IOW: Gentle stroke of MIDNIGHT
Good ev-e-ning, crazy goblins and creepy ghouls! As tonight will be the surrogate party time for many of you since Halloween falls mid-week, we hope you have great fun in your wild get-ups but also make safe transportation and reasonable consumption a high priority. Speaking of taking in nourishment, duty has called repetitively here at the not-very-scary Secret MICRO-FILM Headquarters as we continue our posting deluge for the fall. Make sure to check out our recent and upcoming writing once that Pumpkin Haze wears off and, if you simply must pack it all in tonight, here’s a quick one to tide you over…
We realized this pretty little number has never made C-U Blogfidential even though we played it at the most recent New Art Film Festival and added it to our YouTube channel. Therefore, we must spread the love! MIDNIGHT LOVE is a “Cinderella story” filmed in Champaign-Urbana two years ago by Timothy Ro for the San Francisco electronic musician Mokhov, featuring actors Allegra Wentworth and Daniel Kamberelis in a star-crossed chance encounter set against a more cosmopolitan C-U than we usually see in real life. Deep-focus DSLR cinematography by Nathan Adhikari and disciplined editing by Sean O’Leary add to the feel of a classic romance set in a contemporary young people’s milieu.
Another of the many distinct touches in MIDNIGHT LOVE is the costume design contributed by Urbana retro fashionista Polly Bland, who has received a sudden burst of local press during the past few weeks from the News-Gazette and a new “student life” magazine called Impulse. When not contributing her talents to local film shoots, which have also included A. Lawrence Dreyfuss’ HAD HE FIDELITY and Chris and Anne Lukeman’s upcoming ONCE UPON A TIME IN 1977, she writes the ‘blog The Littlest Polly and operates the on-line vintage store Paulie Antiques. Neat story for the ultimate dress-up weekend, yes?
The original track “Midnight Love” appears on Mokhov’s album Halcyon Days, released last year.
~ Jason Pankoke