5 Questions with Taylor Ervin ("Shark Muscle")

1) What have you been up to since we last spoke in June for "Art Boy?"

Unfortunately, I’ve had to put the camera down for awhile because of the pandemic, but it’s given me some time to reflect on my practice as a filmmaker. It’s been a quiet, contemplative and sometimes agonizing period, but I think a few fruitful insights have come out of the process. I’m excited about the future.

2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?

Tony 1 and Tony Z are part of the same social milieu that I chronicled in my previous film Art Boy. Tony Z even appeared in a small role in Art Boy, so the idea for this new film grew naturally out of that relationship. I had been a fan of Tony or Tony’s music and the broader mythos they had built around themselves, so I suggested that we make a film. When I approached them, they were just a couple of months away from the release of their second album. We thought we could make a film that would be a kind of visual exploration of some of the themes expressed on the album. 

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?

The biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to take a musical work, which is purely auditory, and distill it into something visual. Do you take a literal interpretation of the lyrics and craft a story from those?  Do you go abstract? Do you just try to tap into a certain mood? I think ultimately what became most important for me was texture. I wanted to create a rich layering of sounds and images that was adequate to the rich layering of instrumentation and vocals in the music. As a result, this film is much more playful visually and in its sound design than my last film. 

The easiest part of making the film was to just get out of the way and let the Tonys do their thing. Those guys are such amazing natural performers that most of the time I just had to turn the camera on and say “Go!”

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

I recently watched several of Atom Egoyan’s films from late 80s and 90s. He has a very interesting textural quality to his films imagistically, narratively and thematically. But Speaking Parts I think is his masterpiece. It’s a visually rich surrealistic noir filled with performances that float somewhere in the uncanny valley between brilliant and horrendous. And the way that Egoyan works with music is incredible. His frequent collaborator Mychael Danna is a master of mood. It’s one of those films you walk away from thinking there’s no way I could ever possibly make something as brilliant as this. 

5) What’s next for you?

I’m working on a couple of experimental documentary projects. The first, which I’ve just begun shooting, is about an eccentric older artist who lives in Harlem and who also happens to be part of the Art Boy milieu. The second, which I’ll be shooting over the summer,  is a more personal portrait of my hometown in rural Ohio.

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taylorervin.com | IG: @the_yearbook_committee