Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio gets its New Jersey premiere at the Fall 2014 New Jersey Film Festival at Rutgers University this Sunday!

Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio gets its New Jersey premiere at the Fall 2014 New Jersey Film Festival at Rutgers University!

This excellent and informative film is an intimate documentary chronicling the history of the acclaimed music recording studio located in Brooklyn. Here is an interview I did with the film’s director Sara Leavitt:

Nigrin: In your new documentary film Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio you chronicle the 30 year+ history of Martin Bisi’s heralded Brooklyn Recording Studio. Tell us a bit about your film and why you decided to make it.

Leavitt: The documentary is about BC Studio, a recording studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn that was started in 1981. Bill Laswell and Martin Bisi, using a gift from Brian Eno to buy equipment, founded it and Martin has gone on to run it for all of these years. When Ryan and I met Martin, we were blown away by how much music had been recorded there. For example, we had no idea bands like Sonic Youth had recorded early albums in Brooklyn.

We were making short videos for the web and thought the studio would be a good subject for a longer piece. We didn’t actually didn’t set out something that was feature length. The original idea was to make a short film with Martin, one that was sort of inspired by the documentary, The Cruise. However, we started interviewing people and the list of who we wanted to talk to kept getting longer and the fact that so much has happened at the studio, led us to eventually make a feature length film.

Nigrin: The editing of the film is really tight and in some ways contrasts with the funky aspects of the studio and the telling of its story. Can you give us insight into how the film was put together?

Leavitt: I was really happy with the pacing and then when I saw the movie projected in a real theater, I got really paranoid that we had edited the documentary too tightly! It was weird how seeing the film in a different setting changed my perception of it. I worked as an assistant editor on a lot of reality shows and TV documentaries and got used to how those kinds of programs are edited. Probably the biggest influence on how I approached editing this came from working on The First 48, an A&E show that follows detectives attempting to solve murders. I’m not sure anyone watching this documentary would realize that, but I approached the editing really methodically, separated it into acts and thought about how the final dialogue would read if it was in a script form.

I was aware that we were editing the story in a very mainstream way, but hopefully it makes it accessible to wider audience.

Nigrin: Your film is also about the future of the recording studio, as it is being squeezed in by the encroaching gentrification of the neighborhood. Tell us a bit about why you decided to add this element to the film.

Leavitt: Martin has been very vocal in his opposition to the Whole Foods that was being built in Gowanus, directly across the street from his studio, so it seemed natural to include it in the documentary. It seemed ironic to me that an upscale grocery store was being built next to a toxic, polluted waterway. Also, as someone who lives in Brooklyn, it’s changing so fast and buildings are going up at such a ridiculous rate, that I wanted to address that in some way. I didn’t want to make a straight up gentrification documentary, but slipping those ideas into a music documentary was appealing.

Sometimes it seems like all the empty spaces in Brooklyn, the parking lots, the one-story buildings, the community gardens, are being torn down and replaced by condos. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but when I walk around my neighborhood, it feels like all the spaces are being filled in. However, when there’s available space in a city, places like BC Studio can fill them. The studio is huge and I can’t imagine anyone having that much space if they were to open a studio today in Brooklyn. It’s somewhere that people can record music, be creative and that’s lost when real estate is prohibitively expensive.

Nigrin: Were there any memorable stories while you made this film or any other info about your film you can rely to our readers?

Leavitt: Obviously the shoots were filled with the kind of nuttiness that usually happens on low and no budget films. Often times, the interviews came together at the last minute and Ryan and I would run out with half the amount of the equipment we’d usually use and just do the best we could. For example, we interviewed Jim Coleman at around midnight at a movie theater in the West Village. (which explains why his footage is kind of out of focus)

Also, Martin is full of crazy stories about stuff that has happened during recording sessions. I’m not even sure I can say that stuff for print! I’ve heard stories about nudity, guns, and constant weight lifting by Henry Rollins. Actually, this reminds me that I need to ask him about some Iggy Pop stories….

Here is a link to the trailer for Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl-gLgjV4S

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Two terrific short films will be screened prior to Sound and Chaos on Sunday, September 21 at the New Jersey Informational Film Festival. Here is more info on this screening:

Light Divides the Square - Kimberly Burleigh (Cincinnati, Ohio) This hypnotic film follows in the tradition of experimental cinema and abstract animation. It features “rippling caustics,” or refracted light patterns, created through a 3D animation program. 2012; 5 min.

Balcony (Ballkoni) - Lendita Zeqiraj (Pristina, Kosovo) A 10-year-old boy is sitting on the edge of a balcony in a four-story building. Neighbors and passers-by, terrified by this situation, call the police and firefighters for help. This amazing short film makes remarkable use of the technical aspects of filmmaking for the explicit purpose of servicing story and character, as the entire scenario unfolds within one single take, without cuts or edits. In Albanian, subtitled. 2013; 20 min.

Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio - Ryan Douglass & Sara Leavitt, with Michael Gira, Brian Viglione, Bill Laswell, JG Thirlwell (Brooklyn, New York)
For over 30 years, Martin Bisi has recorded music from his studio in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood. Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, Sonic Youth, Swans, Angels of Light, John Zorn, Foetus and the Dresden Dolls, are some of the many musicians and bands who have recorded albums in Bisi’s factory building located alongside the Gowanus Canal. However, the future of the recording studio is now in question, as it is being squeezed in by the encroaching gentrification of the neighborhood. Featuring interviews with Michael Gira of Swans, Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls, Bob Bert, who played on Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising, Bill Laswell of Material, JG Thirlwell aka Foetus, and Michael Holman of Gray. 2014; 71 min. With an introduction and Q+A session by Director Sara Leavitt and Martin Bisi!

Sunday, September 21, 2014 at 7:00 p.m.
Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University,
71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey
$10=General; $9=Students+Seniors; $8=Rutgers Film Co-op Friends
Information: (848) 932-8482; www.njfilmfest.com

Free Food courtesy of Jimmy Johns will be given out prior to this screening of the New Jersey International Film Festival!