Candy Ego is a sci-fi-noir comedy set in Santek Beach, a seaside city known for its biotech hubs, military zones, American Apparel-clad cults, and poetic surf reports. Against the backdrop of these landscapes and attitudes, the series follows two biotech researchers, Lu Kim and Gladys M., and an ensemble cast of characters as they navigate the paranoid underpinnings of their sun-sparkled world. All is not quite as it seems, relationships are tested, and perverse humor unravels the city’s No Bad Days motto.
Candy Ego was written and created by Hysterical Accuracy, in collaboration with musicians, artists, technicians and performers from the Southern California/Baja Mexico region. It is a love letter, satire, and celebration of San Diego wrapped in one knot of a story. Interweaving the languages of video essay, performance art, science-fiction, and dark comedy, it is a reflection of the sounds and styles that surround us.
We met in San Diego through mutual friends from New York and bonded over a love of TV comedy and noir. We would go "candy cruising," what we called our sunset drives in the city and felt that there was something suspenseful, not sublime, about the Southern California sun and stillness on the streets at night. We began writing Candy Ego two years ago as an episodic series and completed the first season as six thirty-minute episodes. Without any institutional backing but lots of gusto, passion, and a firm belief in the project, we decided to go for it: we shot our extended pilot-film to introduce the world to Candy Ego. We are so excited to share this project with the world and with your help are very close to making this happen.
We made it to the final round of Sundance Institute New Voices Lab and have been featured in Modern Luxury, AQNB, and San Diego City Beat. We have staged performances at SPF15 and "Watching TV in 2066" at the Octavia Butler Shaping Change conference.
THE TEAM:
We are proud to call our cast and crew our friends. They are people we've collaborated with, studied with, worked with, lived with, and loved. They are makers and creators from all art types and walks of life. They are people who've inspired us and whose talent we wanted to let loose on the screen. Everyone on the crew became a part of the production team, helping construct sets, wardrobe, lighting, and most even made a cameo on-screen. Likewise, lots of actors ended up becoming part of the crew. It was an epic process, slightly insane, but unforgettable.
Creators/Co-Stars:
Ash grew up in the foothills of Appalachia, NC and currently resides in sunshine noir, San Diego. Ash designs interactive experiences, choreographs site-specific immersions and tells stories for film, stage, and improvisational play. Ash is the Director for Art and Technology at UCSD, a Southern Constellation Fellow at Elsewhere and a Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Birch Aquarium. Ash has produced shorts for Vice, Motherboard, The Creator’s Project and, in collaboration with MoMA and Creative Time, worked on Doug Aitken’s Sleepwalkers. Ash plays music in a punk band and loves to parallel park.
Kim-Anh is an artist and writer. She wrote and performed in Kult of Konsciousness, a collaborative play in which costume, set, and script worked non-hierarchically to inform the end narrative. Her play Meatloaf will debut this fall with BWSMX at DAMA in Turin, Italy. She has an MFA in Cross-Genre Writing from UC San Diego and will be a 2017-2018 Artist-in-Residence at LMCC's Workspace Residency Program.
CAST:
Jesus Eduardo Manuel Uribe is a queer latinx writer and performer born in San Diego. He is stuck up and loves licking the jachiros off his fingers.
Anosh McAdam is an actor, improv comedy performer, writer, and collection of molecules. He’s also Canadian and apologizes for Justin Bieber. He can currently be seen in commercials for Spectrum and Ol' Smokey Moonshine. He recently guest starred in an episode of Lifetime's My Crazy Ex. You are older than you were when you started reading this. Follow on twitter: @anoshmcadam
With Performances By:
Liz Armstrong (Shut Eye on Hulu; The Front; Be Here Nowish - web series), MAR (Sorority Queer Performance Series at the Hammer, Sunday Night Sex Talk, Unfictional on NPR), Ricardo Dominguez (Electronic Disturbance Theater), Miller Puckette (creator of Max MSP & Pure Data), Elle Mehrmand (Performance Artist & Musician), J Noland (Helmuth Gallery), Riain Hager (Millenial Pink), Nicola Grier (San Diego bon-vivant), Dominica Savant-Bunch (Singer, Actor), Marjorie Huot (Actor), Paola Capó-García (poet, editor-in-chief of littletell), Micki Davis (HomeLA, Festival of the Pacific Arts), Josh Pavlick (Helmuth Projects), Andrew Mandinach (homeLA), Max Nanis (Scripps Research Institute), Sandra, Ben, and Wild Alphabet Doller (poets, editrices de 1913 Press), Maria Mathioudakis (IUD Gallery, AjA project), Yesenia Padilla (Lumen Magazine, rocks dot net), Gina Alexandra (writer, editor Red Right Hand Press) Jane Lee (Tattoo Artist, Photographer), Melissa LaFara (Energetic Principles, Musician) , Ivan Herrera (Jiu Jitsu Champion) and Visual Artists: Angela Jennings, Trevor Amery, Dustin Brons, Audrey Hope, Joe Yorty, Jon Brady, Evelyn Walker
SPF15 Performers: Randy Phillips (Songwriter, Lyricist), Samuel Bengtsson, Doug Wagner, Pablo Dodero (Late Night Howl), Corey Dunlap, Shirley Ordway, Chad Valasek, Angella D'Avignon (writer), Marco Antonio Huerta (writer), Phillip Alexander, Taylor McGill, Jeff and Bradley, and Jordynn Bartolome
CREW:
Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli - (Director of Photography) - is an artist-filmmaker. She is currently the Director of Digital Media at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, where she produces short documentaries. Her artwork engages visibility, agency, and identity through highly constructed images and spaces that suspend the subject in the unreality of the image. She has a BA in Media Studies from University at Buffalo and an MFA from UC San Diego.
Morgan Mandalay - (Production Designer, Props, On-set Producer) - is an artist, curator, organizer, actor (potentially). His work attempts to negotiate space; how we use it, how the objects we make need, want, and take it, and potentials for our cooperation within it. For the past three years, he has organized exhibitions on the beaches of San Diego under the moniker SPF15. His work has been exhibited internationally with recent shows in LA, Mexico City, Denver, and Bogota. His work as a painter and curator has been written about online on ArtForum, Artspace, Hyperallergic, and AQNB. This is Morgan's first time working on a film. :)
Yuka Murakami (pronounced Euca-lyptus) - (Sound Recordist and Engineer) - is an artist with a scientific background who lives and works in Southern California. She is originally from NY and often roots herself in a city with a good dose of plants. Yuka currently works at an aquarium and collaborates with scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to make interactive works about their research. She has worked on award-winning film and installation projects, including Finding Christian, Warren, and the Sound Planetarium in the camera and sound departments while attending UCSD. She loves to learn languages, makes analog collages, and experiments with text, design, and user experience.
Jeremy Rojas - (Camera, Sound Design) - grew up skating around Inland Empire before finally making it to the ocean and becoming a total beach goth. He produces sounds and turns knobs at Soda Bar and Electricalifornia Studios. Jeremy has been a part of musical projects: Beaters, Teach Me, Ale Mania, Viv Vates and most recently Matt Lamkin's (The Soft Pack) new project.
Keili Fernando (Producer) is a media producer, photographer, and singer-songwriter. With a background in stage management, she produces short films and currently works as a digital media content producer. Later this year, she will be independently releasing her debut album, 411. She recently wrapped her California coffee shop tour and was featured on KPFK Radio. Keili has a BA in Communication with a minor in Theatre from UC San Diego.
Zahid Gómez (Gaffer/Grip), Alexander Uhler (Camera), Kelli Rice (Production Coordinator), Ryan Bradford (Camera), Abraham Molino (Asst. Director, Camera) Priscilla Salser (Props/Wardrobe), Alexis Martinez Gutierrez (Pre-Production Costume & Wardrobe Design), Jennifer Lopez (Makeup SPF15) Jacqueline Chan, Jess Mattison, Ly Tran, Wylie Simpson, Rachael Guerra, Lyta S Chea, Dylan Martin, Wayne Phung, Josh Duhay, Michael Yiu, Emily Strawn, Shayne Cole, Al-e McWhorter (Production Assistance)
Music:
Our friends Spooky Cigarette contributed music to Candy Ego. We love singing along to their dreamy intersectional mesh of sounds. Not to mention, Frank has one of the best laughs ever. They were recently profiled in San Diego City Beat and San Diego Reader.
Also, our dear friend (and camera operator) Jeremy Rojas plays electronic music sensation, PuppyHead, and composed music with Andrew Montoya at Electricalifornia Studios for the role.
We are looking forward to showcasing much more of our friends' music on the soundtrack of Candy Ego, which is available as a reward for donating!
Support:
Many supporters helped make our production possible. Thank you: Triton TV, Soda Bar, Angie Ollman Photography, Ryan Jefferies, Lianne Mueller, RJ Brooks and A SHIP IN THE WOODS, Ruby Cougler, Neil Kendricks, Lucas Coffin , Bob Leathers, Cheryl Nickel and Space4Art, Seth Combs, Mai Ling Meyers and Cocoon Hair, Hostel on 3rd, Amy Adler, Adriene Hughes, Lev Kalman, Angie Bunch and the Culture Shock Dance Center in San Diego and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Follow us:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/candy_ego
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candy_ego_/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/candyego.tv/
