It's high time we got a man's opinion on this blog, and we thought who better to give it than our favourite person, Ben Briand. Filmmaker, writer, director and photographer (see his work here!), Ben Briand is a man of many talents, as well as the husband of our creative director Brenda. So, without further ado, here are Ben's top 10 things this month.
one. Ridley Scott's Alien
The lens flares. The lens flares! In
the early days the man knew how to create a perfect marriage between
considered aesthetics, atmosphere and story. The cast, the
style and the clean story structure still make this one of the great
films. I'm only just now realising the influence his early films had on
me.
There
are 24 books in this set. I own 21 of them. The only thing more
fascinating than the covers are the mind bending myths that reside
within the pages.
three. Crystal Hunting at Markets
That
sounds far more hippy than it actually is. I'm searching for nice, old
pieces of glass to create optical effects like the ones that David
Bellemere achieves in his work. I've been doing it for a while in my
commercial work, but never owned the glass pieces myself.
four. Record Vinyl Collecting (even though I don't own a record player)
Some
friends gave us records for our wedding a few months back. Now I have
been bitten by the bug. Sabbath, Bowie, I even found Prince's super rare
'Black Album' the other day for 5 Bucks! Prince pulled the release of
that album one week before it's release in 1987 because he believed the
record was possessed by an evil presence. How a copy turned up at
Rozelle Markets is anyone's guess.
five. Random emails out of the blue from strangers.
I
love an email out of the blue. And this month there seems to have been a
few. If there is one thing that cyberspace and the interwebs has done
it's bringing strangers much closer together, much more than they could
have before we all had our own websites. In L.A. they call it "reaching
out." It's nice when like minded people do some reaching.
Finding more of something that you know so well is very beautiful. Films always have deleted scenes that end up on the cutting room floor for one reason of another. A lot of the time it is because those scenes, although they enrich the world of the film, don't propel the narrative forward in a crucial way. But for those that have taken the thrilling and sexual journey into Lynch's Wild At Heart and love that world - here are some more of Sailor and Lula's antics.
seven. The Preachers
I had the pleasure of directing the soon to be released video clip for The Preachers.
Their gothic blues style is more than I can possibly describe to do it
justice. You will just need to listen and then you will just need to go
and see their live act. There is much buzz about these beautiful souls.
eight. Museum Of Contemporary Art Sydney - new wing
Fresh,
white and playful. After having some very enlightening experiences
during VIVID Sydney (especially Screen NSW screen writing intensive
course) I have returned to the MCA more in the last month than ever
before. With the Sydney Biennale (http://bos18.com/)
currently on and a 2 year old with an over active imagination it seems
to be the perfect fit. A beautiful building on the edge of an amazing
location.
Need I say more? (PS. this is not a paid advertisement. Well. Kind of)
The Not Reuben Sandwich.