future shorts rock and roll cinema

My first Cinetrek experience was with Rock and Roll cinema and the underground phenomena of “Future Shorts”. Going into this social experiment I figured that as an anthropology major, my very basic lower division experience in the field could contribute to my analysis of being immersed into a completely different culture, how very naïve of me. Hopefully real anthropologist, while performing ethnographies, plan time to familiarize themselves with customs and lifestyles of their subjects, otherwise everything is rather overwhelming. Or perhaps it is better that everything seems foreign, then everything that stands out as being different may be documented. For me, the culture shock had no time to wear off before we delved into subcultures of this entirely new society, I didn’t know where to look first or what I wanted to record most.

One key difference that stood out to me was the type of people attending the festival. I have on occasion attended a few of Prof. Nericcio’s extra credit obscure films in San Diego held at the La Jolla MCASD, and the two crowds seem very similar, however in their own ways polar opposites. Both crowds I would suspect subscribe to the more “indie” or “alternative” lifestyle, full of aspiring artists and musicians deliberately leading a non-conventional existence. However in San Diego it has been my experience that this lifestyle is very elitist, in the sense that if you have never heard of a certain band you are a poser, or if you buy your clothes at a certain store you are unacceptable. The “indie” scene in San Diego is very much concerned with image and repute, whereas the (what I am going to assume is) underground scene, of the rock and roll cinema was very welcoming. In the eclectic crowd no one felt shunned, which struck me as unexpected.

Another pleasant surprise was the amount of Americana integrated into the subculture. While short films were not being played you could hear Johnny Cash, or the Dirty Dancing homage in the end. I was under the impression that Europeans despised Americans, which is silly now that I think back to it, but nevertheless it came as a shock to hear and see little bits and pieces of American culture (and what awesome tid bits they chose!)

Lindsay Butcher