Jumping off
the screen

>> 99¢ Dreams is a synesthetic symphony
that will suck you into the story

FOR THE PRICE OF A SLICE: Scenes from 99¢ Dreams

by JACK OATMON

Jason Rodi set out, travelled the world and filmed a pseudo-documentary that distorts the lines between fiction and reality called 99¢ Dreams. He arranged a psychedelic journey completely out of real, unscripted footage. Now, the screening of the film aims to integrate the audience’s experience into the fantasy as much as possible by providing a live soundtrack, improvised and performed by guest musicians from Moondata, as well as having the actors present at the time of the screening. The actors will naturally be in character, given the fact that they “play” themselves in the film, creating an interactive, ultra-voyeuristic multimedia installation.

“99¢ Dreams is a film that took me about four years to make,” says Rodi. “I didn’t have a script, I had a concept. I would go out and shoot while we were travelling and bring the content back and edit it at Moment Factory. I used the Lab Projects [Moondata events] to test it and get a feeling for it, and build these stories in a live fashion. And musically, no one can do that better than Moondata. They bring all these amazing musicians together and record every show and pass the content on to me. And that became the base soundtrack for the film. The music is a character in and of itself.”

Rodi’s surreal, uninhibited journey around the world and across many media platforms is a metaphor for his perception of our own technological privilege. “It’s a play on the way the world is today. We’re able to go from one side of the world to the other in just a few hours, we’re able to talk to and see the other side of it instantly, so it’s all accessible. You can almost say that we can time travel, using video technology and so on. Having captured the past, we’re able to revisit it and rework it and even rework our own memory of it.”

And rework it he did, and will do again. The film will be organized and edited live, in synergy with the Moondata’s ad hoc band of individually noteworthy musicians, including Miles Perkin, Sarah Pagé, Josh Zubot, Joe Grass, Phil Melanson and Bucky Wheaton. All this will create a one-time product of experience, part of the evolution of the film. The story has grown in a completely organic manner, and Rodi would like the film to be viewed in the same spirit.

“I wanted to treat the music and even the editing the same way and just let things become what they wanted to be. For me, the music is an integral part of that. I can’t think of a better way to show it than what we’re doing on Friday. It’s almost like the film’s going to become real. It’s going to be mixed live. The whole thing has been worked on for years and refined, and the musicians have seen the film, understand where it’s going, but have never played to it before. So we all bring in ideas and a structured improv will come out of it.”

At Musée d’Art Contemporain
(185 Ste-catherine W.) on
Friday, Dec. 7, 5 p.m., $8