Texas #1

"Texas #1" is the first film poem from filmmaking duo Pam Falkenberg and Jack Cochran to be derived from Jack's new cycle of poems, "Now and Then," which oscillates between his past in L.A. and his new experiences in Texas since relocating to Austin in 2014. "Texas #1" uses Austin, TX, as a case study in a meditation on first impressions, on the striking allure of prosaic novelty in a new environment, and on the serendipity of attention and what attracts our notice. Arresting iPhone 7 images--stealth candid shots, offbeat compositions, hypnotic tracking and moving time lapse shots from car windows--combine with re-photographed Polaroid selfies (freezing the narrator-poet character in moments of fascination) to concretize and give visual expression to the power of what captures our attention.

  • Pamela Falkenberg
    Director
  • Jack Cochran
    Director
  • Jack Cochran
    Writer
  • Pamela Falkenberg
    Producer
  • Pamela Falkenberg
    Cinematograpy
  • Pamela Falkenberg
    Production design
  • Jack Cochran
    Editing and sound design
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Other
  • Runtime:
    1 minute 35 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 29, 2017
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    iPhone 7 plus HD video
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Pamela Falkenberg, Jack Cochran

About Jack: he's an independent filmmaker who has produced, directed, or shot a variety of experimental and personal projects. As a DP he has extensive experience shooting commercials, independent features, and documentaries. Films he shot have shown at the Sundance, Raindance, Teluride, Tribeca, Edinburgh, Chicago, Houston, and Taos film Festivals, winning several honors, including the Silver Lions from Cannes, a BAFTA (British Academy Award), Peabody Awards, and Cable Aces. Jack was trained at the University of Iowa Creative Writers Workshop as well as the University of Iowa film studies program. He’s been writing poems all his life, but never knew what to do with them until he showed them to Pam, who said they should be films.

About Pam: she's an independent filmmaker who received her PhD from the University of Iowa and taught at Northern Illinois University, St.Mary's College, and the University of Notre Dame. She directed the largest student film society in the US while she was at the University of Iowa, and also ran films series for the Snite Museum of Art in South Bend, IN. Her experimental film with Dan Curry, “Open Territory,” received an individual filmmaker grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as grants from the Center for New Television and the Indiana Arts Council. OT was screened at numerous film festivals, including the AFI Video Festival, and was nominated for a regional Emmy. Her other films include museum installations, scholarly/academic hybrid works shown at film conferences, and a documentary commissioned by the Peace Institute at the University of Notre Dame. Pam wants to make all kinds of films with Jack, but she is particularly proud that she was the one to suggest that they should collaborate together to turn his poems into films.

Learn more about Pam, Jack and Outlier Moving Pictures:

outliermovingpictures.com
vimeo.com/outliermovingpictures
facebook.com/outliermovingpictures
twitter.com/outlierpics
instagram.com/outliermovingpictures

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Director Statement

Jack Cochran and Pam Falkenberg are making personal films together again under the name Outlier Moving Pictures. They hope their new films will be worthy of the name -- avoiding the usual patterns and approaching their subject matter from the margins (which sounds better than saying that as filmmakers they're oddballs and cranks). Pam and Jack met in graduate school and made films together when they were young. Jack went on to become a professional cinematographer working out of LA and London, while Pam stayed in the Midwest, where she was a college professor and independent filmmaker before dropping out to work in visual display. Their first film together, "The Cost of Living," based on some of Jack's short poems, has screened at several festivals, including the Buffalo International Film Festival and the Cornwall Film Festival. Their next film, “Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking,” two years in the making and just completed in August 2017, is an experimental essay that explores the clash between conservation and development as written on the North Dakota landscape, haunted by the prescient poetry of Teddy’s own words. “Teddy and Fracking” will premiere at the West Virginia FILMmaker’s Festival in October 2017. Meanwhile, Outlier has completed a series of shorts about photo opportunities and roadside attractions in Texas, as well as a variety of short film poems. Their film poems have screened at the Ò Bhéal Poetry-Film Competition, the Juteback Poetry Film Festival, and (later this year) at the Festival Silencio. Then, who knows?