East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Miranda July did this amazing independent movie two years ago called “Me and You and Everyone We Know”, in which she was director, star, and writer. The movie blew me away, but what blew me away even more was months later is I saw how she made it. She came to talk at Berkeley campus, and I attended it, and it turns out is whole approach to art is collaborative, and she even made her entire talk collaborative.

For instance, while we were in line she got some volunteers to get names of people that were in the line. Once we shuffled into our seats, she asked people to raise their hands if they’d seen one of her shorts. While we watched it, those people went out into the hall and made a movie. When the short was over, they returned, and she showed the movie — each was a short scene where someone said things like “Michael Clipper, you are great kisser” or “George Markson, you are so warm and loving” or “Lisa Kirlin, I love how you dress”. All of the people named were in audience, and didn’t know the people making these statements, so were very surprised. The trick was that she had each “actor” say something that they wanted someone to say about themselves, but put someone elses name it in it.

She went on to show a number of other ways to get non-actors to act with truth. One trick was that she had the an audience member read with their back to the audience and the other actor — she showed how it freed them from as much fear.

The whole evening was wonderful, so I had to go back to the movie to see it again, and I saw how she probably used these same techniques to draw the best out of the actors, and in particular, the children actors she used in the movie.

– Christopher Allen

She also has some of her quirky audio work in her myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/mirandajuly

– Christopher Allen