Patrick Boivin Featured in Wired Magazine

Wired magazine recently interviewed director Patrick Boivin who they rightly say has YouTubed his way to Hollywood.

Here’s the pretty cool storyboard he made to prepare for the stop-motion Ninja Unboxing of Google’s Nexus One phone. When the process is this good…

In the interview, Patrick Boivin talks about how he came under the influence of moody French illustrator Moebius and, at age 16, began drawing cartoons. He has since directed many TV shows and shorts.

These are the same shorts Patrick Boivin put on his YouTube channel. “They were not popular at all,” Boivin says. “The short dramas had plenty of poetry but not a lot of punch, garnering only 200 views after six months.”

So Boivin turned to stop motion.

His video game-inspired hit Street Fighter, his funny clip Iron Man vs. Bruce Lee and his recent martial arts spoof, Ninja’s Unboxing, commissioned by Google to promote its new cellphone, have all racked up millions of views on YouTube.

Patrick Boivin and his own brand of DIY has made him a Youtube success story. But uploading your work on YouTube is not everything. Users must respond to it. And in the case of Patrick Boivin they did by the millions. 56, in fact.

That’s when Hollywood came knocking.

Now, and we’ve said it here before, Circle of Confusion is the LA-based management team that is taking care of finding directing gigs for Patrick.

In the Wired piece, he cites the work of Paul Thomas Anderson and Wes Anderson as prime influences. But Duncan Jones’ Moon was the last movie he saw that really touched him. “This is the kind of picture I would like to make: it uses science fiction to talk about something else.”

It’s just a matter of time as Patrick is heading out west in a week…

The Wired article goes into some detail on how he made the Ninja video, but there’s more DIY stuff in the interview Patrick gave to YouTube’s Creator’s Corner.

Jérémie Saindon en entrevue : Web-Culture

Le magazine français Web-Culture “se balade entre photographie et performance afin de percevoir les chemins de l’intime dans des expressions artistiques.”

Dernièrement, cette balade les a amenés de ce côté-ci de l’Atlantique pour parler avec le réalisateur Jérémie Saindon. Une fois de plus, il est question de sa signature visuelle, mais aussi l’interaction humaine dans ses réalisations, qu’il fait à partir d’un idéale bien campé : brouiller la ligne entre l’hyper réalisme et l’onirisme.

Dans cette entrevue, il parle de ses influences : Michel Houellebecq, Alejandro Jodorowsky et Michael Haneke. Et la place que prend l’Internet dans son travail, qui d’ailleurs lui permet un rayonnement international, notamment en France où des milliers, pour ne pas dire des millions, de gens ont vu son clip « Ensemble »de Cœur de Pirate.

Pour l’avenir ? Son long métrage sur les gangs de rue haïtiens ici à Montréal dont la trame tourne autour d’une famille de trois frères et d’une mère monoparentale qui survit grâce au proxénétisme de jeunes adolescentes. Aussi, des clips pour Yelle et Islands.

Woolf + Lapin et les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois…

Mes soeurs musulmanes, le documentaire de Francine Pelletier, sera présenté au Rendez-vous le 26 février prochain. De plus, Tête blanche de Patrick Boivin et Poissons de Jean Malek, qui met en vedette Vanessa Pilon, seront présentés dans le programme curieusement appelé Comme une odeur de mort, mais bon.

Nous tenons à féliciter Laura Bari pour son documentaire Antoine qui part à la découverte de l’univers d’un jeune garçon aveugle de cinq ans. Antoine est primé partout où il passe. 26 février.

Nous adorons ce festival. Il porte trop bien son nom. Bon Rendez-vous à tous !

Et pour ceux qui ne l’ont pas encore vu, voici White.

Woolf + Lapin Welcomes Animation Director Paul Laberge

We are very psyched about welcoming new talent Paul Laberge . He’s an animation director with some really fine work under his belt. He’s looking to break into fiction. And we are anxious to collaborate on unique projects with him.

Paul’s a wicked illustrator also. Check out the decks he’s designed for EXOshop.

David Sherman’s Daily Miracle Enjoying Good Run at Infinitheatre

Last week for Daily Miracle, David Sherman’s play, which is having a really good run at Infinitheatre.

“The men and women I worked with on the desk at The Gazette were almost all unsung heroes,” Sherman says. “They worked their hearts out under what has become impossible conditions for what I believed was a noble cause. Getting the paper out, every night, no matter what. The reporters got the credit. The deskers went bald and crazy.”

Arthur Holden in the role of Marty is simply irreverent. Holden is a physical actor and it seems the role was written for him. He is the perfect incarnation of a disintegrating newspaper industry. He’s just back from sick leave and no matter how medicated, this news desk curmudgeon keeps firing his wit at what news has become while he was gone: non news. Papers are peddlers of sex and recipes, no more. And gone are the days of hard news and credible journalism.

As paperboys are falling by the wayside everywhere, putting the edition to bed, as it were, becomes the most important thing these deskers do.

James Lavoie’s set design is also noteworthy as Infinity is in an old public bath house. David Sherman’s writing and Arthur Holden’s acting make this a must see.

Infinitheatre’s Director Guy Sprung tirelessly promotes Montreal writers. Do check it out. January 26th to February 14th, 2010 at the Bain St Michel 5300 St Dominique.