Explore a powerful artist conversation that challenges the boundaries of art, memory, and identity. In this deeply reflective event, multimedia artist Arthur Asriyants, alongside filmmaker Maurice Reneaux and actress/visual artist Ramona Lee, unravels the layers of his latest project—a visually stunning, emotionally gripping film that explores freedom, grief, and resilience through the lens of performance and symbolism.
🎙 Inside the Audio:
• The Power of Horses 🐎—A symbol of freedom, struggle, and untamed energy. Discover how a rebellious trail horse became an unexpected metaphor for the artist’s creative vision.
• A Question of Joy 🎭—Can joy exist in the wake of genocide, oppression, and trauma? Arthur reflects on his Armenian heritage, inherited grief, and the search for meaning through art.
• The Weight of Symbols 🎨—From a red-stained American flag to a shattered watermelon, the film’s imagery speaks volumes about resistance, memory, and political defiance.
• The Magic of Filmmaking 🎥—How a skeleton crew of just three artists created a cinematic experience that feels grand in scope but profoundly intimate in impact.
At its core, this event is not just a film discussion—it’s an invitation to rethink how we experience joy, loss, and the stories we tell ourselves about identity. With an intimate and poetic approach, this conversation pulls you into a world where visuals, music, and spoken word collide in a deeply immersive artistic experience.
🔥 Listen now and step into the conversation. Let yourself feel, question, and be moved.
JOY (Film)
Starring Ramona Lee
Supporting cast Iris Grey
Director of Photography Maurice Reneaux
SFX Ilya Khmenka
Costume Designers Ramona Lee and Ava Nelson
Audio Transcription
Arthur Asriyants 0:00
Yeah. First of all, wanted to thank everyone, thankful for this event, thankful to be here with you. I wanted to acknowledge the land we all stand on is to Amish Land, land of Duwamish people. And a little intro for me would be, would be, I'm a performance mixed media artist. I do. I mostly concentrate on recording my performances. And this was a special case, because it wasn't me performing, it's me asking someone to someone, someone to perform. And it was, it was a new challenge that I didn't know I'm I'm gonna face, and I was excited about it, and I'm happy to talk about this fun. Finally, not going to get deep into all the works that led to this. We're going to have time to conversate about them as well tonight. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Beverly, obviously, yeah, thank
Beverly Aarons 0:51
you. Thank you. And just to go a little bit further into that origin, because I feel like you, you kind of rush through it, just a little bit. Can you tell me why you decided to create this film?
Arthur Asriyants 1:12
Why is a great question. It's like, Why? Why do we do what we do? I'm not, I'm not sure. I'm very I'm driven by expressions. It was, it was just momentarily I knew I needed to create something when I walked in the studio one day and there's Ramona making her painting. And I'm like, What is this about? And she and she's like, this is my serious Western Hall. And at that moment, I thought, all I want right now for the next five months of my life. I want, I want to think about you being on top of the horse. I really want to see you on top of the horse. And I want to film it for some for unknown to me, reason I, I thought it would be great if I film someone performing the performance that I'm going to going to write for them.
Beverly Aarons 2:01
And you, you mentioned we had an earlier discussion a couple of days ago with everyone involved, including the special effects editor, yeah, who unfortunately wasn't able to be present. And you talked about what horses symbolize for you.
Arthur Asriyants 2:21
I, I often, I often think about, it's very, it's very simple. What I think about is freedom. I always think about freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of love, freedom of speech. I guess if we could go to that extent, I all my works. I never, I never realized until, until recently, I really concentrate my myself around the topic of freedom. And it's, it's, it's funny to think about, because with my belief system, I believe all life, our human brain, pre determines things for us. I don't, I don't think there's like a free wheel, or things like free, free movement, free, free, this free, that we pretty much predetermined biological organism. But I am really fascinated with that idea, and I'm trying, I'm trying to, I'm trying to explore that to an extent I can.
Beverly Aarons 3:18
In the previous conversation that we had author shared with me his work, 1.5 million brush strokes. And tonight I've been kind of somber, because when I looked at that work, and I looked at, you know, the film joy, and all I could feel was grief. I can feel the grief. I could see the grief in that work. And so sorry guys, you know, and it we had so I saw that work after we had our conversation a couple of days ago. And so it's changed. It's shifted the way that I really want to engage, kind of the topics, not really the topics, but the framework in which I want to talk about this work. Because when I look at 1.5 million brush strokes, which is the red paintings out in the lobby that all of you walk through. There's a solitude there that's also present in joy. Can you talk about that? I
Arthur Asriyants 4:41
think, I think all artists are sad like I think I'm a sad artist. Well, well, traumatized by different experience we want to talk about. I think, I think it's an Armenian, it's very, it's very obvious what I'm traumatized about. I grew up with knowing that there are countries I can, cannot ever. There are people out there that don't like me, and they're my great grandparents and great great grandparents that were slaughtered during Armenian Genocide in 1915 and I think living with this grief, I'm not trying, I promise to all of you, I'm not trying to be sad. Artists being sad is a trendy thing, I guess, but I'm not trying. And sometimes I realize a lot of things I do end up being being like, being sad, which I did try. I did try making making making it fun. When we were doing, like, what is our part and Ramona running with the force, I thought that's going to like, break the ice for everyone. It's not that serious, guys. And and then, and then I went into, went to into thinking about what is love, and that's just, that's just like, still, to this point, I watched this video hundreds of times, I want to cry like it's like, it's still part to destroying me from inside. Yeah. There are other things in a film I wanted to touch upon, but I
Beverly Aarons 6:10
just felt that we needed to first touch upon that point. Oh yeah, this connection, because you did talk about the connection between your previous work and what is joy? Because when we first had a conversation, I initially thought that there were all these questions, right? What is faith? What is what is love? What is well, really the central question is, what is joy? Yeah, and when I put that work into the context of your other work, what is joy when you are facing oppression, when you are facing trauma, when you are facing genocide, like what is joy when that happens, and as we continue this conversation, I want everyone here to really think about that, for yourself, for your loved ones, there for that moment, because I know you didn't see that that coming, you know, and so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, while you're sitting with that, I'm going to also talk to the cinematographer, Maurice, can you tell me how to pronounce your last name, Renee? And also, Ramona Lee, the actress and visual artist. All right, great. Okay, so let's start off with Ramona, since we were talking about horses earlier, yes, horses represent freedom for Arthur. Tell me what they represent for you.
Ramona Lee 7:58
Great. Well, Horses for me have have been my spirit. I mean, I grew up on the movie spirit, of course, but I also grew up in Montana, where horses were there for us. Anywhere I went, any friends I had, we would always be out, either running with the horses or attacking them up, cleaning them up, using them out in the field when we we do, like prairie digging and things like, sorry, filling holes, Prairie holes. But for me, in my art and in my symbolism, I I never really thought about it. I mainly thought about the color and like what it meant. And, yeah, I know horses for me, they've met a lot of things. I've had imagery where I'm running through my favorite part, Cal Anderson, and I'm in my beautiful dress, and I'm the Bucha, and this horse is trampling me. It's just rearing up as beautiful as it can be, but it's actually hurting me. And I've had images like that, and then the ones that Arthur saw, it was more of I was vibing to the music and the sound that's coming here in America. And I was like, I'm already on this tip, a cowgirl and a horse, and I would just love to portray my work. But at the time, when you saw me drawing the horse, I was hoping to collaborate with another artist, and we both use animals in our symbolism. His was a wolf and mine was a horse, and so I had my horse on I was on top of the horse, and the wolf was following me. So I hope I answered that it's really my spirit. It's my spirit. And sometimes I mean I feel when I when I wanted to mention how this horse was rearing up and feeding me down in one of my most sacred places. I feel like we could do that to ourselves. And so the horse is truly when I draw. I when I'm riding, it, it's my spirit.
Beverly Aarons 10:04
So you also mentioned, yes, you also mentioned, tell us the story about your interesting encounter with the horse while you all were filming this film,
Ramona Lee 10:21
okay, so it was quite a juxtaposition for me. I was so back to when Arthur and I first decided we're going to do this film. Um, he was excited, like we have his equestrian show. We should, we should start. It didn't go through because our expectations were way higher than what it was, but we all thought that it'd be great, great to actually experience it anyways and go through with the felt when he brought it to me, like, hey, Mona, I want to see you up on a horse. Let's go out somewhere in Washington. I was like, No, we're going to go back to Montana, and I'm going to show you where I live, and I'm going to show you how easy it is to ride a horse. The juxtaposition is we had cow retired horses, horses from bullfighters, also known as rodeo clowns. And we also had Outfitters, which are up in the trails on the mountain. So with that horse, the black one you saw with the white Her name is Tinker Bell, and as you all know, Tinker Bell tries to kill Wendy. So that's what she was trying to do with me. It was more we couldn't. I was so excited to get these guys out there. We were up on the trails, and I was like, Okay, I'm going to ride a horse in front of them, and I get on this horse, and I can't. We're not vibing at all. Of course, she's not understanding my direction. She is also, as with these Outfitters, she's a trail horse, so she only follows the horse in front of her. There's a leader of the pack, and so when we went out on the trail once, once our guide left me, she first she wanted to follow, and then she knew that I was like pulling back on her. And that's where it all went wrong. It went extremely wrong. I kept trying to kick her to go, but she wanted to stay in place. She's like, we are off the trail. Now I don't know what's happening, and so I have a huge struggle. I just kept kicking the horse and kicking the the guy was just like, kick her harder. It's not gonna hurt. Gotta get her going. So I was so anxious to kick the horse and to show these guys, because Arthur's like, this is the one shot we're gonna do. Like, Well, I mean, that's how I just
Arthur Asriyants 12:31
wanted to add it to that whole story, because it's pretty awesome, because Maurice is running me and Maurice running through the trail, because we're not on horses. She's on horse. I And Iris too. I'm carrying the chair for iris so we can sit, sit down, sit up. Maurice is like taking shots and the horse is not listening to Ramona. And I'm like, this is the freedom I was looking for. You cannot. You cannot sit on top of the freedom and control it. This is beautiful. So in a film, you can see, in the film, you can literally see horses backing up with Ramona on top of her. And I'm like, this is beautiful. So what we did in post production, we put this parts of the film in a little box, and we put it, put the sign freedom outside of that box. So it's like, she cannot, like, get her freedom there in the shot, and she cannot get her freedom outside the shot to be in the box. It was just such, such like, I
Ramona Lee 13:29
mean, we didn't get the actual shot because you guys were all concerned about my life. So the next thing that happened is she no longer wants to back down, stop she she literally runs. So we're on a trail, and the trail goes like this, and then we have, like, plateaus and prickly pear cactuses, like rocks and things. But she's first, she's like, Okay, I'm going to get a prickly pear. And then she's like, You know what? This I'm going to I'm gonna run down the hill to the river, and so the middle of the river is like this. And so it was my glory moment when she, she took control, ran me down the river, and I braved her back. And there's like, a moment in one of our footages where you can see where the horse takes me away. But that wasn't,
Arthur Asriyants 14:21
it was like, it was like spinning. I just want, I just wanted to see what movie says to say about being like, being in that shot, being on that trail with me.
Maurice Reneaux 14:34
Mentioned is a horse trail. We just, we have been maybe on the trail, maybe like 10 minutes. We found Phil, and then we said, Okay, we're going to, we're going to shoot here. We're not, you know, at some point she made her way back. We had two camera setups, and we did have a setup, but there's a couple of different days. The horse was a trail horse. She's, she's taking, trying to. It could go. It's being a little stubborn, because it's not used to, you know, moving around, just from back. So what happened at some point, I think, so basically, way of work was working out is that she was taking it to go, the directions from the handler was like, you know, steer and maybe go, whatever. But she was kicking it to go, and it seemed like when the horse started to go, she kept kicking it. So the horse is like ghost, I stopped trying to go, and then eventually it seemed like the horse said, like, you see where the horse kind of did, and then kind of jumped into motion and started making way down. So we had two camera setups. One was up on the ridge. The other one was this way. The wide shot didn't pick up much. I had a tight I had a tight shot, but once I saw the horse kind of buck this way, I don't know, my instincts kicked in. And I was like, oh shit. And I was like, you know, put away from the camera. And she, pretty much, she the horse did it. But I think that's that was somewhat of the boring moment that Ramona was talking about, because that's what the instinct of the horse came in, as well as Ramona dancing, and very easily she was able to write it. So the horse was pretty much, we became friends about the Democrat right? Right before I hit the edge. Kind of rang with it, pulled it back, and then it was cool. So it was, it was, it was definitely one of the worst. It had only been like 15 minutes. At some point you'll see the behind the scenes shot where you can see, you know, the horse jump back and then take flight. We had three cameras. You got one on the ridge, a tight shot, and then a GoPro. So in the in the in the tight shot, you'll see a couple of split second where it gets into action, and then you'll see the GoPro that we want to have on the board.
Beverly Aarons 17:04
Did you have the other two on tripods? Yeah, all of them were on tripods. I mean, so you didn't have other camera people working those? Those? No,
Maurice Reneaux 17:13
so, I mean, good question. Usually in a film, you see a credits like about 150 people, 150 people, 200 people. And this scenario. It was three, you know, it was three people. Everybody produced it. Everybody, you know, Ramona handled the wardrobe, locations, you know, a lot of production elements. Both of them wrote it. You know, Arthur just got a location. You know, we all had our hand in production and absorb the roles and the titles of all the people involved. So it's very hands on. We had, I mean, I mentioned the Beverly earlier. We had 10 cameras on site when we only used three. Yeah, yeah. So that was a snapshot.
Beverly Aarons 17:57
So did so did you know? Because I one of the the shots that really caught me was that indie shot, that VISTA of like mountains and Prairie, right, you know? And it I felt the solitude in there. Did you know? Did you? Did you purposely choose that with that in mind? Or, like, I mean, the
Maurice Reneaux 18:25
way we shot, it is a formula. The way we shoot, Imma leave room for Arthur to jump in there and Ramona as well. But, you know, I was, I came up shooting with a particular format. Why it's tight to mediums. I work with the I'm just going to name that real quick. I work with the oldest Hispanic production company in the US, their towns, Alliance winners, as well as Rodrigo Garcia, a couple different international directors and stuff like that. So being on set, I got a chance to see how they shoot. And for the most part, you want to establish a shot. Want to shoot wide, to establish a shot. And as you go into the conversation, you might hit a medium, you might pick up a type and stuff like that. And that's what you see in the film.
Beverly Aarons 19:14
Did you shoot 4k? Yeah, everything. And so you so you would shoot wide and then punch in and editing or,
Maurice Reneaux 19:22
well, that sin that you talk about is a wide shot. The resolution is 4k okay, but you you see that more so in the resolution and fidelity of the image. Um Arthur actually scouted that location, so when we shot it, it was purposeful all along the way. We, you know, we pretty much dropped in Montana with no real familiar understanding of the surrounding. So we we created the visuals that you saw as we went, like minutes before, days before. So you. I'm sure that location was purposely selected to to illustrate the idea of the journey, the soleness of the journey, the quietness of the journey, the the grand news of the journey. But yeah, all of those, all of those elements were
Arthur Asriyants 20:25
definitely purposeful. Do you want to continue with scattering locations
Beverly Aarons 20:32
where your heart is taking you?
Arthur Asriyants 20:34
Awesome. There was one question before, but I'm going to talk about locations I fell in love with Montana. I've been to Montana before. I finally fell in love coming, coming there again. First day, first day we came. I felt, I felt sad. We had only three, four days to film this whole project. And first day we came. It was rainy. We went down to to the forest near, near Yellowstone, and we went inside the forest, and I saw this river, and I'm like, we set up the camera and rain, and I'm like, we need to just take a video of this river. And we stood there for like, 20 minutes, literally taking a video of the river. That's how the film opens up. There's an idea about that. I can expand on that later on, and then, and then I think, I think I created myself this, this task every evening, when the shooting day is over, when we're done, they're going, they're about to have lunch, they would prepare for, I mean, for dinner. And I would leave the leave the house, and go around in darkness, and it just scattered the areas and talk to people. So talk to people outside, I would come back in, like, couple couple hours with, like, marks, marks on on my map. And I'm like, next morning, I need to check out this location to see the shot, and for the first and the last shot, how the movie begins and how the movie ends. I didn't have location until the very, very last day, and we're already leaving Montana on that day. And, and finally, when I saw it from the farm, we kept on driving up, up up, up the hill, up this mountain. And I'm like, this is perfect. This this is, this is our first and first and last shot. So Ramona, you're going from down the hill all the way up the hill, carrying this toy. And, and she was like, Okay, I got, I got, it was, it was big pleasure to me that Ramona never said no to me. I think that was a big part for me that whenever we never been in the situation, when I'm like, Ramona, I need you to do this. And she's like, No, I'm not going to do this. And this is, this was very important for me. And I always, and I would always say how much I appreciate that. Because when the random person tells you like you got to carry this up the hill, you can always say, yeah, you can carry yourself out of this room. So, and I would always appreciate, I appreciate that. And we carried the store up, up the hill. Set up a shot ran on the side of the road with with the close up camera, so you can see she's actually sweating going up the hill. And then we set up a white, wide camera, Wide, wide angle on the on the ver, on the very top, and the camera perfectly what you said, giving yourself salt into to that extent. So, and the weather worked out perfectly. And we asked people, people were super nice because we asked them, hey guys, people tried to stand there with their cars and try to enjoy themselves. And we're like, Hey, we're trying to shoot this. Can you please move your car? Which, which is kind of crazy to ask random people. We don't have any license to shoot there or anything like that. And we're like, Can Can you please? And everyone was very understanding about about us shooting that. Yeah, very furious,though. Yeah.
Beverly Aarons 23:51
Did the story change at all once you got to on location?
Arthur Asriyants 24:00
Yes, and no, I was I was just the things I wanted to talk about. I definitely did talk about. Those are not the things that came to me the day before. Those are not the things that came to me the week before they came to me. It was months and months of thinking, why do I want to write about patriotism? Why do I want to write about freedom? Why do I want to write about love? You don't ever go wake up one day and it's like, I'm going to create this whole idea about love. I'm going to ask people, What is love? And I'm not going to be able to answer that for myself. So the point, the main point, didn't change, maybe the context it added to me, all of you artists here, and you know what it feel when it feels like when there's more context, you create more context as you go with your work, you context. Context is being added there. There are some pieces that were added for me personally, but I. I don't think the main idea, main topic I wanted to talk about, ever changed in the entire film.
Beverly Aarons 25:05
I wanted to talk, oh,
Maurice Reneaux 25:10
I was just gonna say there was a script, but we didn't have a script. You know, maybe, like, we'll brief, like, the day before, or something like that. I remember the night we got in, or one of the nights we got in Arthur kind of thinking was like, Look, this is what I'm saying. You know, this is not whatever I was like, this is an act. And at that point I realized what, what he what he communicated to me, was the format which he was going to show the film. So it was like, Look, I'm thinking this. I'm seeing all of this stuff in the center, and then we're going to have two panels, uh, only thing that's going to have audio is the side panel. So it's going to be pretty much like a multi sensory experience. It's not going to be this, it's a film, but it's art, you know. So a lot of the, pretty much everything that we shot was like words and conversation, but you never really had a
Beverly Aarons 26:09
script, but you had a screen. He had a he had a script. It wasn't it wasn't written out, but he had a script. Oh, just one second, I'm asking you the question, you had a script in terms of visuals, yeah, story that you wanted to you didn't have a script in the traditional sense of a Hollywood script.
Arthur Asriyants 26:28
No, it's not right. There's nothing like, yeah, that's not what I that's not what I thought, yeah.
Maurice Reneaux 26:40
You know, the magic that was created, essence that was found and captured and hunted, stem from a conversation,
Beverly Aarons 26:50
yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. And yeah, the conversations. And also, there's a visual language there, yeah, right, yeah. And which you you had kind of a vision of, and then you work with your cinematographer, yeah, to make that happen. And also your editor, yeah, who unfortunately isn't here, yeah, and can't be here right now,
Arthur Asriyants 27:11
it would have, it would have time to expand on my editor. I would, I will in a little bit. My editor is in Poland right now, and it's, yeah, but he's in Poland, yeah, my editor, I love to work with people from Eastern Europe, because it's very like, it's that place in the world where we need to ask people to work with. There are a lot of people from Eastern Europe, from Beverly, Russia, Ukraine, who escaped wars, and they go and live in like, closer to Central Europe. People move a lot to Poland, and I like to work with those editors, with those creators, because I feel like we we relate to each other in a way, in a way that, well, first of all, I understand, I understand their languages. Second of all, I understand their problems. Because I've lived in those regions in a world, it's very important for me. That's the only thing about the editor on the language of the vision. The language, why I told you, some of my works are as important and they led me to this film, is I like to use words. I really, I think it's just so so simple to you to use words and to tell people what it is, rather than let let them guess on their own. I think, I think when you you can expand so far on just like adding word. For example, if you, if you add big letters like patriotism on the screen, you immediately going to have, like this drop for a person to think about patriotism, but not to think about anything else, anything else. And then they will just you give them a key to your doors, basically. And film has all these doors that I'm hanging out. I'm basically giving you all of your keys to open and explore instead, instead of making you guess where the key is to this to the store and in the freestyle and the work before I've done, I've done, I've done the same. And I really like how I managed to learn this way of communicating with the audience through like this words that popping up on the screen. I like it. I actually want
Beverly Aarons 29:25
to talk a little bit before we open it up to comments and questions about the symbolism inside of this film. There was a lot of symbolism that we talked about, but I kind of want to focus in on the watermelon that is being pushed down the road and eventually broken. And I'm just going to kind of remind folks of the context, and this is i. Right after the what is art section Correct? Um, we talked about the the meaning, the symbolism behind that watermelon,
Arthur Asriyants 30:12
of course, for me, well, I'm Armenian. I'm expanding on, like, how I have, I have this historical issue with genocide and with what and when I see other people struggling with the same problems around the world, with genocide, with their rights as human being be being oppressed. I get sad about this, but this, but I broke the watermelon. I This is the sign for maybe many of you know, this is the sign of resistance, and this is the sign by which we stand with Palestine. And I would say proudly, I'm free, free Palestine. I'm I'm against genocide that is happening there right now. And I also, and I also think the fact that we still have genocides around the world. Lays on this problem, lays on our shoulders as much as it lays on the shoulders of of the government, because we as society letting these things happen. We never learn a society we we're too late. Well, it always feels too late when we start supporting causes like this. Kids. Children are already dying. People are already dying there. There are kids losing their mothers, their fathers already so, yes, it's important to to be resilient. Yes, it's important to go to this protest, but it always feels like a little too late, and I think it's very controversial. I think I think I would face a lot of critique in my future, in my future, conversation about breaking this sign of re silent, of being re silent, but it's important for me to have this narration, this, this conversation about we shouldn't. We shouldn't ever allow this to be too late to talk about like we should, we shouldn't let this happen in the world.
Beverly Aarons 32:06
You mentioned, you mentioned that you were nervous about smashing the watermelons. Yeah, tell us why that was the case.
Arthur Asriyants 32:20
It's well, not I would, I would be very upset if some, if someone would like, there are different symbols in this world. There are different logos. For example, Forget Me Not is a symbol for Armenian genocide. And if someone would, would bring this Forget Me Not symbol and smash in front of me, I would be upset, and I would ask them to expand on why they did did that. I was it's very nervous moment when you when you smash a strong symbol on top of that, it's a it's very, it's very nervous moment. And I wanted to Ramona to expand why I've had this conversation with Ramona, where I've had this conversation with you during the pre interview. I I said, I said, I don't know if I have full rights to do that. I I'm not, I'm not sure. And there are many more. There's another. There is not a symbol that underlies the watermelon and especially in this context. And I want Ramona to expand, to expand,
Beverly Aarons 33:25
yes, and I have to make an apology, because I got slightly distracted with musical chairs and forgot to let Ramona and Maurice do their their short introductions. I jumped right into the interview. So I want to give them an opportunity before we open up to include everyone. I want to give everyone the opportunity to to, you know, to share. Oh, my intro, yeah, I think you suggested your camera.
Ramona Lee 34:04
Hi, y'all. I'm Ramona Lee. I am a multi dimensional artist and or multimedia my bad and anywhere everywhere, once, I definitely am on the road to owning my own gallery, that is my goal. I have come up on through a residency. I was looking for a studio space, and I have since, since last June, been able to be here and actually produce work as an art entrepreneur, I've transported public art. I'm like, I do project management and a lot of administrative consulting for artists and our advocacy. I'm also an artist myself, and that's what I'd say. Get back into this year as I was so busy organized. And structuring that I lost sight of my art and how to free free flow and things like that. I'm really excited to be on this project with Arthur. It's been real, and he's the first artist I've met that actually brought an idea to me. I throw it back at him, like, let's do it. And it's, it's, it was just immediately taken. And I say that in a sense of what we always think about is money off time in any way, shape or form. We always say the art isn't about the money. But when you are a full time artist, that is something, and it was, I wouldn't say that I never not had an artist come up to me and have a great idea and do it, but we've always shied away from it because of resources. Going home, for me was so important, because I realized where the true resources for myself are, and that is in my hometown with my family, and just where the true support is. And so I felt like we we had a flawless victory with our three to four days. But yeah, I was, I was just really flattered that my Western CO which is up in the the big blue right now on Amber ravens studio wall, yeah, and it will be there for the next Art Walk. Western COVID will be starting off there. I also have digital and digital artwork, and also, what is it called 3d sculpture as well that I'm working on, I will thank
Beverly Aarons 36:36
you. Yeah, thank you. Alright, now, now, Maurice, your introduction that we totally skipped over. Good
Maurice Reneaux 36:47
to see everybody. My name is Maurice. I'm a painter. My background is I came out doing graffiti, elevated that into graphic design, advertising. I mentioned earlier, I've worked with the one of the oldest Hispanic production companies in the US. Got an opportunity to connect with a lot of really good filmmakers and stuff like that, to be honest, like my work, talking about myself, my work stands different mediums. I'm a painter. I shoot. I've ran a I've started and ran a record label. I've done marketing, I've I have a lot of experience with startups, whether it's individual artists agencies or just concepts and projects in general. I found myself out here in Seattle for the last year. I'm a bit of an explorer. I'm from California, Canada, Seattle, and it's been about a year. At some point I've connected with Ramona. She introduced me to this beautiful community, and since then, we've continued to develop or produce work commercially, individually and, you know, independently and stuff like that. I've worked some of my some of the pieces I've signed with, like Kendrick and Mars, first video, first music video. Um, come from a very creative open space where it's a lot of music videos and independent work. So some of you guys may have seen my show that remotely curated back in April with this new project, give me an opportunity to showcase my work and filmmaking Great.
Beverly Aarons 38:29
Thank you, Maurice, awesome, and with that, it Yes. Let's give everybody a hand. I know we got started a little bit late, and there was a little bit of a change in in the schedule. I'm glad you did show the show the sound, yeah, so we have a the time to ask questions and make comments is a lot shorter than we had. Oh, but we're glad that you stay, and now it's your turn to ask questions, to make comments. Feel free to raise your hand All right,
Beverly Aarons 39:15
so the person with the black shirt and then the person right in front of him. Yeah, yes, my
Audience member 39:24
My question is...
Arthur Asriyants 39:32
is this going to be my favorite question, because me, me and my friend from Eastern Europe, we wrote it together. I come from the family of musicians. And I mean, I did it. I didn't sit down at the piano. Is the instrument I'm trained to play, but I didn't sit down at the piano. I use fruity loop studio. If anyone is familiar with pretty loops, that's how that's how people write music nowadays. It's way more exciting. Possible you don't need, usually you don't need musical degree to do that. I know some of I was inspired by Chopin. Chopin is my favorite when it comes to class. Classical Opus 60 4c, minor. And I was also inspired C sharp minor. And I'm also out and and the the minor flag by Chapin, it was number not number one. Nocturn also inspired, inspired me for some of them, for some of the trio's. And I want to talk about musical terms, but yeah, we were running it together and being inspired, taking pieces from like, chopping and things and chopping it up.
Beverly Aarons 40:48
Yeah, all right, and yes, you the intense power saturation.
Audience member 40:59
After all the in
Arthur Asriyants 41:08
the film, yeah. Is that? Is that a question about, like, Oh, yeah. I think I think, like, I wanted it. I wanted to be so Western, Western hole in my in my film. And I think there's nothing more Western. They're like, saturated, saturated film looks like, looks like, very like 78 when did we have, like, color 770, when they're when they were like, you know, all this spaghetti western films. They were like, super yellow. And I was like, I was
Beverly Aarons 41:43
like, pastel, yeah. It's
Arthur Asriyants 41:47
very, like, yellow, Orangey. And I want, and I wanted to achieve that color for some of the shots, especially, especially for horses, yeah. So, so it was, it was fun to pick the colors and just like go through them. But yeah, it was, it was definitely inspired by, I wanted that like Western hole, how I see it, not how Ramona sees it, but still, like references glorify colors that do not
Unknown Speaker 42:21
exist. Colors that
Arthur Asriyants 42:32
do not exist in
Beverly Aarons 42:37
nature. Yeah, yeah, why the
Arthur Asriyants 42:48
about why the section also the best questions, the best questions ever so so me, me and my me and my friend, my my editor, we're both in the outcome and it's we both. We both were editing, and we had section for that, right? We we sat down, and with that, we thought about that section. We kept on, like choosing the colors and doing color correct correction. And he's, he loves, He loves this girl. And when we're writing the song. He was thinking about this girl all the time, and he thought about, he just, like, he thought about closing his eyes, he told me he's like, Arthur, I did something. I don't know if you're gonna like it. Can you? Can you? Can you watch this section again? And he sent me that section. I press play, and I'm like, where's the picture? And like, in a matter of second. I'm like, it doesn't need one. You don't need to see, see what's happening. You need to feel what's happening. I maybe it's way, way too romantic or poetic in a way, but hey, I think that's a beautiful description of what love is. It's just like, you don't need to see it, you you need to feel it. So I you just like, killed. It is basically the, it's the highest point for me when it's just like, goes black. Yeah, I
Ramona Lee 44:19
would love to speak on that. It's like as a mother and not seeing my daughter, I almost felt, I felt safe. I felt every time I watched this, especially with an audience, I was drained, and I mean, in the best possible way, but like it took a lot of me and to see myself and to hear my daughter's voice, which is so pregnant, and to know we made a whole scene for we did peace, and to just hear how you guys really used our voices to really play like the Marco Polo around the room. It. Made me emotional. I made me think when I speak to my mom, like on the phone or someone, so when you're at that guy told us, yeah, I really miss this girl and I love her. And make this way it is I it just makes me continue to be emotional. As someone who prays and the reference that comes with it, some people are confused that they have to surrender to two ways in space and sound. So at some point, it's just close your eyes, yeah, and just listen to my daughter say, I love you, and to know that is pure and for me to be planning on here that was cute, special piece that didn't need to be seen at all.
Arthur Asriyants 45:56
Just heard, I like, I like, there's the sound. Save back, and it is also part of love. It can go to that extent, to like, say, back to me, I wanted to Yeah. It is yeah. That part is just, I love to
Ramona Lee 46:12
do that, yeah, to share. It wasn't just a job for him. Can you tell us exactly what happened? Yes, because I think that's important. Okay,
Arthur Asriyants 46:28
it was, I would show I would show you. But I don't want, I don't want to, like, get into details. I wish I would break down and actually would spend the rest of the night here breaking, like, pausing on the and stopping. But we got to this beautiful, beautiful field, and I was seeking for that field all over Montana, and we came to that field, and I gave them a string, a red string, to play. And there it was, cannot, I'll walk around. I'll walk around. So, so you can imagine this shot right Right, right there. And it was like Ramona walking in the shot, and Iris is like following her holding a red string. And that's the game they were describing while you hear it. And, and I think, and I think it doesn't need my description of how to how I want, I wanted people to imagine that that little simple. It's a simple game of pulling the string and, and that's that string, um, it was just like mother daughter connection that will never cease to exist. The string always going to be there, and she's always going to be you're always going to be pulling by that string, and she's always going to be on the other side of that string. It's just like, this will always be there, and it's to the extent that's the best extent I can feel, the mother daughter, love I would never be able to experience that I it's, it's not, it's not something I would be that's, that's the best extent I can see it, how, how?
Beverly Aarons 48:02
Yeah, are there any other questions or comments,
Audience member 48:09
yeah, at the end, when they leave the wooded horse overlooking from your from your past day, are they leaving any of the ideas, were you intending a specific idea? Or any of the left behind the patriotism above edge? Like, are they growing up? Are they pregnant, or they go through a particular thing that you were imagining that was being left on that edge? Yeah,
Arthur Asriyants 48:39
it's really, it's nothing. Nothing is nothing is being left, uh, nothing. This is, this is all this, all content stays with, within the character, within, within ramuna, all of those ideas can or cannot, cannot say, I'm not. I never tried to attempt saying something is bad and something is good in a movie like, like, even the the scene with faith. I'm an atheist myself. I I'm an atheist, but I still, I still can show the scene and not tell you that it's good or or bad. It just is. It just exists. It's just, it's just there and to accept. But it is the horse. The horse is like, it's my metaphor that I let I left there. And my thesis goes that in order to experience joy, you need to discover, discover it, or rediscover, rediscover it for yourself. So you cannot hold on to one thing. You cannot hold on to joy in your life, to to keep on experiencing it. You kind of need to let it go. You kind of need to let that you need to unleash that horse and and move on to rediscover and find new joy in your life. Maybe that horse is silly. It's like it's a toy horse that she's carrying. But for me, it's just like, just such, such beautiful representation. No joy, just like this, this soy horse, and you just need to let it go. Try to rediscovering and one of the options, maybe that I gave you, maybe, maybe patriotism was going to bring you joy. Maybe, like going to church tomorrow will make you feel good, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with I'm okay with you, um, experiencing joy by creating art. For example, yes, did I answer your question? So,
Audience member 50:37
charge me why so many layers Yeah,but there's always your vision, right? Also as Eastern European, yeah, came to the United States. How you Yeah, being America. Yeah, and Eastern European also. And to me, it was like, so America. But then it'salso wondering about the choices, like,
Arthur Asriyants 51:20
how you go? Ah, yeah, yeah.
Ramona Lee 51:27
I really, I enjoyed it. I felt the whole time Arthur wasn't a
Arthur Asriyants 51:31
lecture, yeah, I was, I was like, living in, in her world, yeah, and,
Ramona Lee 51:38
I mean, cars did it in a hole, especially, I was very proud. I feel here in America. A lot of people who are generations and generations Americans are both feel the same way anymore, and we create world flags, which is great. I don't think suck. Maybe blacks anywhere, but we forget just kind of what this company stands for and the freedom set along with it. And as a black person, I really love being the imagery for this, and also as a mixed person who is also white, who is also half past members who are immigrants from COVID, from Italy, all over really, but to know that I could what like be this, be this kind of mental and like, and make sure like I could say yes, because I have the freedom to do so I and where I'm at in my artistry as artists, and what that's going to be. I wasn't. I was fearless, and I feel like I would only be that right because I am here and because I have this type of community and and the community of my home so that that I thought Google felt that, yeah,
Arthur Asriyants 52:58
I mean, I'm a senior opinion, and I just wanted to say my perspective on that. She answered most of my questions. She said she said she was, she's proud to be an American. I don't see a problem of being proud to be an American, unless you tell someone else to be to feel the same way you do. Ramona never told me to Hey, you got to be proud. Feel proud holding this flag with me next to me. She didn't care hold this flag, but I wanted to capture how she holds the flag. I wanted to capture what she feels holding this Flag. Flag, it's not it's not about it's not about me. What I feel about flag like I didn't. When I came to an American high school, they told us to learn Pledge of Allegiance. And I remember that. And that's what, that's why I'm like, can you read Pledge of Allegiance? Like, can we record you reading pledge of religions? And that's what we essentially, essentially put there. I thought it's very like, it's fascinating. And like, things I don't understand are always fascinating to me. I would never be able to experience what it is being proud of being American, because I'm clearly not, but it's fascinating to observe it from from the distance, and like, like to look at that, and I'm like, wow, that's really cool. The way you take care of the flag, that's really cool. The way, the way Ramona folded it, and that was you guys, you guys should watch her for folding the flag. And right after the painting, her hands were red, and she was okay with that, because everything, all those details we described together. And I'm like, You do realize America does start worse somewhere else in the world? And she's like, Yeah, but it's still I'm like, I feel it. I feel it right. Like you cannot change you cannot change your parents. You cannot change the place you were born. You cannot, you cannot just run away from that. That's that's still part of your identity. And we're not trying to judge it, or we're not trying to say you must love it. It's just again, it's just, it's like for most of the foreign it's just is you. Yeah, I'm very fascinated by her. Like, I
Beverly Aarons 55:03
want to take one more question, but I want to ask everyone to come closer, if you don't mind, because I really want it to be, I mean, close. Pull your chair up, because we're going to just have a conversation, because we're coming to the end of the moderated portion of this, yeah, and we just want to have a discussion now, like old friends talking about this film. But before we do that, I want to take your question because you had your hand up and you told me your name anyway, yes, my final question
Audience member 55:53
was, what did you decide to layer the vocals throughout? When did I decide to layer vocals? Vocals is very beautiful. So what did you decide tolayer everything together like that?
Arthur Asriyants 56:19
Yeah, it was at the very beginning when I saw this view. So I show, I showed, I showed the model. If you saw her on the screen, she pops out on the on the left or right side, and expanding how, how we saw the movie at the beginning, when I when we started producing at the center, there was supposed to be no sound, and the sound wave was supposed to come from, from the screen, screens on the on the side, and she was supposed to be constantly sitting on the side. But we cannot. We cannot just we don't have an infinite amount of money to make, like video for three, for three screens. So I had to connect all, all the sound, all the sounds, together and make her pop out on on different sides. She's just like, pops pops in. She says something pops out. And then when we started layering this, layering the sound, it was like it was, it was a game to me of I don't, I don't care about what, what you think, what, or what you're hearing. I want you to experience her talking to you, to not understand what she's telling you. It doesn't matter what she's telling you. I just want you to experience her talking to I wanted to you to experience her poem to you. Yes, words are important, but it's more important to me for you to experience the poem like feel it. So it was, like a game of just like this feels perfectly good. It was a puzzle, basically a puzzle, and, like the sound editing, yeah, did I ask for your question? Very.
Arthur Asriyants 58:05
A little bit like how Cleo said during the American black section, yeah, we like, kind of doubled and triple her sound. So when you start seeing the scene, it's like, I pledge allegiance, and then I pledge Allegiance. I pledge allegiance. And it's just like, voices of people, but it's all in Ramona. Yeah, I had to
Ramona Lee 58:33
laugh a little bit off the screen. I didn't know last generation, like I was four, 910, two, I graduated the last generations in school and who, and all those things and and so when I hear it now and then, I figured out to do the land, land acknowledgement, which is beautiful and wonderful, but I not that we ever had to hold it, but now we're holding that. We're holding that freedom of like we, we might not say the pledge of allegience but we're acknowledging this land and to think that as as a group conglomerate. What is the word? We decided that that we can do that. Yeah, it's all relevant. I heard Maurice trying to speak up
Maurice Reneaux 59:26
on the subject. I was blown away, too. Came back, like, yo. I got a cut out. I was like, where the who scored it? I was like, who scored it? Yeah, his buddy. The fidelity of the audio is definitely no and, you know, and I think it, it speaks to the idea of it being a multi sensory, you know, and the idea of onset for it to have that visually as well as audibly.
Arthur Asriyants 59:57
Yeah, I was hoping someone would just like. There will be not enough since followers or someone would would have to sit down on the carpet. In my ideal world of perception of how I want people to watch it, I want people to walk in the gallery with their favorite pillows, sit down and close their eyes and don't even open them throughout the film. Don't even, don't even have to open them, like, like, just sit down and meditate there in the gallery. Because
Ramona Lee 1:00:21
every time have to mention every time reason I would watch it over and over again, and every time Maurice would hear my, like Iris voice, and he would immediately come in to watch it, and he was always the part that was blacked out, screaming, hilarious, compelled to, like, what is that? What's going on?
Beverly Aarons 1:00:45
There were so many more questions we wanted to explore but before we close out tonight, I want to say thank you to everyone for being here and for staying for the duration. Once we're done, you're going to have the opportunity to be with Arthur in his studio and with the rest of the crew, Maurice and Ramona and Ramona daughter, who is like vanished, and to ask as many questions as you want, to ponder The themes and symbolism of this film in your own answer to the question, what is joy?
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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