New SY movie: Sleeping Nights Awake!
 

http://www.saucerlike.com/index.php

Sonic Youth: Sleeping NIghts Awake
February 2, 2007

A new Sonic Youth documentary, directed by Michael Albright, will be premiered on the 2007 Noise Pop Festival:
"Hey baby, it’s the 4th of July, 2006. Seven teen students from the Reno area grab digital video cameras and capture a searing Sonic Youth performance onstage and backstage in glorious black and white. Humor, wit and disarmingly casual banter ensues. As part of a non-profit organization called 'Project Moonshine' the director says that the documentary “contains some of the most intimate concert footage ever captured.” And when Kim puts down her bass to dance, your epiphany may be, “So THAT’S how you dance to Sonic Youth!”


Moshe

More info:

As a more alternative documentary project, Ali Alonso, Noah Conrath, Danielle Hauser, Charlie Hayes, Ben Kolton, Allana Noyes and Nathan Lower (see MOONSHINERS page for more info) are part of a group of High School students in the Reno area that have been selected to participate in making a concert film on Sonic Youth’s July 4th concert in Reno. These students will be given digital video cameras and will be responsible for filming Sonic Youth and interviewing the crew. In addition to fine-tuning their filmmaking skills, students will have the unique opportunity to interact with one of the most important independent rock bands from the last twenty-five years.
On the day of the show, students will be given cameras and will pair up with a production coordinator to document Sonic Youth from sound check up until the band leaves Reno. Each production coordinator has experience in the arts as well as a background in educating young adults. In addition to myself, these qualified individuals (see STAFF page for more info) will supervise the students and assist in their production work.
This experience will be an incredibly unique way to educate Reno’s youth in the art of documentary filmmaking and give our students intimate insights into what goes on behind the scenes of Sonic Youth.
Note: This project is running concurrently with our Artown documentary, but is entirely separate. A final product of the documentary, which will consist of interviews, concert footage and band members interacting with the students will have to be approved by Sonic Youth before additional information can be released.

and more:
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=oid%3A223288


Camera ready
Project Moonshine armed Reno teens with video cameras and set them loose to discover the essence of Artown--and of Reno

By Kat Kerlin</B>



Ben Kolton shoots DBR and the mission at Artown.
Photo By David Robert



For two months during the summer of 2006, seven Reno high school students were equipped with digital video cameras and set loose (with adult project coordinators) on the town. They were part of the new summer filmmaking program Project Moonshine. Their initial assignment: film an independent documentary of Artown, Reno's month-long cultural event, over the course of July. Scene 1, June 28: Moonshiners discover
the unrelenting positivity of PR
It's three days before the official Artown kickoff. The Moonshinerswalk from the Nevada Museum of Art over to Artown headquarters, located in a small, rectangular office building on Flint Street. They're unaware, or maybe just dismissive, of professional codes--a leopard print bra strap peeks out of a tank top; a wristband reads "party time"--though some seem to have spiffed up a bit in a dress or button-down shirt along with jeans and trendy tennis shoes.
"This is where Artown is?" one of them asks upon entering the nondescript, musty ground-floor lobby.
The Moonshiners don't know exactly what they're looking for. In the past month, they've studied many different forms of documentary filmmaking with Moonshine founder Michael Albright. They've interviewed each other but no one else. They came up with a list of questions to ask during their interviews with the Artown administrators, such as, "What organizations are funding Artown this year, and do they have any influence on which artists and events are selected?"
There are seven Moonshiners and three new Panasonic Leica digital video cameras, so they pair up, with one person as interviewer and the other as cameraman.
"If I had my druthers, I'd rather film than ask, but I can do either," says Charlie Hayes to Noah Conrath. Charlie,17, is in a broad-striped, button-down shirt with striped wool shorts and loafers. He has floppy hair, dark eyebrows and alert eyes. Noah, 17, is irreverent, goofy and a self-proclaimed attention-deficit case, wearing rolled-up black jeans and tennis shoes with no socks. He has curly, blond hair and a smirking, wide-eyed look on his face, as though he's just played a joke on someone and is waiting to be found out.
The group walks up the stairs to the second floor with their cameras and list of questions. "Doesn't it smell like oatmeal in here?" one of the girls asks while walking down the blue-carpeted hallway to office 281. They fall silent as they wait in a line to enter the Artown offices.
Marketing director Natasha Bourlin welcomes them with her usual bubbly manner. A giant Artown logo hangs on a red wall behind her.
Albright reminds the Moonshiners to watch their battery levels, to stop the interview if the tape runs out and then restart, and to have the subjects state their name and title for the camera during interviews.
Charlie, Noah and Ali Alonso go to interview Artown director Beth Macmillan in her office. Ben Kolton and Nathan Lower enter Natasha's office, and Danielle Hauser and Allana Noyes are assigned to Annelise McKenzie, Artown's development and finance director.
The girls are nervous with McKenzie, and Danielle reads questions off the prepared question sheet as Allana holds the camera. McKenzie answers with a professional smile. The words "richness," "culture" and "diversity" are common throughout her dialogue.
"Artown started the revolution--the Renaissance that Reno is going through," says McKenzie.
This is the girls' introduction to the world of public relations. Albright had warned the group no one would likely say anything negative about their institution--especially on tape.
Danielle, with blue hair and purple shoes, asks why Artown doesn't seem to offer much for teens, to which McKenzie answers, "You can't start out being everything to everybody." They've started with their core, she says--kids, seniors and the "arts community" and are now reaching out more to twentysomethings with Artown after Dark, held at the Green Room. She says Artown helps "foster identity" and enhances Reno's national image, so what they bring to its stages has to be "tasteful, entertaining and of the highest quality."
Danielle and Allana thank her for her time, leave the room and go in the hallway.
The first thing 15-year-old Allana says is, "You were too easy on her. You read straight off the page."


Allana Noyes readies her camera.
Photo Illustration by David Robert

Danielle slumps against the wall and sits down. "That was really hard," she says. "She kind of twisted some of my questions around. She made it sound like it was a good, positive question."
"But that's, like, her job," says Allana. "You need to be more manipulative. You accepted all her questions without asking anything. ... You can be controversial, but you have to be nice about it."
Danielle says McKenzie frustrated her about the age question--from Danielle's point of view, there's not much in Artown for people her age, between the ages of 14 and 21.
"I was so angered," she says. "The next interview, I'm just going to ask what's in my head. I'm so mad at myself. This was my chance to grill her and get her to say what I want her to say. There were so many chances where I couldn't get her to say what I wanted her to say. I have to be meaner."
"I'm glad you went first," Allana says.
Scene 2, July 1-7: Go-Carting with Sonic Youth
The Moonshiners spend the first week covering everything from ballet to African world music. Then the unexpected happens.
Sonic Youth is set to play the then-Reno Hilton (now Grand Sierra Resort) on July 4. So Moonshine project coordinator (and RN&R contributor) Brad Bynum sends a shot-in-the-dark e-mail to the band telling them of Project Moonshine and requesting permission to film them while they're here. The 25-year rock veterans welcome them with open arms.
On July 4, the Moonshiners are go-carting with Sonic Youth on the Hilton's grounds. They play basketball with them, get exclusive interviews and discuss Cheetos, the term "Skeno" and tacky Reno T-shirts with lead singer Thurston Moore. And of course, they shoot the concert--a rock 'n' roll alternative to what they've been filming with Artown. Nathan, a tall, quiet 19-year-old with a professor's voice, has his summer made by getting to do the band's sound check.
Thus begins a second project for Project Moonshine: the Sonic Youth concert documentary.
Scene 3, July 7: Dreaming of Moonshine
Tapes Shot: 24 Artown, 12 Sonic Youth
It's been one week of filming. Albright, 24, sits in his room in front of his computer, editing. He's the film's director and editor, as well as the frontman of Project Moonshine. A Reno native, Albright was inspired to start the program after an internship with direct cinema pioneer Albert Maysles in New York City in 2004. There, he helped Maysles, in both the field and the editing room, work on a documentary about Christo and Jean-Claude's The Gates--a huge, controversial art project of orange saffron fabric that, after 26 years in the making, was finally installed all over Central Park for 16 days in February 2005. The documentary is scheduled to air on HBOthis fall.
"We were interns with more responsibility than we probably deserved," says Albright. But by doing, he learned. With Project Moonshine, he wanted to give kids in Reno a similar opportunity, even if on a smaller scale.
The "moonshine" refers not to homemade alcohol but to the concepts of the independent and homegrown.
"The idea," says Albright of the project, "is to build a core with the young and unsculpted and make sure they have the opportunity to find their own style and use that later on to make movies their own way."
But today, he's tired, bleary-eyed and a bit out of sorts. He's been dreaming about Artown at night, all the images unloaded on him and into his computer blurring in his mind. He thinks about it driving to the grocery store, walking down the street. His schedule for the past week has been to go with the kids as they shoot footage all day, then edit all night.

"It's not a bad job," he says. "But at the end of the day, when you're handed all these tapes, well, it's really fucking with my head. ... You're constantly trying to make sense of it, thinking, 'How am I going to put it all together?'"
The tone of the documentary is shifting. It began with focused questions about Artown's growth and impacts on Reno. But now, Albright is trying to figure out how to turn that into an intriguing film.
"These are interesting events, but they're not that interesting," he says. "And these are interesting people in Artown, but they're not that interesting. How do you make a beginning, middle and end out of that?"
At this point, he thinks the film will be more about the Moonshiners and their progression--the making of the making of an Artown documentary.
"To create a narrative, you have to have something that stays with you the entire time and see change and go through ups and downs," says Albright. The only characters that describes in the film so far are the kids.


Director Michael Albright edits Sonic Youth footage .
Photo By David Robert
Brittany Curtis also asked the Moonshiners to film a 10-minute promotional film for the youth arts and community center she's trying to open, called Holland. She needs $200,000 to do it, and she thinks the film will help her raise that money. Filming is scheduled for mid-August, adding yet another unexpected project for the Moonshiners.
Then there's the Sonic Youth project. The music in the footage is indecipherable and distorted. Albright needs the soundboard from the band in order to continue. He's preparing a 25-minute sample video to give to Sonic Youth when they come to San Francisco for their July 18 concert with Pearl Jam. He hopes they'll like what they see enough to give him the soundboard. After that concert, the band goes on tour in Australia and is unable or too busy to respond.
Scene 4, July 15: Loving and dogging Artown
Noah and project coordinator Ryan Bartlett are standing in the hot sun at Wingfield Park getting chorizo sausages at the Basque Festival at the end of week two. Ali is filming Basque dancers on the stage.
Now at the mid-way point of Artown, Noah thinks the project is going better than before. "When we first started out, we weren't sure what to do," he says. "We hadn't had much experience walking up to people, saying, 'Hi. I'm from Project Moonshine. Can I ask you some questions?' But I think it's going well. I think we're actually going to make a movie."
They've been asking everyone they meet their views on Artown--from Artown and unaffiliated artists to audience members, homeless people and beer vendors.
Noah says people either dog on Artown, or they love it. "Most of the people who don't like Artown are artists," says Noah.
Bartlett says he thinks Artown has become too commercialized, but he doesn't blame organizers. "The underground scene would have to be more prominent for that to happen," he says. "As much as people our age would like to see better bands and more risky art, Reno's not ready for it. They need to feel comfortable."
Case in point were two letters to the editor in the Reno Gazette-Journal following Artown's opening night with the Sean Curran dance company, during which two women dancers briefly kissed, and two men embraced. The letters said the performance was "homosexual," "sensual" and "obscene." It was not art, not Reno and not beauty, the letters said.
But Albright thinks Reno is ready for more edge. "I don't think they [Artown administrators] have a clue what people in their teens and 20s want and like," he said earlier. "We're in that age group where we create things and make things happen ourselves."
Scene 5, July 23: Alleyway reflections
Tapes shot: 65 Artown, 15 Sonic Youth
The underground scene appears to be alive and well at the (con)Temporary Gallery--an alleyway south of Vassar off Virginia St., the walls of which graffiti artists have been given free reign.
It's a Sunday night, and a crowd of people mingle through the narrow alleyway. A dummy is propped on the roof, looking eerily down on the crowd. Bubbles, projected onto a wall as they float in front of a light, drift over the crowd, playfully popping among them. The sound system projects strange voices and conversations. There's a carnival aspect, with performance art mingling with visual art.
This Artown event feels spontaneous and truly different. It's one of the few events to draw a predominantly young (18- to 35-year-old) crowd.
The Moonshiners are here, but they also shot earlier in the day, when the artists were painting the alley's walls. Shooting behind-the-scenes has become more of a focus than shooting actual events.
The teens have now learned to transmit their footage onto the computer and into digital files. They've also had the chance to sit with Albright and critique their work. It's apparent that their individual styles match their personalities, and, by now, Albright can tell who filmed which scene:
Charlie has a steady hand and patient eye that begins with one subject and branches out to capture a scene. His footage will be a large part of the final product, providing depth and patience.
Noah finds interesting camera angles and injects them with his humor.
Allana and Danielle have shaky footage--the camera follows the sense of how they look at the world--scanning rapidly, fixating on something for a moment, then moving on. They're interested in the artistry of common objects, and they find things no one else sees. Their footage will add details and connecting threads.
Ali, the youngest Moonshiner, who just turned 15 in mid-July, is a well-composed interviewer. She, too, can be shaky with the camera, but she also catches some surprisingly good moments.
Nathan is learning to jump into a scene more. Previously, he relied heavily on the zoom button.


Ben Kolton, left, Michael Albright, center, and Charlie Hayes get ready for the closing night of Artown.
Photo By David Robert
Ben, 18, asks some of the best questions in interviews and offers a mix of the quickly observed and the pointed.
The (con)Temporary Gallery was a creative event that begged for creative shooting, so they shot odd angles--up on the roof and below.
Danielle is sitting against a brick wall with a friend. It's her last night filming with the Moonshiners before she flies to Germany to visit her grandmother.
She doesn't think her interviewing skills have improved since that first day at Artown headquarters. "It's hard to ask questions because you can't offend anybody because you're supposed to be unbiased," she says.
But she's become more attracted to direct cinema--the technique of capturing something as it happens without interviews or voiceovers--something she never experimented with until becoming part of Project Moonshine.
The end of the project is drawing near, and while the Moonshiners say they'll continue to work together on other projects, they know it will never be the same as this first experience.
"I'm just sad that it's over," says Allana. "I wouldn't even care if the entire movie sucked. It was like a really great summer camp but not so lame."

Scene 6, July 31: Closing night
Tapes shot: 75 Artown, 15 Sonic Youth
It's the last night of Artown, and Charlie is sitting at a table outside of Dreamers Coffeehouse, waiting for the other Moonshiners to show up. By now, the members of the project have gotten to see for themselves what Artown is about.
"I had a preconceived bias because a lot of the PCs [project coordinators] thought Artown was going away from the local and getting more commercial," says Charlie. "I don't think it's accurate that it's commercial or corrupt. I see faults but also benefits. I think the problems--there are a few that could be avoided with a more diverse, younger board. They have well-known people in the community [both artists and business people], but they don't have the local guy who knows what's going on in the youth scene. Other things are only going to be fixed by doing this year after year."
The project has changed some of Charlie's views of Reno: "I used to see this town as having nothing progressive--nothing happening but drugs and prostitution and gambling. That culture's still happening. But there's a new wave happening, and people are getting behind it. It's a counterculture without so much of the rebellion."
The rest of the group shows up, and they gather their cameras to shoot Artown's closing act, DBR and the Mission.
Ben, an obsessive movie buff with long, curly black hair and an intense expression, is also feeling reflective. "I went into this not knowing anything," he says. "By doing, you get better. That's part of what Mike's trying to teach us--to just go out there and try it."
Scene 7, Aug. 22:
Sonic Youth approves giving the soundboard to Project Moonshine, which in essence, is a go-ahead to do the concert documentary.
Scene 8, Sept. 7: Wrapping it up
Hours of footage: +100
Tapes shot: 94 of Artown, 15 of Sonic Youth, 6 more expected for Holland project
Albright has only a couple weeks to finish editing before he begins his masters program in filmmaking at UCLA. He's been having doubts about grad school. He wants to finish the Artown and Sonic Youth documentaries, the Holland promo, as well as work on a film all his own, documenting San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Sonny Smith. "Why go to school for something you're already doing?" is one tempting rationale. But he's going.
He's still not sure what the final cut of the Artown documentary will look like, but it will likely be as much--or more--about Reno as it is about Artown. The Moonshiners are bound to make appearances, as will people they've met on the street. There will be backstage and onstage footage of Artown events.
"Overall, I think it's going to be a really weird film, "says Albright.
He's not sure what will happen when the film comes out, or when exactly that will be, though he's aiming for late December. At a bare minimum, there will be a premiere at the Nevada Museum of Art. He'll submit it to film festivals and educational workshops.
"But realistically, it's hard to get it out there," he says. "I don't know if it will have the muscle to make big waves, but if it does, we'll be ready for it."
He has tentative plans to film a musical festival in Portland for Project Moonshine next summer. But his real goal, he says, is to send the kids to the moon, though it may be in 60 years or so--after all, he's a practical man.
"I'm actually sort of serious about that," he says. "But that would be the last film. That would be Project Moonshine."

Sounds great! thanks moshe, you're sonic reporter N°1.
We should all sign a petition to have ALL sonic youth's footage available all over the world (toko jeff mertens etc.etc.) liberated and shared. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I drunk? You choose.

I would say drunk. :D Toko and myself have been heavy working on all sorts of stuff and footage earned by some dedicated devotion to sonic youth and the spirit of CREATING. To say that material we have NEEDS to be liberated is quite obnoxious. There's an incredible live dvd Toko, me and some others did of Sonic Youth at paradiso in 04 that still awaits approval. We are working on a live dvd for D R I F T etc.

I know how much need there is for SY material, be it live or else, but I still tape stuff for sake of creating. I graduated a photographer and been practising videography since 2001. I'm sorry if I come of as an ass for not torrenting everything I have, but it is how it is.

This is not aimed at you nicfit, it's for all who think we don't share enough, I'd say lett the future tell.

Tokolosh might have a totally different view on this. Toko?????

Thanx for the info Moshe!!!$
Looks inspiring to say the least.

First of all, I feel like an idiot, I still can't spell your name correctly, too many fs every fu*king time----

Now I'm serious:
I know that what you guys do is Art (with a capital A), you put efforts, skills and passion (and money too!) in what you do and it's a wonderful thing (both for you and the bands you end up "working" with).

the following lines are an answer to the "need of sy material issue" (even if that was not addressed to me in partucalar):

It just "consumes" me knowing that there is an incredible live dvd that we (we=fans) still can't see/buy , because, you know, I'd buy it straight away. I'd gladly paypal you and the band to get it :) . Please understand that I'm not saying that you guys "don't want to share, so I'll pay you".

I called your names as an "example", just because I/we know you have this "approval" thing going on, but actually I don't know how the whole situation could evolve or what could be your decisions even if/when you'll get the band's approval. If you'll decide to keep it just for "private use" I won't hate you or bad rep you hee hee, but simply accept it. Again, please don't get me wrong:

I'm just trying to say that you, like any other artist, can decide what to do with your art, no matter what.

So yeah, all in all I was probably a little over-excited in that post ;)

I apologise for the awful grammar of my previous post.

There's two examples:

I had aqcuired a PO BOX last year as a means to distribute my DVD Elegy from the Hearts as a dvd+r as a non-official release. The costs for that were simply sending your own dvd+r plus coverage for sending it back. Not a single nickle went to the project. i then got word from SY that I couldn't widely distribute it due to the fact that the audio for the dvd was mixed by Aaron Mullan thus paid by SY. Approval is needed. If we get that you can be sure it will become available.

Same goes for the live DVD of Tokolosh which consists of the same audio by Aaron. When approved this baby will be available as well. Guaranteeeee!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It's posts like this that make me so eager to get my hands/eyes/ears on these things!
*fingers crossed*

p.s. oh, and thanks for your understanding, I messed things up a bit with my first post in this thread :P

Back to Moshe's topic...
Production photo's of the documentary here.

thank!!!!!!! YOU!!!!!!!

THANK!!!! YOU!!!!!

now that's fucking excelent.
thanks moshe!

Here's a list of the songs included:

1) Do you Believe in Rapture
2) Incinerate
3) Kool Thing
4) Pink Steam
5) Jams Run Free
6) Mote
7) 100%
8) Tom Violence
9) Shaking Hell

This does sound really cool, though I'd like to see the opposite someday too. I want to see Sonic Youth interviewing some of their teenage fans and asking them about who the fuck they are and how they got into this band that's been ignored by the radio for twice as long as these kids have lived.

wow how exciting I was at this show and I remember the filming before the set started and during the show :) It was a great show ;) hopefully I'll find myself in the audience in front of Lee between the monitors

I didn't see anywhere it could be purchased, does anyone know if it will be made available for distribution?

this is a bajillion kinds of awesome.

No plans for a DVD yet.

thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks!

Cool. Theres so much intresting SY stuff coming out this year - DDN book, DDN reissue, the fiction inspired by the music book, thurston moore solo album, this film, and of course the DDN shows. Its a great year to be a Sonic Youth fan!

Thurston's glasses are awesome!

I agree Shaking Hell made a big come back I got to hear it a few times on their last tour and it was very rockin live.

cool. cheers!

"so thats how you dance to sonic youth!"

ha ha ha ha ah aha ha ahah ah ah ah ah ah aha

in many ways i am more interested to see the off stage stuff than them play those actual songs.

right click on the link and than save the file.

that trailer is complete and utter bollocks. that by no means that the film will be though.

"project moonshine - developing the next generation of filmmakers" OH FUCK OFF WILL YOU.

I went to see this at the Horse Hospital on Monday Night, there were about 12 people in attendance?!?

Really enjoyed it. The concert footage was surprisingly good, hats off to the bloke who edited all the footage.

The interview stuff was good aswell, more Kim than I expected, discussing her singing technique and stuff.

Amusing backstage footage also, Thurston preparing sandwiches for the students, being questioned as to whether he is a burrito addict... apparently he isn't but Steve is. Kim talking about restricting Coco's Lost watching to one episode a day...

Roll on the DVD release!

what's this about? Haven't heard about this yet


Thanks Moshe!! Sample looks great

so....about that dvd release?

SLEEPING NIGHTS AWAKE
The Sonic Youth Documentary 'Sleeping Nights Awake' will be shown at the Milano Film Festival Sept 18 at 4PM in the bossly-branded Stranglehold Tent.

I would like to see this film. Maybe I can by it someday. Traveling to the film fest. would be a fantasy dream.

Yea, I met "Buy" not by.

Are the people who filmed this even sonic youth fans or are they film students assigned a project?

Allana Noyes is hot

Crash Course in Digital FilmmakingHow one nonprofit turned teens into documentary filmmakers in less than a month

• Print
   
  

By: Brian Satterfield

April 2, 2007

If you watch "Sleeping Nights Awake," a 2007 film about influential rock band Sonic Youth, you'll find all the key elements of a music documentary: live concert material, interviews with band members, and candid backstage footage delivering a close-up look at the band and its music.
Yet unlike many documentaries, "Sleeping Nights Awake" wasn't shot by a professional crew or with a large budget. Rather, the film is the work of seven teenagers under the direction of the Nevada-based nonprofit Project Moonshine.
"An Empowering Feeling"

Project Moonshine helps Reno teens develop digital-video skills by providing them with the equipment, training, support, and guidance necessary to produce a documentary film. The organization's founder and CEO Michael Albright said he believes that filmmaking can help give young people a sense of identity that can be difficult to find elsewhere.
"A lot of the sentiment when you're a teenager is that you don't really have a voice and no one really cares about what you have to say," Albright said. "There's an empowering feeling when you have a [video] camera in your hand."
Founding and Funding

The seeds of Project Moonshine were planted in 2004, when Albright worked as an intern for New York City documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles ("Grey Gardens," "Gimme Shelter"). There, the recent UC Santa Barbara Film Studies graduate realized that he could be more productive in a smaller, more affordable city with less of a film industry presence.
In 2005, Albright relocated to his hometown of Reno, Nevada, where he set up Project Moonshine as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and recruited some friends to help him run it. He then began raising the funds needed to purchase digital video cameras, a computer, and editing software by sending letters to local businesses and individuals.
Albright believes his ties to Reno helped the organization achieve its fundraising goals more quickly than if he had been working in a less familiar city.
"That's one of the benefits of actually doing it in your hometown," he said, "because you know people and you can raise money a lot easier." After securing the necessary funds, Project Moonshine purchased a trio of Panasonic AG-DVC30 video cameras, high-end consumer models that record on MiniDV digital tapes.
Recruiting Students

Albright also used his ties to the local community to recruit students for the project. He explains that while he was forming Project Moonshine, he worked as a substitute drama teacher at Reno High School, which allowed him to meet students who were passionate about the arts and filmmaking. Project Moonshine also recruited applicants at other area high schools, eventually settling on a diverse crew of six students.
The final addition to Project Moonshine's cast of filmmakers was 19-year-old Nathan Lower, a friend of one of the students, who started coming to meetings. Although Albright initially wanted to limit participation to six young people, Lower's interest and tenacity eventually won him over.
"At first, Mike was pretty hesitant to let anyone else into the program but I just kept showing up at all the meetings," said Lower. "He liked that, and I was in."
Learning to Film under a Deadline

For Project Moonshine's first film, Albright decided to have the students document Artown, a yearly summer festival that showcases a variety of Reno artists, from dance troupes to jugglers. Since most of Artown's program is geared toward an older demographic, Albright thought that giving the teenagers the chance to put a unique spin on the festival.
Yet although Project Moonshine had identified the subject of its first documentary, the seven recruits had little or no prior experience working with video cameras. With only a few weeks to prepare, Albright and his staff began training the crew to shoot video.
For one of the first training exercises, Albright took the students to downtown Reno, where he divided them into three groups. He then gave each group a camera and a shotgun microphone and asked them to interview one another. "That's some of the best footage we have," said Albright. "They're not only getting to know each other, but they're getting to know this camera."

Project Moonshine founder Michael Albright conducts a training session in downtown Reno. Photo courtesy of Project Moonshine.



In preparation for the Artown project, the students met several times a week to receive more hands-on video training. Albright asked each student to pick one subject matter — such as water, graffiti, or trash — and film as much of it as possible. "That was just a way to try to get them to think about an idea and find as much of it as they could," said Albright.
One common mistake many of the teenagers made when learning to use a video camera was over relying on the zoom button. Albright instructed the filmmakers to find a shot and let it develop, rather than constantly move the camera around. Lower agrees that learning to focus on a subject or scene was one of the biggest obstacles he faced during the course of his video training.
"I couldn't focus on one thing for too long," Lower said, "so I had to be more patient."
A Chance to Film Sonic Youth

While preparing to film the Artown festival, one of Project Moonshine's staffers decided on a whim to email Sonic Youth's management to request permission to film the band's upcoming July 4 performance at the Reno Hilton. Although the band happily agreed to the request, Project Moonshine had less than a week to prepare the teenagers.
To give the film crew advance practice shooting a live band, Albright, who acted as the film's director, had them shoot several small concerts that were part of the Artown festival. "The biggest thing was that they were all really afraid to get close [to the stage]," said Albright. "So just standing with them in front of the stage and getting really close into the action was something that really helped."
Though the students were taught to focus on the main points of a shot, Lower believes that the trainings also helped give him an eye for bringing out the finer points of a scene. "In the small time Mike had to train me before Sonic Youth," said Lower, "he stressed one thing in particular: Look for the details — the unique things about whatever you are filming that make it special."
The Day of the Shoot

On the day of the show, the teenagers arrived at the venue early and were instructed to film everything they could, including the concert hall, backstage footage, and the band's sound check. Meanwhile, Albright and other Project Moonshine staffers stockpiled spare MiniDV tapes and camera batteries and coordinated interviews with the band members.
To prepare the students for interviews, Albright had photocopied a story recounting Sonic Youth's early history and handed it out to the filmmakers. While some of the students read the story and used it as an interview guideline, others preferred the spontaneity of interviewing the band cold.
Project Moonshine's staff used Sonic Youth's sound check to determine how to position the cameras across the venue to capture the best possible concert footage. Eventually, they placed two of the three groups of teenagers in the crowd at opposite ends of the stage, gave each group a camera, and asked them to take turns filming. Because this setup allowed each group to focus on one of Sonic Youth's two main guitarists and also capture the vocalist in center stage, this footage became the backbone of the filmed concert.
The third group spent the concert roaming about behind the stage, capturing footage of Sonic Youth's drummer, the crowd, and the band members from a variety of different angles. "The roaming team got all the details that would make it [the footage] sort of come together," Albright said.