Stuck inside on a Friday? Booooo. Outdoors roaming through the wilderness, smelling the fragrances of sweet Mother Nature? Huzzah! As you may or may not have noted from the recent postings, the foreshadowing of Tom Tom’s death has become wholly apparent. He does not yet know his true fate, or the meaning behind it, but he does hint at this previously unknown knowledge in this vain attempt. No one knows the rules, just that they play by themselves…

Thanks Sincerely,

Andy

Ahh, I see you made it back. Can you do the drumroll? Hands on thighs are fine. Here are the remaining Top 5 of PianoFight in 2011.

Many New Film Projects: Ketheron’s, Low Shoulders, SideReel, mBarrier and MORE

Rounding out the Top 5 of 2011 at PianoFight, we’re really getting into the fun stuff. Off-Market is closed, the company is safe, we’re all still raging… let’s make some funny shit, right? Well 2011 saw PianoFight’s funny shit hit the fan and get sent to some interesting new places thanks to the proliferation of PianoFight’s involvement in film projects. To start, the transgender musical sketch that Nicole Hammersla wrote for MNF’s April show, Ketheron’s Bucket Mending and Hymen Emporium, got turned into a transgender musical short film with the help of Scary Cow Productions and their Anton H. Gill.  It even went on to win several big awards at Scary Cow’s own film festival, held at Castro Theater in November, and will show at several other festivals around the world next year.  Enjoy the fruits of PianoFight, Australia!  The ladies of MNF were also courted by RoofTop Comedy to make some comedic shorts for Benefit Cosmetics, proving that makeup isn’t just tons of fun (which it is), it’s also funny!  Hooray marketing!  Us dudes at Mission CTRL have kept plenty busy off stage in 2011 as well, filming several original shorts, starting an all-out Sketch War with Killing My Lobster, crashing the Super Bowl and even inking a deal with SideReel.com to create original comedic shorts that make fun of TV shows.  We’ve already stirred up the nest of YouTube trolls with our first handful of videos and will courageously continue to do so into the new year.  Returning to home base, PianoFight’s first feature film, Evan Winchester’s Low Shoulders, held a successful Kickstarter campaign this year raising over $5000 and adding a badass car camera rig to the PF inventory.  Even better, director Elijah Wolfson wrapped filming at the end of summer and the film’s premier is anticipated in the first half of 2012.  Finally, perhaps the greatest addition to the PianoFight filmmaking arsenal in 2011 was the arrival of the Burke Brothers, Daniel and David, from Santa Barbara and into our hearts (and the Tenderloin). Their adept filmmaking skills and PianoFighter approach to entertainment has been invaluable in helping us with everything from promo videos and battle sketches to cosmetics shorts and Doritos ads. Overall, a lot of great moments on the film front in 2011 as we bravely marched into the wily world of webtertainment and its jungle of links.  Translating the fun of our live shows into static screens will continue to be a huge goal in 2012. Hashtag crosspost amirite?

 Roughin’ It

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Now that we’ve come up for breath from 2011 it’s safe to publicly state that it was a big year for PianoFight.  Undoubtedly our biggest really, outside that year we were huge in Latvia. To help recapitulate, recapitalize, recapture and recapsize (splash!) the year that kicked off the new decade in earnest, it’s time to re-put-a-cap in this year’s ass.  This is the Top Ten of PianoFight 2011. A recap.

The Parties

First things first: Raging. We like to party and we’re pretty good at it. It could be argued that every moment on this list was some form of party or celebration of minds via inebriants (yes, sketch comedy counts). After all, we are entertainers. But the big parties of the year like the mass birthdays of Tomales Bay, Fourth of July at Russian River, the Tempest’s One Year Anniversary, and Andy and Ariel’s Wedding (which was essentially a PF production) were not only borderline unreasonable amounts of fun, they also showed just how well PianoFight can throw a bash.  Hell, there are 30 of us and counting, we have our own Das Haus Band, access to Google’s buses and a fleet of inflatables that has been called both The Spanish Gnarmada and Flotilla the Hun; we’re an amphibious party waiting to happen and 2011 proved it. Schnell!

Watsonville Creative Retreat

In September, Monday Night Foreplays’ pen-woman extraordinaire Nicole Hammersla, whisked the company away to the sandy shores of Watsonville, just south of Santa Cruz, for PianoFight’s first ever company-wide creative retreat.  Giving in to our inner hippies and truly challenging ourselves to leave with producible materials, the retreat yielded a recently finished piece of fine art, a still-running comic strip, one of PianoFight’s most unique and successful nights of theater to date (Roughin’ It) and a bevy of other materials and concepts that are still at our disposal today.  We also managed to have a pretty great time writing songs, surfing in the rain, blowing fire, losing iPhones and feeding each other like a tribe of creative bonobos.  Go figure.  Huge thanks to Cathy Brisbin and family for the wonderful setting.

 BOOM Fest / Closing of Off-Market

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Let’s face it. We’ve all done stuff we didn’t want to do for money. But we did it anyway. There was that time I drank a jar full of pickle juice that I’m pretty sure had pee in it for five dollars. There was that other time I agreed to pick up a toothless hitchhiker for five dollars… and a little road head. The point is we’ve all been there. Maybe not ‘there’ exactly, but when I stop to think about it, isn’t that pretty much what a job is? How many of us would be waking up at 5am to go sit in an office building all day if it weren’t rewarded with a great big block of moldy cheddar every two weeks. Y’know, greenbacks, gravy, guacamoolah. I used to think the only job I would enjoy is the person who tests out every mattress to make sure somebody could sleep on it. I’d go on an all-expenses paid trip around the country crashing at furniture warehouses along the way. Hey, somebody’s got to do it. Turns out, everybody is actually really good at something and if you’re one of the fortunate ones, you’ve identified that skill, and learned how to make it work for you. Then it’s not really work. But for the rest of us, toiling away at our day jobs to make ends meet in the hopes that maybe someday we won’t have to, I present PianoFight.com’s Day Job blog series, truly started last month by Gabi Patacsil. Hey, we’re real people and PianoFight hasn’t made us filthy stinking rich yet so sometimes you gotta…y’know, oh where’d I put that idiom dictionary…

For my part, I keep the fuzz off my ass (literally and figuratively) by working as a cook at a little place called  Jack’s down on 24th. We serve up all kinds of Cajun delights that I can’t even pronounce: maque choux, étouffée, poulet frit. Of course you’ve got to have your catfish sandwich, red beans, and don’t you dare forget the gumbo. And we deep fry EVERYTHING. If you come in and happen to see a huge baby in an apron eating bacon grease by the gobfull, that’s me. The place doubles as a dive bar so there are always a lot of real genuine characters that come in. And they certainly have some entertaining stories to tell! Vietnam seems to be a recurring theme and the reenactments always become more and more realistic as the night wears on, complete with language only a serviceman would know how to use. It’s a good place to go if you don’t want to be found by the people you usually hang out with. Yes indeed, Jack’s is unique. In a good way. It helps that the food is great (insert shameless pat on back here), and for the most part I find cooking to be a relaxing, therapeutic activity with very tasty results. Win!

For the past few years, I’ve also worked as a stage technician on countless PianoFight productions as well as others. It wasn’t until the other day that I began to draw comparisons between the kind of work I’m doing in the kitchen, and the kind of work I’m doing backstage and in the tech booth.

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San Francisco-based choreographer Brian Gibbs of TAGsf sat down with PianoFight’s Evan Winchester to talk about his two new dance films, and discuss the creative process in the Bay Area. We will be covering those two projects on the blog here. See examples of Brian’s work here and here. Part two of this interview and the two dance shorts can be found here.

EVAN: Tell me about what you’re working on.

BRIAN: Grey Halos one and two is a short film by The Artist Group San Francisco (TAGsf) and a nod to the odd.

EW: How important is the title of a piece?

BG: The importance of a good title is so that the audience has a gauge for what to expect. Association. Oftentimes people get too caught up in the title of a piece and expect that a good title will help float whatever piece further into the viewers’ minds. For me personally the proof is in the pudding and the work will speak for itself which is why I had such a hard time thinking of a title for the film. Originally I wanted to call attention to dumb titles by calling this particular film “My Butt whispers softly during the night” but that quickly got shot down. I don’t really care because it is still funny to me. The reason why I ended up naming the film Grey Halo’s one and two is because Grey to me is very ambiguous. It’s not black or white but caught in-between in this weird indefinable area. When I think of nothing, the lack of space and time, everything else, what I see is Grey. With a title like Grey it’s hard to come up with any big ideas for what to expect. Hell, I can’t even call this a dance film. I don’t know what it is truth be told. One other reason Grey ended up being the title is that San Francisco is known for the fog, which is the one connector of both films.

EW: What is it about the mask that interests you?

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Good friends and PianoFight collaborators All Ages, the Japanese-American rock band that graced the stage as one of ShortLived’s house bands in 2010, just dropped a video cut together from pictures and shots taken during their 2011 international tour. Derrick Soares and Tom Yamashita, who directed and most likely shot everything in the video, are fierce examples of do-it-your-fucking-self success. They are their own producer, promoter, publicist, film maker, manager, booking agent, sound engineer and oh yeah, they’re musicians. They’ve also got hearts of gold. If you’re into this song, I heartily recommend purchasing the whole album which you can do here.

-Rob

Big thanks to all the SF media outlets who covered FORKING this year! Here’s the skinny on what people they’re saying:

“Another tradition-in-the-making [FORKING] is also packing the house with a good mix of PianoFight first-timers and old “Forking” initiates who are easily identified by their crumpled brown paper BYOB bags.” – SF Bay Guardian

“…A staple, like mashed potatoes, mistletoe, and condoms in the Christmas stocking.” – SF Weekly

“It’s getting to be a beloved holiday tradition.” – SF Chronicle

“So you could see this show every single night of its run and still not see every possible permutation. Unless maybe they hold it over for 994 years.” – Direct Address

“About fifteen minutes in, I had the thought: ‘I don’t think I have laughed this much or seen jokes packed this dense since I first saw the movie AIRPLANE!’ That’s high praise. (And, just for the record, I was not under the influence and “high praise” is not a double entendre.)” – Examiner.com / TheaterStorm

We also got some shout outs in SFist.com, the Bay Area Reporter, 7×7 Magazine and Theatre Bay Area Magazine (would link to TBA but can’t find the graphic online). Again, thanks to the SF media for tagging FORKING as a holiday tradition!

PianoFight is executive-producing a short narrative film called Low Shoulders. Find out more at www.lowshoulders.com.

The teenage tragedy song was most popular during the 50s and 60s. It’s a style of ballad with names like “Black Denim Trousers,” “Endless Sleep,” “Dead Man’s Curve” and “Teen Angel.” Here’s Lana Del Rey with “Born to Die” (2011).

-Evan