What are you working on right now?
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Wimer’s Mantra, a full-length horror film with a Buddhist twist, won Best Picture at last year’s annual Fright Night Film Festival in Louisville. What piece of art would he like to have in his private collection? A nice, big Klimt, he says. “Just so I could say to people, ‘Wanna see my Klimt?’” |
I’m working on Eat Me, Too: Karmageddon, which is the second installment of the Eat Me series with The Falsies. Also, a project with Scintillation, which is a fire dance troupe. We’re doing a feature-length piece about Prometheus. And I’m working on Dombie, which is a mash-up between a zombie movie and an S&M dominatrix flick. In addition, I’m working on a very serious piece about Peruvian music. I was working with two musicians from Charlottesville, Estela Knott and David Berzonsky, who are part of a group called Lua. We went down last year to Peru to record indigenous musicians, and we were down there for a month. I’ve always got around 10 projects or so in the air. I’m working on a project with Johnny St. Ours, and I’m working on a piece with Bree Luck that involves puppets. Collaboration is the motto of the year.
Tell us about your day-to-day routine.
My average day is like a puzzle. It’s about juggling a dozen different projects and seeing how they can feed each other. Just meeting with people and being on the Downtown Mall is great because I always run into four or five people whom I’m already working on something with, or will be working on something with soon. So juggling a dozen different projects and personalities, seeing how they interact and cross-fertilize, how they might influence future projects—none of which are necessarily making money right now, but at least it’s artistically fulfilling.
What music are you listening to lately?
I’m listening to Burt Bacharach, actually. I grew up with that stuff and it’s good easy listening. Occasionally I’ll throw in some Falsies for something more contemporary, and then I’ll turn to Devon Sproule if I need a little soul fulfillment. But I always go back to Burt Bacharach.
What were you doing when we called?
I’m at Milano, because I was here earlier talking about the Revel at The Bridge. We’re going to shoot a short film called The Bridge as a piece to raise funds for the interactive arts. It’ll be an interactive film for the partygoers; we’re going to shoot it at The Bridge in real time and then show it afterward, and sell copies of the DVD.
What sports team do you root for?
I root for the Derby Dames, of course. In a state that actually has very few big sports teams, I’m very proud that we have our own Derby Dames that we can go out and root for. I’d like to go a few rounds with the Derby Dames, just to see if I can.
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PREVIOUS WORK BY BRIAN WIMER |
What is your first artistic childhood memory?
I used to shoot stop-action movies when I was a little kid, and I remember one particular episode where I had everything set up, and everything went wrong, and I melted our rug with the lights. I also had these smoke bombs for a certain sequence, and I accidentally smoked out the whole house with them. My parents put up with a lot of my early creative endeavors. But I’m still doing claymation to this day, so there’s something to be said about those childhood experiences.
If you’re cooking a meal for one, what do you make?
I make beans and rice. Whatever beans are available. I used to live in New York, and survived on beans and rice. If I weren’t making films, I think I’d be a monk. I think a very simple subsistence on beans and rice is the only thing you need. Beans and rice. Unless I’m having lobster.
Favorite building?
I’m rather enamored with Earthships. They have them in Taos, New Mexico. They’re sort of these hippie houses built out of tires, stacked on the ground, and they look like they’re part of some Star Wars set. They actually have a fairly large community of them out there. I wouldn’t mind building a little Earthship in Belmont. It’d be kind of nice—you’d have your Victorian house, Victorian house, and then…Earthship.
