Synopsis

Vert documents the founding and current tenuous status of the most popular form of active shoreline recreation in the world. Shot with the cooperation of the game's co-founder and his family, the film examines the destructive effects of greed and indifference upon passion, nostalgia, and the innocence of childhood.

Background

This is the first film I made with Kirk Hostetter and is based on a childhood game he related to me at a party. An email followed a few days later:

Great idea for a short film: An explanation and demonstration of the game "Vert". I see it taking place at Golden Gardens. Lots of close ups of looking for the perfect rock. Total deadpan Errol Morris style. Could be filmed and on the web in a day. Think about it. Would be funny as shit.

Kirk responded immediately:

i would like to make it slightly more ambitious--discussion of vert from its conception----my bro and i on vacation in Connecticut, plying on the banks of the monongahela river, how it got widened in scope and began to include friends---playing on both coasts. this can all be done with you interviewing me, but we could also interview via phone my brother and include his voice over on images of finding the rocks, and even my mom via phone--that would be one question, maybe the film's punch line, where she would say something about how she has no idea what you are talking about <because she really wont> yeah. it could end up being a 5 or ten minute short documentary. i like the idea. and i love the idea, in general, of getting into some live action short film stuff (working with you briefly on that thing got my juices flowing again) i miss editing. we should talk.

On a Saturday morning in late-May 1999 we shot Vert at Golden Gardens in Seattle and spent the next few weeks digitizing footage from the analog Sony Video-8 and editing it to Steve Reich's "Music For 18 Musicians". It sat like this for a few months while we were vaguely dissatisfied with the results.

In August 1999 I attended the D.FILM event in downtown Seattle where I ran into Bart Cheever. Bart evangelized the power and clarity of digital video versus analog. So on a whim we bought a FireWire card, a Sony Digital-8 camera, and reshot the film.

This new version is the definitive version of Vert, while the earlier version is the Vert: Rough Cut.

We submitted Vert to all the usual fests - and probably due to a mishap where I accidentally submitted tapes of video static - we were rejected by all. Perhaps in retrospect at just under 15 minutes, the film was just too damn long.

An experiment in digital editing: in April 2000 we were approached by the internationally renowned multimedia-fusion-artists The Nazareth Brothers, who wanted to cull through hours of raw footage and remix our acclaimed documentary Vert into their own creation.

We gave Owen and Jesse one stipulation: no new footage could be shot.

The end result was they cut the hell out of our movie, applied their hip-hop sensibilities and street cred, and created a new story with a clever visual dynamic.

See it for yourself. Vert: Remixed is amazing and flat-out poignant. It begs the question: how many different stories could potentially be created from one short film?

In August 2002 we would revisit the world of Vert in Revert.

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