Richard Levine – Art Bursts
In 2024 Phillip Johnston began a collaboration with filmmaker Richard Levine on a series of 1-minute digital films, paired with edits of music edits of a variety of pre-existing projects, varying from un-released work to existing CDs of various bands.
The films are short movies by Richard made with @runwayapp, Midjourney AI, Adobe Premiere and Topaz AI & Gigapixel AI. These are the results of seeking authentic imagery on a platform that urges sameness and easy meaning.
Here is a link to their most recent work entitled LOST UMBRELLA (1:09). The music is Johnston’s composition ‘(They’) Call Me Daisy’ from his 1996 recording Flood At The Ant Farm, ) by Phillip Johnston’s Big Trouble (Black Saint 120182-2
Big Head Pointy Nose
Pointy Head Big Nose by Bhanu Pratap
Johnston is currently working on a new collaborative project involving live performances of music for comics, such as the ones he pioneered in Wordless!
The first work in this series is a 7 ½ minute piece using Pratap’s comic ‘Big Head Ponty Nose’ which has originally published in Fantagraphics anthology Now (12), edited by Eric Reynolds.
The music was composed for this comic, and is meant to be performed live, but here is a video screener, showing the comic and the music together.
Puffs of Smoke
Puffs of Smoke is a fantasia of short subjects from the silent film era (mostly pre-1920) across a variety of topic areas and styles, including dramatized poems, newsreel footage, fragments of bushranger melodramas, advertisements and short documentaries. [It will also include a slide show of digital transfers of magic lantern slides from the Salvation Army’s multimedia event Soldiers of the Cross (1900)]. The event itself will consist of a screening of the films, with original music composed and performed by screen composer Phillip Johnston.
For more details on Johnston’s 30 year+ career in original scores, head to his silent film page.
The films will be introduced by short narratives delivered by Johnston. The music will consist of a combination of pre-recorded tracks in sync with live saxophone performance by Johnston. The entire performance will last 70-80 minutes.