BE LIKE AN ANT (2012, 57 min, directed by Mike Plante)
Post-Vietnam, Paul bought a trailer for his family to live in. Many bad winters made the mobile home unlivable, so he took matters into his own hands and started to build a house – around the trailer. He never made any blueprints.
30 years, 4 floors and 100 windows later, the house is almost done.
A portrait of a 20th Century man, redemption of the spirit and the house as a teacher.

Home Movie Show (2012) - Episode 5 - Kim Yutani's Hot Tub Party
Kim Yutani from Sundance and Outfest interviews the filmmakers of YOUNG & WILD in this special episode of Home Movie Show. Featuring Writer Camila Gutierrez, Writer/Director Marialy Rivas and Actress Alicia Rodriguez.

Made by Mike Plante. Music by Adam Payne. Title animation by Jason Willis.




Home Movie Show (2012) - Episode 4 - Animators Drawing part 2

See the magic as it happens in real time! Strong fingers, articulate brains. With Drew Christie (Song of the Spindle, Allergy to Originality), Don Hertzfeldt (It’s Such a Beautiful Day, World of Tomorrow) and Stephen Neary (Dr. Breakfast).


Made by Mike Plante. All drawing music by Adam Payne. Title theme by Calvin Lee Reeder. Title animation by Jason Willis.


Home Movie Show (2012) - Episode 3 - Animators Drawing part 1

See the magic as it happens in real time! Nimble fingers, arty brains. With Brent Green (To Many Men Strange Fates Are Given), Julia Pott (Belly, The Event). Dan Ojari (Slow Derek) and Kataneh Vahdani (Avacados).

Made by Mike Plante. All drawing music by Adam Payne. Title theme by Calvin Lee Reeder. Title animation by Jason Willis.


Home Movie Show (2012) - Episode 2 - Park City has ghosts somewhere, dammit. Ghostning with Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected, It's Such A Beautiful Day, World of Tomorrow), David Zellner (Kumiko the Treasure Hunter) and Nicholas McCarthy (The Pact). Camera by Mike Plante and Brent Green (Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then). Title song by Calvin Lee Reeder.


In 2012, I made a series of short "home movies" for the Sundance (my day job is Senior Programmer, Short Films) website, getting friends to do things that seemed funny at the time. I still think its funny, so either I'm stuck in a vacuum or just like watching people dicking around. I'm a big fan of The Incredibly Strange Film Show and obviously inspired, like when you watch a Jackie Chan film and then immediately go to the parking lot and jump on the roof of your friend's van and they peel out.

This is episode one, with Nash Edgerton (Spider, Lucky, Bear) - a great filmmaker who is also a longtime professional stunt man along with his brother Joel and friends in Australia, showing the Zellner Brothers (Goliath, KID-THING, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter) how to do a film fight.

Title song by Calvin Lee Reeder.



In 2000, Craig Baldwin and Bill Daniel came to Tucson and I set up a show for them at the local MOCA, run by the great James Graham and Julia Latane. Craig showed a curated program of activist shorts and his new feature "Spectres of the Spectrum" which Bill shot the images for (that weren't found footage). When we realized that we were in an old train depot and the tracks still ran out back, Bill had the idea to carry out his 16mm projector and some raw footage to project on passing trains. When we heard a whistle, the inside show stopped and the crowd of 150 went out back to watch. In a crazy perfect moment, the footage was all of current train-hoppers, men living on the rails full time. The whole night was beautiful. The footage became Bill's feature doc on hobo graffiti "Who Is Bozo Texino?" and some of this footage went into an installation Bill did. At the end of the night we found a switchblade broken in half. The next morning a guy on the street asked to trade a Greyhound bus ticket for Bill's van. He declined.




Profile doc of a great record label, run by one guy who is a ton of fun. An American success story, fuckin' A.

Thanks to Todd and Daryl of Razorcake Magazine.


The Masque is the granddaddy of all punk rock clubs in Los Angeles, probably the first devoted to the scene and definitely the best preserved one. This short doc is from an abandoned series on lost punk rock clubs - I've got a ton more footage but every other classic venue is gone now or worse, a rebranded bar.

Obviously this works best for people already familiar with the bands and the history, but I think everyone can appreciate the art and the history on the walls. It wasn't a fad.

I fucked up one tag - and a great one. I don't know how, just looked through the viewfinder wrong and cropped out the top of it on accident. Not to mention I was spazzing out by just being there and didn't think straight. This is the full tag:

Photograph copyright Michael Yampolsky, all rights reserved

Love it so much - crazy how timely it still is. The photo is by Michael Yampolsky, who was on the ground at The Masque in the 70s and took tons of vital photos, many of which are in Mullen's book (see below). This pic is from 1997, when he snuck back into the basement. It's a great series of color photos, which you can see right here. It's a freaking perfect reference point, right in between 1977, when the club opened, and today in the summer of 2012. This door is exactly the same, but lots of the smaller walls gone now.

For the history of the club pick up Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley. It's compiled and edited by the king of the Masque himself Brendan Mullen, along with Roger Gastman, put out by Gingko Press. Funny, smart writing and insanely cool photos. The late, great Mullen is pretty humble about being the first punk rock club in L.A., but this was it.

There are a few videos of Masque shows out there:

The Weirdos playing in 77 - part of a punk doc that looks amazing - Mullen is at the very end



and...of course...The Screamers



Much thanks to KK Barrett, Dan Monick, Luis Farfan, Billy Luther.

 - Speedway Randy