EXPERIMENT: UNDERGROUND

It's Friday night, yet the "new release" walls at Blockbuster are bare, and the latest theatrical releases are too average: teen drama, gory horror and a typical tearjerker are all that's currently available. Another option: alternative, or underground films. Finding them just requires a little bit of digging.\nIn order to make the digging easier, a new film series is being introduced to students and community members. The new series "Underground" highlights several independent experimental works by filmmakers using a broad range of styles and techniques. The screenings are at 7 p.m. on various Saturday nights throughout the semester in room 251 of the Radio/TV Center. Films are shown free of charge and parking is ticket-free with an "Underground" flyer displayed on the dashboard.\nThis series will allow the public the opportunity to broaden its entertainment horizons with both classic and contemporary films which won't be showing at local theaters and aren't rentable at Blockbuster. \nMatt Tobey attended the Saturday screening of George Kuchar's films, including "Aqueerius" and "Cattle Mutilations."\n"It's nice to see more alternative movies where you can imagine the people making them, instead of the big Hollywood movies that hardly seem real," Tobey says. "(The experimental films) feel like something you could see yourself doing."\nSophomore Megan Downey attended the screening as well.\n"It's pretty cool that they're doing this," Downey says. "I think it's hard to see movies like this, and I like that it's free."\nThe film series is sponsored by the Department of Communication and Culture. Traci Gibboney, a Ph.D. student and associate instructor in the department, is the principal director, founder and organizer of the series.\n"Our primary objective is simply to open up a venue in which people can view films that they might not normally have access to, and to even potentially build a cohesive community of avant-garde filmmakers and aficionados," she says.\nThe films were selected by a board primarily consisting of graduate students. Each member of the board creates a "wish list" of films to show. Then they sit down and unearth the films to be screened from the master wish list.\n"We narrow it down so that we have a well-balanced schedule that will speak to a wide variety of spectator interests," Gibboney says.\nThe definition of "experimental" is kept broad to include a wide variety of different films.\n"Basically, we're interested in featuring films that are not being released or distributed within more popular or mainstream theaters," Gibboney says. "This could be really transgressive or political films, feminist art films, cult horror films or GLBT-themed films, just to give you a few examples."\nThis Saturday the series is featuring "A Night with Brakhage." Director Stan Brakhage's "Dog Star Man" will be shown followed by a documentary by Jim Shedden about Brakhage and his work.\n"Dog Star Man" is a drama about the creation of the universe. The movie is shot and shown without sound and utilizes what Brakhage referred to as "hypnagogic" qualities: characteristics of cinema which allow one to see images even after the projector has stopped.\nBrakhage is known as a pioneer of experimental film. Some of his techniques include painting and scratching the film. According to Zeitgeist Films, an independent film distribution company, Brakhage produced more than 300 films over the past 50 years. He was a professor at the University of Colorado where his students included Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of "South Park."\nThe series has planned its culmination with a "Local Experimental Filmmakers Night," set to take place on April 24. This will showcase films directed by IU students and members of the surrounding community. The films will be selected by the same board which selected the films in the series. Between then and the films available now, a Saturday nights at the movies may never be the same -- and never be boring.