BREEN 周波 ジャングル breen.wav [Breenwave] is a video collage/vaporwave mix/parody edit I created with music by Shanna Polley under the channel name, Studio Goodbad. It remixes the soundtrack of Neil Breen's 2005 film Double Down into a vaporwave video and extended musical composition.
Double Down is regarded as one of the worst films ever made and Neil Breen has become somewhat famous for his so-bad-it's-good filmography. Shanna and I have created several pieces together that celebrate, critique, and transform his work into pieces I would describe as somewhere between high art and meme. These Neil Breen pieces are an outlet for my own research and experimentation as "Studio Goodbad," a moniker I use to explore the aesthetics of "so-bad-it's-good" or what I call "goodbad."
What Is Studio Goodbad?
Often times goodbad films or art are shared and distributed in social groups for the comedy of it all -- it can be funny to see a film in which the filmmaker made every wrong choice. The ways in which grand visions, ego, amateurism, poor taste, and limited resources clash can be hilarious to a student of film. From my perspective, there is also pathos in these works. The pantheon of goodbad filmmakers -- Neil Breen, Tommy Wiseau (The Room), Ed Wood (Plan 9 From Outer Space), etc. -- are bad filmmakers, yes, but they are also human, they are also artists... despite their significant shortcomings, seemingly against all odds, they made movies. There is something relatable in that. I sympathize with these people. I don't think many of the people who appreciate their films do, however. Part of my Studio Goodbad practice is exploring how to expose that pathos in these filmmakers to casual enjoyers of their work.
The cover art I made for Breenwave, a reference to the famous vaporwave album, Floral Shoppe by Vektroid.
Just as Shanna exclusively used samples of the soundtrack to Double Down to create her musical composition, the visuals I created for this piece exclusively use clips from Double Down which are remixed, overlayed, chopped and screwed into a new narrative. The visuals primarily take advantage of the extensively used stock footage in Double Down. Nearly 25 minutes of the movie's 90 minute runtime is stock footage. This heavy stock footage use is a hallmark of Neil Breen's cinematic style, though he would mostly deny that the footage is in fact stock footage.
Below: a few example stills of the collage-style editing I used to create this video.
