life. Before and after moments again and again. The titular track to one of my mixtapes from last year (and I put it on again just now for verisimilitude and all) is Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A ‘Changin which has been a lovely little time capsule spanning After Loopy Tunes to Pre-Collision.

There was a big release the day after Collision, it was months and months of prep and emotion and life in between as well; and it was over. Well, not over but it was in the can. I got home in the afternoon after returning kit, made myself a very sugary and oat-milky earl grey and played this mixtape; I cried my fucking eyes out the entire time, but it was happy. I really love everyone and what we came together to make.

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When I understood to root experience in love and verisimilitude, I was able to understand myself more as well. Starting from the core of my belief system has led me to here today, writing this piece. Knowing who I am and what I believe in and what I want from life at this current moment in time and knowing how to scale it in order to grow further has been a beautiful journey.

I’ve pretty much always wanted to be a director, evident in my words about my very formative high school career. I always knew the basics of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but something happened that I knew not only what I was, but who I was as well.

I’m a writer. I depict emotions, and I love it. That’s me at my core, I want people to feel something worthwhile. As a writer, directing is a logical path; for me I also love bringing people together, I have always seen traits in people and have known who fits what position just based off of personality. I’m not claiming to be special in any way shape or form; I am simply claiming who I am. I love people, I love that everyone has something different going on and that we are all experiencing life through a different lens. Every single person on this planet has a different story worth telling and sharing.

Life can be looked at as a mirror. Whatever you are going through and everything that surrounds you as a person is your inner journey personified. Life is simply a manifestation of our collective selves. I learned a lot about me by making this timeline, and I imagine you would have a similar experience if you did the same. It’s not the first time I’ve looked back on my life, and it isn’t the first time I’ve written about it, but that’s probably helped with the structure and organisation if nothing else.

The best way to know yourself is to understand how you got to where you are today. What is in your psyche that led to wherever you may be reading this? To the job you have? The people in your life? The things you like, the places you’ve been – backtrack everything and piece together the puzzle that is you.

Here’s a recent excerpt from my notebook:

Man, we’ve come a long way since Loopy Tunes. It’s been such a privilege spending this time not only developing Collision, but developing myself. Learning the definition of peace and falling even more in love with this beautiful experience called life has shaped me in many ways and I look forward to the paradigm constantly evolving even more to welcome further growth.

Experience is a reflection of soul and it’s up to us to smile back to the mirror.

Love is the most powerful driving force out there.

When you know who you are at the core, it sets you free, when you feed this driving force with love then miracles happen.

I wrote that the night before we shot Collision, February 23rd 2020.

If life’s a mirror, I encourage you to smile back more.

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“Love is the beginning of the answer to everything…”

Gregory J. Baker

It’s a simple concept – approach everything with love. That’s a major theme of my writings so far, and it works. There’s been studies on growing plants and if you are loving towards them they grow better; if you are rude and angry to the plants, they suffer. Rooting every single approach in love yields unimaginable results. Clean your house lovingly, be grateful for the life you have, give the food you cook love & colours, approach conflicts with love, put love into your work, you get the point. It’s easy, and it’s beautiful.

When the sun is shining this is easier of course, but what about during downpour?

Love the rain for what it is, love the dark clouds and understand these things pass. It doesn’t rain forever, and you can either be angry at the sky for bringing the mood down all the time and learn to hate it or you can appreciate it for what it gives you and love the sun even more this way. You can embrace the gloomy weather and use it to write or stay in and watch movies, or you can embrace it by diving straight in. You can love it and dance around like an idiot, or you can simply take an umbrella out with you. Or, even no umbrella, maybe just a newspaper over your head as you run for the cab.

What if the rain cuts deeper? What if it’s like acid or something, and stepping outside scolds your skin within moments? Like, raining Xenomorph blood; what then? Okay so let’s imagine the worst case scenario is it rains over ninety percent of the time, so you’re stuck inside. Talk about quarantining. You didn’t immediately think you were stuck inside, but you learned it by going outside enough and getting your skin melted off. Do you hate the sky? Hate the clouds? Hate the planet? The atmosphere doesn’t know any better, it’s just cracking on with it’s own thing. You can hate existence or you can make the best of being stuck inside for the time being. Maybe your car is kept in a garage and you can venture away without the rain getting to you and driving you (no pun intended) towards resentment.

Hypothetically speaking, there’s less than ten percent of this theoretical day in which it doesn’t rain deadly alien blood. So even if you don’t have a car or an umbrella or a magic steel newspaper, you can always leave. But not out of fear, please. Fear destroys while love creates, and the truth of the matter is the sky doesn’t know any better. It rains acid because this is how it has always been, and maybe temperatures will shift and the climate will change, but sometimes the season never comes. Leaving the rain isn’t giving up on it, it’s moving forward. Love the silly sci-fi sky for what it is and understand that it doesn’t know any better. Laugh at the craziness and wish it the best next Spring; hell, it’ll make for good stories & artistic expression, and maybe Xenomorph rain for you is patchouli rainbow-feathers to someone else. More likely something in-between, but man before/after life events can definitely cause change.

I sincerely wished that the hyperbolic metaphor above didn’t apply to people, but I know it does. I understand that my happy optimistic words can be easier said than done, and I am fully aware of mental health issues and disorders that occur. Every step counts, and habits can be formed, I know this much. It’s easier to live a life full of sunshine when you live in a sunny location, please keep this in mind. Surround yourself with love and love will bounce back; be true to yourself and to others and the rest will come.

All of this love stuff should be driven by verisimilitude. What is verisimilitude? Well, I’m glad you finally asked – verisimilitude just happens to be my favourite word at the moment! The word is used to describe something with a semblance of truth or genuine nature. I personally use it synonymously with “genuine.” I want to display it in my life, I want to display it in everything I create; in Tsilindr, in my writings, in my characters, my scripts, food, projects, relationships, etcetera.

These words are the core of a belief system, I can share what and how I’ve implemented these methods but always remember, it’s just the beginning of everything else.

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Part 7, Before Loopy Tunes - Blog HerE: https://tsilindr.com/demelkon/beforeloopytunesflw

I like to reference to life-events (before/after) as references for time passing as well as changes occuring - I started to learn so much about love and have gained so much greater understanding of myself after a music shoot entitled Loopy Tunes; the project itself wasn't a massive paradigm shift, but being surrounded by the crew members whom I love so much and meeting new people during this time led to me gaining my new found love for, well, love.

Hope you enjoy xx

-J

Paolo Morena on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMightySmall/

Audio Mastered By Fain https://fain-music.bandcamp.com/ … Continue readingBefore Loopy Tunes | First Last Words #07

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Hey all, and Welcome To Tsilindr! Blog Post Here: https://tsilindr.com/?p=1218

Here I talk about this beautiful company, Tsilindr Media, and what I believe in running it moving forward

Audio Mastered By Fain https://fain-music.bandcamp.com/ … Continue readingTsilindr | First Last Words #06

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Part Five - Before London; Blog Post HerE: https://tsilindr.com/?p=1216

This is a summary of my life before London, from High School to University to working as a freelance camera assistant and what drove me to always pursue what I love the most; directing, depicting emotion, and storytelling

Hope you enjoy :)

-J

Audio Mastered By Fain https://fain-music.bandcamp.com/ … Continue readingBefore London | First Last Words #05

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Part 4, Emotion! Blog Post Here: https://tsilindr.com/?p=1213

I love emotion, I love pin-pointing what makes people feel certain ways, and I love depicting it through storytelling and motion picture art. Emotion is beautiful and this is my take on the infinitely-expansive subject. Hope you enjoy!

-J

Audio Mastered By Fain https://fain-music.bandcamp.com/ … Continue readingEmotion | First Last Words #04

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Part 4! Understanding Character! Blog Post HerE: https://tsilindr.com/?p=1210

In this chapter of First Last Words, I talk about my process of writing characters and storytelling, getting involved in the world and the emotion, and I am definitely still learning these processes I am simply sharing where I am now in my journey - hope someone found it helpful!

-J

Audio Mastered By Fain https://fain-music.bandcamp.com/ … Continue readingUnderstanding Character | First Last Words #03

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Part 2, Photography! Blog Post Here: https://tsilindr.com/?p=1207

Hey all, in this section of FLW, I talk about my passionate love for photography, specifically my love for analogue photography! Enjoy xx

-J

Audio Mastered By Fain https://fain-music.bandcamp.com/ … Continue readingPhotography | First Last Words #02

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Part ONE! Pre-Collision - Blog Post Here: https://tsilindr.com/demelkon/precollisionflw/

In this section I talk about Collision, a fashion film that explores trauma & PTSD and everything that came before it that is currently on the Tsilindr catalogue of beautiful work

You can view Corker-Brown's work here: https://www.corkerbrown.com/collision

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