Film: Hot Velcro Action

Film Title: Hot Velcro Action

Award Designation: Love Unlimited Film Festival & Art Exhibition Award Winner.

Director: Michael Cantor

Country: USA

Category: Experimental Film

Short Synopsis: Rrrrip. Rrrrrrrrrrip. Rip. rip. rip rip rip ripripip...The luscious tearing sounds build to a thundering crescendo in the title sequence of this surprising short from first-time film-maker, Michael Cantor. Welcome to Hot Velcro Action, a bizarre and spell-binding odyssey of image and sound created from the movement of 5217 individually decorated velcro dots in stop-motion across a 24x17 grid.When the ripping subsides, the pixel-bots assemble, mining the velcro landscape for fleeting fragments of the human story -- traffic on the 101, a pristine mountain lake, a gorgeous ass. In the end, the clamorous din of memes collapses into nothing. And starts again.


More Information:

Director Statement
Creating and filming velcro dots has been my singular obsession for the past two years. The dots are made by punching circles into fabrics and papers of various colors, patterns and textures and then adhering them to 1.5” velcro coins. I also draw, paint and even make miniature sculptures on individual dots. In all I have made over 6000 dots in about 350 varieties. Hot Velcro Action results from filming these dots in stop-motion as I move them across a 24 x 17 grid. The more I work with the project, the more I fall in love with the organic, stubbornly analog beauty of the materials and the pictures they form. The final product becomes an inversion of computer animation -- each frame is rendered in low resolution at just 408 “pixels”, but each pixel is exploding with detail in full analog glory. I believe that the interplay of pattern in the arrangement of the dots and pattern within each dot is what makes Hot Velcro Action a unique visual experience. That said, I wanted the piece to be personal and not just an exercise in eye-candy. The sequence of images in the film arose though a sifting of memories and experience as my life in the world weaved in and out of my life with the dots. Seeing it complete, Hot Velcro Action feels to me like a question, but I’m not sure what that question is, let alone the answer.

Michael Cantor: Animator, Cinematographer/DP, Digital Effects, Director, Editor, Preview Return, Print Return, Print Shipper, Sound Editor, Submission Contact
Hot Velcro Action creator Mike Cantor is best described as a life-long pattern junky. By day, he designs visualization tools to hunt for patterns in DNA at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute. By night, the data unravels in his subconscious as sprawling arrangements of beads, fabric, and tile samples in his Oakland studio. In 2009, after 15 years as a sculptural artist, Cantor bought his first digital camera and embarked into the world of stop-motion animation. Hot Velcro Action is Mike Cantor’s first short film.

More information about Mike Cantor can be found at his web-site: http://mikecantor.net.


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