Trailers and teasers

The Cost of Living Trailer

This is the trailer for The Cost of LIving, an experimental essay film inspired by polaroid stills and short poems, a personal mashup that combines found footage, animation, special effects, and a collage of audio sources with live action footage in an associative melange. We are in the process entering our film in festivals, which mostly won't accept submissions that are available for viewing on the internet. So, for a tongue in cheek taste of what the film is like, we invite you to watch our short preview. If you are excited about seeing the whole film, we hope you will contact us.

Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking Trailer

This is the trailer for Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking (October 2017, 29:59), an experimental documentary essay about the North Dakota landscape, both then and now -- contrasting the relatively untouched areas with the fracked landscape, and comparing the fracking boom, bust, and boom with the cattle ranching boom of the 1880's, which Teddy observed first hand and which eventually led him to become the "conservation President." Now the landscape Teddy loved is being fracked -- within sight of the National Park that bears his name.

Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking Teaser 1

Our first teaser for Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking is one segment of the film, providing a taste of what the film as a whole is like -- no voice over narration, no reenactments using actors, no musical score. Instead our film lets the landscape, the soundscape, and the prescient poetry of Teddy's own words tell of the story of the North Dakota landscape then and now, contrasting the relatively untouched natural areas with the fracked landscape, and using that contrast to demonstrate the need for conservation.

Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking Teaser 2

Another sample segment of Teddy Roosevelt and Fracking.

Viento Nocturno (Night Wind) Trailer

In 1995, Jack Cochran directed and shot this video adaptation of an autobiographical one act play written and performed by Hector Aristizabal. In 1982, Hector and his brother were abducted from their home in Columbia by the U.S. supported military, and for a week they endured physical and psychological torture. While Hector was released after his ordeal, his brother was disappeared. Hector escaped poverty to became a counseling psychologist, as well as an actor and a writer, but was eventually forced to emigrate to the U.S. to escape threats of violence in his own country. Years later, Hector was allowed to collect his brother's remains. As a result, Hector has had to contend with "the terrorist within." Jack's stark, almost monochromatic cinematography amplifies Hector's performance and the play's already powerful story.

Viento Nocturno (Night Wind) was funded by grants to Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama and Film, and was screened at a number of film festivals. Hector continues to perform the one act play, and some of his performances are available as videos posted to YouTube. If you are interested in seeing Viento Nocturno in its entirely, please contact Jack at jckcochran@gmail.com. Please be aware that, while this new trailer was edited in HD, Viento Nocturno was shot in standard definition, and looks better on smaller screens.

Missed Connections Anthology Trailer

This is the promo trailer for "Missed Connections Anthology: A Found Poetry Series."

Synopsis of the film:

Add titles and line breaks to seven of the most tantalizing posts we discovered on Craigslist Missed Connections, and Voila! -- you have found poems telling tales of romantic misadventures, lost opportunities, and broken hearts. Cast actors to recite the poems as a monologue in front of a green screen, and then create an experimental, free-wheeling, special effects laden, collage behind each of them. Use that mise-en-scène to imagine the backstory of hope, despair, delusion, disaster, and cross-purposes, that led in each of these instances to a public and yet anonymous soul baring exposé for a voyeuristic audience that mostly does not include the one-and-only to whom the post was directed, and you have Outlier Moving Pictures most recent film, "Missed Connections Anthology," a less than eight and one half minute whirlwind tour of the perils and pitfalls of millennial romance.

The Shadow Trailer

This short promo provides an introduction to "The Shadow," Jack Cochran and Pamela Falkenberg's experimental film of Lucy English's poem for her Book of Hours project. Fractured reflections on ice and water and evocative winter landscapes provide a visceral representation of the psychological experience of depression and recovery.

The Names of Trees Trailer

This is the promo trailer for "The Names of Trees," a film poem in collaboration with Lucy English.

Film synopsis:

Images of decay and regeneration photographed using a video camera whose sensor has been modified for infrared photography create a post apocalyptic, strangely alluring, but disconnected world. A mesmerizing series of largely deserted rural and urban landscapes concretizes the bittersweet memories of a lost love in Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran's film of Lucy English's poem, "The Names of Trees," part of her Book of Hours film project, whose collected poems have now been published in book form. Accepted by more than thirty festivals in fifteen different countries, and nominated for best visual poem and best experimental film several times, including by the BAFTA qualifying Wales International Film Festival, Outlier's most widely celebrated film is surprisingly uplifting, hauntingly beautiful, and deeply mysterious, and received the Lois Weber Pioneer Award at the 10th Queens World Film Festival in March 2020.

In West Virginia Trailer

This is the promo triailer for "In West Virginia."

Synopsis of the film:

Dave Bonta's Haibun poem about an unexpected car breakdown in a small town, "In West Virginia," the second poem in his recent book, "Failed State," is the inspiration for Jack Cochran and Pamela Falkenberg's film poem, which finds arresting audio and visual correspondences among landscapes taken over by strip malls, strip mines, strip clubs, and strips of highways.

Bad Rhyme/Duel Lament Trailer

Here is the promo for "Bad Rhyme/Duel Lament," which gives a taste of what the film itself is like.

Usually Jack is the poet in the Outlier outfit. But this time, Pam wrote a poem of her own in response to one of Jack's, which interweave and explain the dual title of their new film poem, "Bad Rhyme/Duel Lament." Those who have read our directors' statement know that we met in graduate school, made films together when we were young, went our separate ways, reconnected years later, and began making films together again. This experimental film is the story of love and loss behind that statement, triggered by the poem Jack wrote in memoriam, about some songs of Leon Russell's, marking the occasion when he learned about the death of the music legend.

Flag Country Trailer

Here is the promo trailer for Outlier Moving Pictures' poetry film, "Flag Country," which provides a taste of what our film is like.

Based on Dave Bonta's haibun poem, "Flag Country" tells a story about an unplanned stop during a road trip, arrested to see an enormous flag at a car lot in Orbisonia, PA. Our mesmerizing views of the flag furling and unfurling in the wind echoes the hypnotic state described in the poem, accompanied by a soundscape that conducts a whirlwind tour of American aspirations and moments of civil dissent, revealing the challenging gaps that continue to exist between our ideals and our actual achievements.

Shapes and Sizes Trailer

This is a short promo for our film, "Shapes and Sizes," an experimental music video. Please note that, due to rights restrictions, the music can only be used in the complete film.

Synopsis of "Shapes and Sizes"

Unexpectedly unsettling images of Texas freeways, urban traffic patterns, and highway construction, rendered extraordinary by using two different cameras, one of whose sensors has been modified for infrared photography, concretize Regin Petersen’s 2011 new music composition, “Shapes and Sizes,” performed by the Ensemble Kwartludium, as a wordless poem melding sound and moving pictures together in a beautiful but alienating critique of late corporate capitalist American car culture and its disregard for the environment worthy of Jean Baudrillard.

Air and Wood Trailer

This is the trailer for our experimental music video, "Air & Wood." Please note that, due to rights restrictions, the music can only be used in the complete film.

"Air and Wood" is inspired by "Luft und Holz II," a new music composition by Ezzat Nashashibi, performed by the Ensemble New Babylon (Chloe L'Abbé, flute, and Martin Abendroth, clarinet). Our experimental music video relies on variable shutter speeds, a camera unexpectedly alternating between fixed and unfettered positions, time dilation and compression, and editing patterns in dialectic with the rhythms of the music to produce an uncanny synesthesia both metaphoric and concrete, creating a visit to a forest produced by sound.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Trailer

This is the trailer for our film, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Our process in making this film from Wallace Steven's famous poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," now in the public domain, was to capture the startling images his words evoked for us using whatever crazy means necessary, and to manipulate those images in unexpected and visually poetic ways. What we hope to achieve is something like what Stevens lauded in translations of his poems in foreign languages, where what mattered to him was carrying "the poems forward without regard to the words." Williams seems generally skeptical about literary exegesis of his work. Regarding the collection including "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Stevens commented that the poems were "not meant to be collection of epigrams or of ideas, but of sensations." Later, writing about a different poem ("Fabliau of Florida"), but perhaps also apropos for "Blackbirds," he insists, "it is not the sense ... that counts, because It does not have a great deal of sense; it is the feeling of the words and the reaction and images that the words create." We hope we have created a flight of fancy with our adaptation of "Blackbirds," a nonsense that carries Stevens' poem forward in a new way.

I Want to Breathe Sweet Air Trailer

This is our promo for “I Want to Breathe Sweet Air,” a film poem in three parts with acclaimed writer Lucy English. The promo provides a glimpse of the complete film, which is a stunningly terribly visual indictment of careless land development and the impact of climate change on the natural environment, incorporating footage shot specifically for this project as well as footage from the vast library accumulated by Outlier Moving Pictures during six years of documenting environmental destruction.

Scary Places/Shapes & Sizes Trailer

This is the promo for our film based on Jack Cochran's erasure poem, "Scary Places," extracted from "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler. This new film, "Scary Places/Shapes & Sizes," combines Jack's poem with the images from our earlier film, "Shapes and Sizes."

When we completed that film, we were really happy with it as a music video ... until we got the idea to supercharge it by adding Jack's "Scary Places" poem to it.

The original unexpectedly unsettling images of city freeways, urban traffic patterns, and highway construction, rendered extraordinary by using two different cameras, one of whose sensors has been modified for infrared photography, still concretize the current shape of the city using Austin, TX as an exemplar, and our new film still makes effective use of Regin Petersen’s 2011 new music composition, “Shapes and Sizes,” performed by the Ensemble Kwartludium (please note that the creative commons license only allows the music to used in the complete film), but the addition of the poem melds music, text, and moving pictures together in an even more stunning critique of late corporate capitalist American car culture and its alienating disregard for the environment, rendering it even more worthy of the late Jean Baudrillard.

The Virus Cross Country (trailer)

Here is the promo "The Virus Cross Country."

Jack started writing a poem about the pandemic just as the lockdown started. While practicing social distancing, we turned his poetic chronicle into a film as we travelled between our homes in Austin, TX, and Rockford, IL, and doom scrolled the COVID-19 news on the internet, social media, and our neighborhood apps, collecting collage materials and all the while. We thought Jack's poem was finished when Texas and Illinois opened back up in late May/early June, but Jack had to write a coda; we continued to collect footage and film during the Black Lives Matters protests, the resurgence of the virus, and the dangerous use of federal forces in American cities. We can't foresee how all this will finally play out, but we did find a stopping point for our film. Hard to believe even though we've just lived through it-- we imagine that the timeline we trace will be even more shocking in retrospect.

Such Complexity/Air & Wood Trailer

This is our promo trailer for “Such Complexity/Air & Wood.”

"Such Complexity/Air & Wind" uses text, along with variable shutter speeds, a camera unexpectedly alternating between fixed and unfettered positions, time dilation and compression, and editing patterns in dialectic with the rhythms of the music, to create an uncanny synesthesia both metaphoric and concrete, a visual poem for the forest produced by sound.

Jack's erasure poem, "Such Complexity," extracted from "The Secret Wisdom of Nature," by Peter Wohlleben," adds another dimension to our experimental music video, "Air & Wood," inspired by "Luft und Holz II," a new music composition by Ezzat Nashashibi, performed by the Ensemble New Babylon (Chloe L'Abbé, flute, and Martin Abendroth, clarinet), suggesting that forest ecosystems (and ecosystems in general) are so complex and interrelated that our best understanding should tell us, not to try to master and fix them, but to leave them untouched as much as possible.

Bearing Witness Triptych: Just Breathe the Air Trailer

This is the trailer for "Bearing Witness Triptych"

Based on audio recordings of Trump’s remarks about the COVID pandemic, made by Bob Woodward and shared with interviewers during pre-release publicity for his book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Jack Cochran’s found poem, “Bearing Witness Triptych: Just Breathe the Air,” is repeated three times in the film, first spoken by Trump, then shown as text, and finally spoken by the poet, who bears witness to the increasingly alarming consequences of Trump’s selfish decision to play down the danger, even though he knew very early just how dangerous the virus would be. a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

Legacy trailer

This is the promo trailer for "Legacy," our new poetry film in collaboration with Fiona Tinwei Lam and based on her poem, about failed love and pie.

Climate Anxiety Trailer

Here is our trailer for "Climate Anxiety," personal film about climate change by two filmmakers who are experiencing it.

Street Level/The Concrete Landscape Trailer

Here is the trailer for "The Concrete Landscape."

“British personal finance platform money.co.uk ranks Austin the No.1 city in the world for people hunting for a new place to live,” replacing previously top ranked London, according to CultureMap Austin (11/18/2021), just one of many sources first trumpeting news of Austin’s meteoric rise to the top of the city popularity charts, followed by plummeting just as quickly back down, due to the consequences of its success. Austin has been our filmmaking base since 2014, so we were there to see just what that rise and fall looks like, now documented in our our newest film, “Street View/The Concrete Landscape.” We turn multiple, restless, exploratory cameras on our hometown, combined with a jarring soundscape and poetic commentary extracted from J. G. Ballard’s dystopian science fiction novel, High Rise, and top it all off with a cacophonous soundscape and a profusion of fragmented views and digital transitions that crashed our editing programs multiple times, with the intent of shifting perceptions.I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.