{"id":589540,"date":"2023-09-02T14:11:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T11:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/harmony-korine-on-making-psychedelic-aggro-dr1ft-with-travis-scott-vibe-is-almost-everything\/"},"modified":"2023-09-02T14:11:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T11:11:40","slug":"harmony-korine-on-making-psychedelic-aggro-dr1ft-with-travis-scott-vibe-is-almost-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/harmony-korine-on-making-psychedelic-aggro-dr1ft-with-travis-scott-vibe-is-almost-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"#Harmony Korine on Making Psychedelic \u2018AGGRO DR1FT\u2019 With Travis Scott: \u201cVibe Is Almost Everything\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Harmony\u00a0Korine\u00a0returns to the Venice Film Festival this week with his most experimental project in years, AGGRO DR1FT<\/em>, an 80-minute screen experience that he doesn\u2019t even really consider a movie.\u00a0Taking the neon-bikini-and-guns aesthetic of his late career breakthrough Spring Breakers<\/em> (2012) and elevating it into its own dimension entirely, AGGRO DR1FT <\/em>was shot fully with thermal lens, giving it an explosively colorful and pulsating video game<\/a>-like aesthetic. The story is set in the seedy domain of Miami\u2019s criminal underbelly, where Spanish actor Jordi Moll\u00e0 stars as a seasoned hitman in pursuit of his next target. Superstar rapp<\/a>er Travis Scott appears in the supporting part of Zion, a fellow travel<\/a>er in this twisted, hallucinatory world of violence and sensuous madness. DJ and producer AraabMuzik, acclaimed for his work with ASAP Rocky, Cardi B and over a dozen other hip-hop stars, composed the film\u2019s synth and beat-driven score.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n AGGRO DR1FT <\/em>is the first title from a new company\u00a0Korine\u00a0founded in Palm Beach, Florida called EDGLRD (pronounced \u201cedge lord\u201d). Part design collective, part digital factory, the outfit comprises video artists, animators, game and fashion designers, skateboarders and creatives of many other ilks.\u00a0Korine\u00a0says the group is committed to exploring the coming convergence of immersive art forms and will soon launch its own direct-to-consumer digital platform to release its multiform work (On Sept. 14, Korine will also unveil a new series<\/a> of paintings inspired by AGGRO DR1FT<\/em> at Los Angeles art gallery Hauser & Wirth in West Hollywood).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Shortly before AGGRO DR1FT<\/em>\u2018s world premiere in Venice, The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> connected with\u00a0Korine\u00a0to chat about the project\u2019s creative origins and why \u201cthere\u2019s never been a more interesting time to create than in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n What a wild film this is. Not much is known about\u00a0AGGRO DR1FT<\/em>\u00a0publicly yet, so I wanted to start by asking you about its premise and inspiration.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Yeah, I worked on it clandestinely with this creative team that we set up here in Miami. A couple of years ago, I was starting to feel differently about movies and experiences \u2014 asking myself, what is a movie? \u2014\u00a0and I started to become less and less interested in standard films and entertainment. So, we kind of worked for a while to try to develop something that I had been chasing but wasn\u2019t able to really articulate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n We\u2019re trying to create something that has more like a kind of a singularity to it, at a time when different art forms are starting to feel like they\u2019re starting to merge, you know? So, for like a year we just experimented with different tech \u2014 gaming engines, thermal cameras, 3D cameras and VFX. I wanted to see if there was a way to make something that was wholly immersive and closer to being inside of a game, but still narrative. So that\u2019s kind of how it developed, and then the storyline and the characters developed with that.<\/p>\n

\n What was involved in the creation of the finished look of the film? Everything was shot in thermal cam and then effects were laid on top in post?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Yeah, without getting too technical, it\u2019s a multi-layered process. So, there\u2019s live-action, VFX and animation \u2014 and then we incorporate AI into certain things by working within gaming engines. We even had some 3D imaging involved. There were three cameras running concurrently, and it\u2019s almost like we created a technical snake that was hardwired to the computer. The computers and a dolly were just kind of like rigged to this machine. It was all kind of baked into this strange system we created. So, it was pretty cool. A very layered process \u2014 closer to creating a video art piece.<\/p>\n

\n Yeah, it definitely feels like it\u2019s more in the experimental filmmaking tradition, where the visual style and the storytelling approach are so different from a conventional film that it\u2019s initially quite jarring \u2014 but then you end up experiencing and feeling things you never would from a typical movie.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Honestly, we never really discussed it as a film. It was more like an event or an experience \u2014 like we were trying to chase something that we didn\u2019t feel existed yet. As it developed, there was really no script. There were designs and boards and visuals, and I was kind of freestyling as we went. Obviously, it\u2019s heavily indebted to gaming aesthetics. More like in the way that song functions, it\u2019s a much more liquid kind of narrative. It leans on this idea that vibe is almost everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Korine and his collaborators wore horned masks during the entire press conference for \u2018AGGRO DR1FT\u2019 at the Venice Film Festival. \u201cVideo games are so advanced and so much more interesting than normal films,\u201d he said in Italy. \u201cI could be sitting there playing a video game for days, whereas it\u2019s hard for me to make it through any of these films.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n The pace and flow of it does feel like the presence of being in a game, in the way that you\u2019re just kind of there and things just happen and sometimes repeat. Are you a big gamer yourself?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Oh yeah, totally. Over the last couple of years, l went really headfirst into RPGs and first-person shooters. And it kind of started to take over in a lot of ways, spending a lot of time on Twitch and anything from mobile games to Elden Ring and GTA. You know, just the idea of world creation. It\u2019s fun and can be transgressive \u2014\u00a0and for whatever reason it just started to take over more and more of my time.<\/p>\n

\n When you were shooting with the thermal camera and the other aspects of the rig you created, what kind of things did you have to think about to capture the images in the way that you wanted to capture them? How was it different from shooting with a conventional camera?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n The thermal just looks beautiful and I liked the idea of it reacting to heat, you know? It felt very close to almost capturing souls. At the same time, with the neon and the colors, it was almost like capturing a kind of energy. The action almost becomes like a rave.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n I was also struck by the way the characters\u2019 bodies sometimes move in the stilted and repetitive manner of video games \u2014 almost with a feeling of latency. But then other times they would move somewhat more naturalistically.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Yeah, that\u2019s what I was going for with the whole thing \u2014 in the way that the bodies move, but also with the over-the-top dialog. Sometimes the dialog almost feels like it\u2019s been filtered through something extra, you know? Like we tried to drain the emotion out of the dialog but at the same time give it this stilted effect, where they\u2019re kind of shouting platitudes and curses. Some of it was by design and some of it just kind of happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n In terms of scripting, it sounds like most of it was improvised, with you just feeding the actors lines on the fly?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n There was no written dialog. I was trying to get to a point where I could freestyle a movie, basically. I had an idea for the characters, locations and a broad storyline, but we never actually wrote anything down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n So let\u2019s talk about your co-stars. How did Jordi Moll\u00e0 end up as your central assassin character?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n He was living a couple doors down from me in Miami, so I ended up spending a lot of time with him. He used to send me video clips of lizards and shit floating in the water, because we lived right on the water (Laughs). It was cool; I always just liked him. And I loved him in Blow and Bad Boys. But just as a person \u2014\u00a0the way he moves and speaks, and his accent \u2014\u00a0there\u2019s something strangely human about him. For his character, I liked the idea of the world\u2019s greatest assassin who\u2019s also filled with doubt and misery and going through what\u2019s almost like an existential crisis. But at the same time, he still excels in that world of violence. I knew Jordi would play him in this kind of broken way. So, I called the film the aggressive drifter, which is really what the character is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n There\u2019s also going to be a lot of excitement and curiosity about Travis Scott in this. How did he get involved and what was he like to work with as an actor?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Travis is someone I\u2019ve worked with creatively for a while. You know, I shot the cover for his album JackBoys and I recently worked on his Circus Maximus film, which we shot in Italy. I just thought he would be perfect for that character of Zion. He really felt like a part of this world. He\u2019s very much what you would think. He\u2019s very enigmatic but he\u2019s in the moment. He was always thinking about the character and the visuals. He was just totally in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n What are your hopes and plans for how this film, or experience, will reach an audience?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n I have ideas. You know, we created this company EDGLRD and the dream is that we\u2019ll have our own platform. At some point, we\u2019ll be able to circumvent the system. It\u2019ll be a kind of creative direct-to-market situation. We\u2019re trying to develop a way that we can create and put it out there as quickly as possible. I\u2019m sure there\u2019ll be a theatrical release in some capacity. Or the theatrical might be its own thing that\u2019s maybe more immersive. Like there might be another way to present it.<\/p>\n

\n You mean as a VR or gaming experience?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n No, like presented as a rave.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Oh wow,\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0immersive. That\u2019s a fun idea to contemplate. What would that be like?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n It would definitely be fun. (Laughs) There\u2019s also a world in which we put the film online and it will remix itself endlessly. You\u2019ll have skins for the characters, and it can just kind of exist forever and be constantly changing and remixing. I think that\u2019s possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Can you talk about other aspects of the platform you\u2019re building?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n We\u2019ve already built it and we\u2019ll launch it soon. It\u2019ll be games, live-action, streaming and pranks. It\u2019ll have objects and clothes. It\u2019ll hopefully introduce its own world. This is the first film that will go on there. I\u2019ve already finished the second one, which is totally different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n I grew up in the movies, so I always dreamed of doing things on the big screen, and I love watching things on the big screen because it\u2019s so immersive. But I watch the way my kids view and interact with stuff now and I\u2019m not so hung up on how things connect with and find their audience. I\u2019m not even hung up on the idea that what I\u2019m making is a movie. It\u2019s more like, what comes after all this?<\/p>\n

\n A lot of people in the movie business are lamenting the present moment because it feels like cinema might have lost its central place in the culture. But you seem totally happy to explore and embrace whatever might be coming next.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n I just think there\u2019s never been a more interesting time to create than in this moment. I think that tech finally is catching up to dreams and imagination in a way that has never happened. And I feel like it\u2019s only going to get more interesting. You know, with AI and what\u2019s happening in gaming, it really feels closer to a paintbrush. It\u2019s just like another tool. I never really see them as one thing damaging another. It\u2019s just its own mode of creation. I think there\u2019s going to be an audience for normal films for a long time, but there\u2019s also something else new and exciting developing. And there are so many ways to put things out now. The way a lot of people watch things isn\u2019t even linear anymore. Viewing habits have been completely deconstructed, where some people watch and engage with multiple things at the same time. Even the meaning behind some work is questionable. Are we living in a time of post-meaning? I think all of these things are fun and there are new worlds to be built. It\u2019s about creating stuff that is immersive and beyond dialog. There is a kind of emotional, physical component to this that\u2019s beyond any kind of simple articulation.\u00a0And it\u2019s just fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n So, what advice would you give the audience that will be stepping into the first AGGRO DR1FT screening in Venice?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n Oh man, I haven\u2019t even seen it on the big screen myself yet! I\u2019m so excited to see it with a lot of people and to blast the music. I would just say, roll with it and experience it. Take a step inside. Hopefully, you\u2019ll enjoy it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Harmony\u00a0Korine\u00a0returns to the Venice Film Festival this week with his most experimental project in years, AGGRO DR1FT, an 80-minute screen experience that he doesn\u2019t even really consider a movie.\u00a0Taking the neon-bikini-and-guns aesthetic of his late career breakthrough Spring Breakers (2012) and elevating it into its own dimension entirely, AGGRO DR1FT was shot fully with thermal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":589541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/aggrodr1ft_01_hero-H_16x9.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[124783,34009],"class_list":["post-589540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-international","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}