Jeremy Saulnier’s latest feature film Blue Ruin is no stylishly-lined revenge flick. It’s a struggling journey of one estranged and unlikely individual, getting himself involved in an unpredictable storm of violence. Official director’s statement can be read as follows: “BLUE RUIN is an engaging procedural account of a violent act and its aftermath. It'll have the depth of an intimate character study and the velocity of an action flick. Amidst tragedy, subtle moments of humor and hope will shine through. Like plucking a character from a Hal Ashby film and tossing them into No Country for Old Men. Or if Wendy and Lucy got caught in the crossfire of Taxi Driver.   The violence portrayed in the film is brutal and graphic. It is by no means glorified and its futility resonates as a major theme throughout the story. But it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I wasn’t attracted to cinematic bloodshed. It’s an art form unto itself, visually arresting and universally compelling.   If you were expecting something more profound, I offer you this truth: the screenplay is a deeply personal exploration of parental mortality and the emotional toll it takes on surviving family members. But heartfelt motivations should not be of concern to you or to my audience; such things don’t make it to the big screen. Stories need to stand on their own.   So do directors. I’m hands-on. I’ve led large crews on commercial sets, I’ve shot award-winning films on shoestring budgets, I’ve sculpted prosthetic makeup appliances and trained dogs to perform stunts. What I’ve never done is use my broad skill set to realize something great. To that end, I humbly ask for your support. Put your faith in my team and we will come through. I’ll happily stake my career on it.” Slide down to the bottom of this page to watch a suspenseful clip from the film. --- [embed width="640"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIwzTUzmXto[/embed] Clip for BLUE RUIN. Blue Ruin, 2013 Facebook --- Jeremy Saulnier

Most of our faithful fans know that we here at EK do what we do simply for the love of Art. And if you don't know, now you know. We originally started our site to share our love of Art with the world, but it grew quickly from a fun side project to an intense, all-consuming labor of love, and now, we have been blessed with this beautiful baby whose life it is our job to nurture and grow in a positive, impactful way. Our dream is to be a 90/10 company, meaning we donate 90% of our company's net income and keep only 10%. Take a moment to think about how retardedly difficult that sounds. There isn't a businessman in the world who'd invest in a business plan like that. "Yes, 'Sir Moneybags', we plan on taking your money...making more money...and then giving away most of it to causes that benefit Art and our community. Hello? -Hello? Ummm, he must have hung up..." We love Art, but do not want to evolve into some giant cog in the Art-world machine. We have dreams to change the world with Art, to educate, and inspire people on every part of the globe. Our dream is to grow our company to the point where someday we can throw down the gauntlet to all other successful businesses (not just Art), and force them to not just consider philanthropy as a part of doing business, but an integral part of the business model. But to be perfectly clear, we are still far, far away from this. We are at the bottom of the mountain, looking up together. Up to now, we've actually supported this site out of our own pockets...everything from the cost of hosting, to the redesign, and all the events and programs we've worked on so far.  While we do this with no complaints, we have definitely reached a tipping point. We are all artists ourselves, and like loving parents of a growing child, we unfortunately do not have all the time in the world to do everything we want. Increasingly, we find ourselves spending time developing this site as opposed to creating our own art, which has been a rewarding challenge, but a challenge, nonetheless. Now, we need your help you lovely people to keep this ship sailing in the right direction! We are asking for a donation of any amount to support the cause. Your money will strictly go towards helping us cover our increased hosting and server costs because this shit is getting expensive! We're at the point where we won't be able to fund this project on our own, so we need your help. In case you haven't noticed, there's been a number of times when our site has gone down temporarily. This is because our servers have been overloaded, and the jump to the next level of hosting we need to keep up with all you dope fiends is simply too expensive for a bunch of starving artists to afford. So our desire to support the site has put us at a crossroad. Instead of selling a stake of our company out to the "Man" for investment money to keep our ship upright (which means we lose our 100% control and have no guarantee of the long-term direction of our future), we want to do it our way because our way is for the love of art and humanity...created by the people and for the people. We have grown quicker than we ever imagined we would, and now have volunteers working with us from cities all over the world, and more are arriving to our shores. They all come for the same reason that you do. Great art. Great artists. Great, well curated content. Art is our addiction. That's how the site started, it feeds our souls, and defines our existence in many ways. So if you care enough, then please click on the button below, and spread the good word! Thanks, we love you always... EMPTY KINGDOM

Daniel Sierra explores the varying elemental and scientific aesthetics of the wave in his short animated thesis entitled OSCILLATE. Conceptual origins and background info can be read as follows: "OSCILLATE" is the title of my thesis animation done at the MFA Computer Art program in the School of Visual Arts located in New York City.   My goal with "OSCILLATE" was to visualize waveform patterns that evolve from the fundamental sine wave to more complex patterns, creating a mesmerizing audio-visual experience in which sight and sound work in unison to capture the viewer's attention.   ---   The concept of universal building blocks that can be assembled to form complex structures is something I find very exciting and alluring. Sound follows this concept in that any sound, for example a snare drum or a human voice, can be deconstructed as the summation of varying sine waves; hence making sine waves the building blocks of sound so to speak. This concept, which comes from the Fourier Series (named after Joseph Fourier) was the inspiration for my thesis, "OSCILLATE".   Conveying this concept through the animation of sine waves proved to be ideal, as there is a certain mesmerizing quality to periodic motion. Whether in the hypnotizing swing of a pendulum or the waves of an ocean, periodic motion can often have a very relaxing and trance-inducing effect on us.   I wanted the audience to begin with the widely recognized image and sound of the sine wave, and show them how it is a building block not just for sound but also complex visual forms by changing its interpretation over the length of the piece.   Additionally this was an opportunity for me to create a song and visualize it at the same time. Being interested in the aesthetics of linking sound and visuals, this was a very exciting project for me. It gave me the chance to experience the process of creating music and visuals simultaneously as they both influence each other. At the same time I learned a lot about simulation effects, particles and procedural animation.   ---   The animation was done purely in Houdini, using Houdini's VEX language to create the tool that could generate and animate waveforms. The music was made in Reason.   The concept work took place as sketches on paper, as well as "code sketches". I used Processing to develop a RnD tool for visualizing sine wave patterns and formations.   When I became confident that the tool could reliably produce interesting results, I began to port it in to Houdini. Since I only started learning Houdini a few months prior, it took several iterations to land on the best way to bring it in to Houdini.   Houdini proved to be a great to tool to do this project in. Its open-ended nature and visual-coding like environment meant I could think closer to the logic of a programmer while retaining all the power and functionality of a professional 3D software package. As my piece focuses on the animation of sine functions and particle systems, I found this to be a good workflow.” Scroll down below to view the embedded material. --- [embed width="640"]https://vimeo.com/65475425[/embed] Experimental short for OSCILLATE. OSCILLATE, 2013 --- Daniel Sierra