Strange Artfellows

Michael Afendakis and I are the mom and pop of Atta Squirrel Films. The jury’s perpetually out on which of us is mom or pop, but there’s a general consensus that the team works, in part, because Michael has a grip on all the things upon which I’ve a somewhat dubious grasp, and vice-versa.

By some cosmic boon, in our artistic partnership and our friendship, we are dissimilar where it matters, and similar where it counts.

I suspect that how one does anything is how one does everything. So it’s of little surprise to me that—like its founders—Atta Squirrel itself would seek working relationships with companies of odd-couple ilk.

The notion that our most creatively satisfying relationship as an independent film company would be with a cyber security startup is… counterintuitive. At face value, it might suggest a lack of artistic drive on our part, or a dearth of focus on the part of the client.

In reality, I suspect it’s a matter of both parties being vaguely-closeted-ex-pats of our chosen industries.

Michael and my work in tech and engineering supports the standard rockstar-status existence afforded to all independent filmmakers, and Joel Fulton (CEO of Lucidum, world-class CISO, and world(er)-class friend of both Michael and myself) is—as far as I can tell—a Michelin-tier artist’s soul squatting in the body of a cyber security geek.

Were the body of said cyber security geek built like a brick shit-house.

Whereas my own ex-actor tech-bod might best be described as “lengths of vegan scrawn, peppered with light padding”…

Whah: digression sandwich—what was I getting at…?

Right: Unlikely Artistic Pairings.

Somehow this relationship between Atta Squirrel Films and Lucidum has been a hugely satisfying, wildly productive artistic endeavor these past three years.

Over 40 videos, ranging from a series called “A Lucid View of History”, that examines modern technological challenges through the lens of historical events, to interviews with industry leaders, to our most recent collaboration: “CISO Cinema”, which pits the world’s top security experts against the world’s best-known cyber-themed blockbusters—a concept that has no right being even half as funny and engaging as it actually is.

These productive partnerships, like pineapple on pizza: peculiar players, properly paired…

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Show Notes:

• Spinning: Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie

• Drinking: Gin & Tonic (Isle of Harris gin, Fever Tree tonic)

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You up-?

Woke to pee. That was my first mistake. (Not that the alternative would have been ideal.)

But despite the consciousness-defying, pinball-stagger that was my 13-foot odyssey to and from the bathroom, once back in the toasty goodness of my bed, my mind would snuggle down into complete wakefulness.

Work. Other work. Other other work. My financial situation, the world’s financial situation, my questionable significance to my significant other, the virtue of minimalism and its contrast to the state of my apartment…

I’d gone to bed at a respectable hour—that was probably my first first mistake. So when my mind found my body up at 2:00am, and smacking itself into things, it must have thought it had received the day’s 4-hour allotment of downtime, and assumed it was time to resume over-thinking things.

It’s been a long run, lately.

Back in August, we launched “The Grandpa Diaries” on YouTube, alongside a few car videos we produced in collaboration with Workshop 337. The one Jaguar video has received [14x] the views of all 13 episodes of “The Grandpa Diaries” combined, proving the corporate overlords at YouTube favor the ad revenue produced by those searching for the world’s best-loved classic car over that produced by the 4 humans who have ever typed the words “grandpa” and “diary” into a search window—an inherent bias I’ve long suspected, and now know to be true.

While I’ve been wading in a sea of thumbnails (a phrase I now can’t un-coin), my fellow Squirrel, Michael, has been corralling our first feature through post: a documentary following an insufferably talented group of high-schoolers, called “We Rise.” Signs point to that hitting the festivals by year’s end.

And then there’s Outside Clients—the Squirrel-for-Hire stuff.

Michael and I both have day jobs, on top of (beneath? Supporting? Definitely supporting…) our Atta Squirrel endeavors, so we only have time for the one client. For a good stint now, that one client has been a cyber security startup called Lucidum, and we’ve been a bit spoiled by the whole thing. The CEO, Joel Fulton, is “missed calling”-level creative, and working with him is an unadulterated pleasure.

Sometimes another client shimmies its way in edgewise, and we curse our own idiocy for taking on more work than our already-taxed schedules can bear. That usually goes something like:

SQUIRREL #1: So, I’ve got a bead on this gig. It’ll be weeks of work for days of pay, and we’ll pretty much wanna stab ourselves in the face by the end of it.

SQUIRREL #2: That doesn’t sound great.

SQUIRREL #1: I already said yes.

So, yeah: It’s been a little too much of that lately. On top of the day job, preproduction on the next season of “The Grandpa Diaries”, post-production on “We Rise”, simultaneous production and post-production on seven episodes of a new series for Lucidum, and this nagging feeling that the world coming to an end might mean the world’s coming to an end…

Not the time to wake to pee. A mind is gonna jump all over that window.

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Show Notes:

• Spinning: LP1 by FKA Twigs

• Drinking: Coffee, Black (Starbuck’s Sumatra*)

*I know, I know; find me another proper coffee that tastes like bitter dirt, instead of sour blueberries stomped on by hipsters, and I’ll drink it.

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Atta Ballers

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Image © Copyright 2018 Jonathan Leveck

I grew up outgoing, but have grown steadily more introverted as I've gotten older—a sort of reverse social bloom that began somewhere in my early thirties, as I settled in to how I prefer to navigate the world.

For this reason I find industry mixers a bit of a mixed bag. It's the type of gathering that tugs at both of these disparate aspects of my personality. So as I walk into a room of semi-familiar faces, like last night's Cinequest soirée, my inner Lampshade and Wallflower immediately begin to fumble for supremacy.

Thankfully my business partner and relentless confidant, Michael Afendakis, has no such social quandaries. Within moments of entering the milling fray, he appears before me with a bottle of champagne and several glasses. When I note that there are only two of us, Michael gestures sweepingly to the people around us, popping the thin, socio-prophylactic bubble Wallflower had apparently blown up around Me-And-Mine upon arrival.

"See," he announces, "here's Lori Triolo-! I'm sure Lori would like a glass of champagne..."

Lori is one of the producers of "Lost Solace", by all accounts one of the buzz-worthiest films at Cinequest this year, and one of Atta's social touchstones since we met her earlier in the festival. We also chat with Owen Thomas (friend-of-Atta-Squirrel and voice-over-extraordinaire, who's motion comic "Mono" is featured in the Barco Escape Shorts), Pamela Ann Berry (Product Ninja at Atomos), and several other fine folk...

One thing I keep hearing about Cinequest is the festival's culture of inclusivity—a genuine sense that the organizers and filmmakers want to connect in some fundamental way with the work, with the art that may come of that work, and with one another.

Last night was that for me. For the first time, amidst the hubbub of screenings and meetings and slightly-overwhelming social what-not, I found myself simply appreciating being a filmmaker amongst filmmakers.

It was a welcome disarming, by a charming group of people, in an open atmosphere diligently cultivated by our hosts. And I’d like to thank everyone for all of it.

And Michael for the champers.

Which didn’t hurt.

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