Panic
Films was started by Arturo Valle in February of 2000. Since
then Panic Films has been involved in making music videos, band
promos, and VJ performances with bands and DJ's.
Arturo is an accomplished filmmaker and video artist
who has exhibited his short films and music videos at The Film Center
of the Art Instute of Chicago, Betty Rymer Gallery: New Faces in a
New Space, Nervous Center Cafe: Annual Animation Screenings, Heaven
Gallery: 5x8 Film Festival (now Fast Forward Film Festival) in Chicago.
Other screenings include The Aurora Picture Show: How to View a Song
in Houston Texas, Eyeball Music Video Festival in Athens, GA at the
40 Watt Club, University of Oregon's \!. shortfilms screening in Eugene
OR, and International FuntUp Film Festival in Milwaukee. Music videos
have been also shown on Eye Candy in Mokena IL and national cable
on Independent Music Networks.
For a while Arturo was joined by Aaron Schmidt,
an amazing artist and former classmate of Arturo's at The School of
the Art Institute of Chicago. Together they performed at Minneapolis'
The Quest Club and Blueshift in
Wisconsin as well as venues all over the Chicagoland area. During
this time Aaron performed at the Burning Man festival
In the spring of 2003, Arturo teamed up with Narendra,
a producer and DJ to form Pixel Brat, an audio/visual duo. Narendra brought
to
Pixel Brat his DJ skills involving vinyl, laptops, and live effects that he
had been playing out for years as well as with audio/visual group a-very-sensitive-device. Pixel
Brat debuted at the Double Door in Chicago at a benefit show for Loyola University's
WLUW 88.7. Mixing audio and video feeds out to the PA and projector Pixel
Brat shows were visually jarring and hypnotic, while the beats consisted of
idm, deep house, and breakbeats. The project is currently under hiatus but
both Arturo and Narendra hope to collaborate again in the future.
Panic Films performed as part of Chicago triphop band Jute for
a number of years, and continues performing with electronica act A
New January and shoegaze rockers Airiel.
Arturo also created visuals for electronic artist Comasoft.
As of April 2005 Panic Films has been providing visuals for the Dark Wave Disco
parties held at Sonotheque next to
DJ's mg., Trancid, Greg Corner (from Kill
Hannah), and guests Traxx, Tommie Sunshine, amongst others. |