Smile & Relax.

SMILE & RELAX is a an awarding winning short independent film made inside a photo-booth machine. This app includes the film, the script, a PBS interview with the filmmaker, photo strip stills and an essay.

The subject of SMILE & RELAX, is an aspiring actress recounting a tale of love and affection, moving through a calliope of self portraits. Beautiful and heinous, happy and sad, smart and silly, are just a few of the emotions expressed in a repeating volley of images. At other times the film slows down, allowing viewers to scrutinize every frame and facial change, as if under water.

"Once upon a time, long before the Digital Age made everything clean, antiseptic and free of blemishes, artists made films on celluloid, lusting after the thrill they knew was there when you got to make the picture move using a mechanical apparatus, a clumsy sound recording system, and a bundle of rolled plastic.  Slow it down, speed it up, and you could reveal it for what it was: a sham, a con-game, a sequence of photos beguilingly pressed to appear seamless in time and space.  “SMILE & RELAX” drifts back to the charm and attraction of that misty celluloid age, when we all thought – indeed knew – that we could be masters of the universe, if only for the time a two quarters could buy you in a tacky little photo booth." 

- Ruth Bradley, Director, Athens Film and Video

The term “smile & relax” was one of the written “tips” inside the photo-booth to get good results.

Trailer can be seen at:
http://www.vimeo.com/16145971