Curtis L. Wiebe

Another year, another Christmas video!  I really thought I wasn't going to do it this time but I got this idea and it just wouldn't go away.  So here it is!  A video featuring a scatting Christmas tree inspired by TV commercials from the 80's and 90's.

The annual Christmas video for 2016!  This one was a bit of a last-minute creation.  Over the past few years I have been experimenting with sculpting puppets using masking tape.  I had built Synthmaster Alan's head awhile ago and I always loved his expression.  He looked like a real character.  Then, just a few weeks before Christmas I had a vision of little Alan playing a synthesizer.  I quickly built a body for the little guy, got my crew together and filmed this little music video.

For over a year I have been involved in a documentary project titled: The Imperfectionist.  The doc, directed by Jonathan Le (https://newmediamanitoba.com/directory/people/1474/jonathan-le), is about me and my creative process focusing mainly on my attempt to bring the Thrift Shop Band to life.  Our vision for the doc is for it not to provide too literal a view into my creative life but for the film itself to be an example of my art.  We plan to film several cinematic sequences that illustrate experiences, visions or themes that are important to me.  One of these sequences involves this mountain headed character.  I sometimes feel as though ideas fly into my head like a thousand cliff swallows into a cavernous rock.  Once there, some of them change and evolve into other bright, living things and spill out again into the world as art or music- others fly away unheard, unseen... the video is a test fitting of the paper-maché mountain head I created for this sequence.

The Thriftshop Band is an automated music machine meant to serve as a backup band for a live musical performance.  This project is designed to be the successor to my previous theatrical band The Secondhandpants (https://www.facebook.com/The-Secondhandpants-13961397039/).  I have been working on this for over two years.  The sketches included in this album show that the concept originated as a very simple design (See first sketch: a bicycle wheel drum machine).  As time passed my ambition grew.  The machine now exists as an entire thrift shop wall facade.  "But what does it do!?" you ask?, well! The lamps light up to a melody, the vintage radio cabinet's speaker illuminate to represent the bass notes, pots and pans play automatically to serve as percussion, two display mannequin heads serve as automated backup singer puppets who open their mouths along to recorded vocal tracks, a grandfather clock spins it's hands and pulses light to the beat AND the orange shirt claps it's sleeves.  All of this was presented in a short stage performance at the Valiant Theatre in Winnipeg, MB, Canada on May 22nd (see photos).  Special thanks to Rylaan Gimby and Rick Unger for helping with the technical challenges of making everything work!  This performance was filmed as the finale to a documentary chronicling my journey building the machine (working title: The Imperfectionist).  The documentary is set to be completed sometime in 2017.      

This year's Christmas film stars my little tree character, Bome Gnomeski. Chaz, the X-mas tree lot proprietor is a puppet I initially built to star in a music video for James Culleton (artist, musician, furniture designer) http://jamesculleton.com/. This gallery also includes several on-set photos of the production.

The result of a two week artist residency at Deep Bay Cabin in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, Canada in August, 2015. An exploration of characters, visual ideas and music regarding a feature film I hope to produce one day. The film's working title is: The Last Spelldrake of Saskatchewan. The story follows a wizard-type character as he makes his way through a re-imagined, mythical version of the Canadian prairies. The second video is a closer look at the creation of the Treeknight costume.

Queen Hazel and the If-Pigeons is a song novel (concept album) I conceived and created in the twilight of my 20's.  A decade later, I rediscovered it and was inspired to continue work on the project.  I made this lithograph print around 2007 depicting a duel between Queen Hazel (the Queen of the Faeries) and the Pigeon King.  The following  graphite illustrations were finished in June, 2015 and were used to decorate a self-published book of song lyrics.  The entire Song Novel was recorded in my living room (with the help of Donald Willms on percussion) in July of 2015 and can be heard in it's entirety here: https://soundcloud.com/curtiswiebe/sets/queen-hazel-and-the-if-pigeons

It is my tradition to make a short film every Christmas.  This past December (2014) I decided to give my puppet, Walter, his first real staring role in this short musical film.

A short film documenting a search for the obscure cowboy balladeer who inspired the music for Curtis L. Wiebe's short film, Of Truth and Magic.

Trailer for the short film - Of Truth and Magic Released in June of 2014 in Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Stills from "Of Truth and Magic". Release date: 2014.

Production on "Of Truth and Magic" took place between 2010 and 2011. Here are some behind the scenes photos of the production as well as a short video by Mr. M. Wiebe (my creative consultant, collaborator, go-to camera operator and brother Marlon).

Phantom Planet Production's first film - 2005