Plan of the City is a mixed-media film that I conceived and directed. The work creates exhilarating fantasy by inverting what we know about New York City: skyscrapers rooted in bedrock liftoff into the stratosphere and immigration becomes exodus. Through joyful fantasy the City's ultimate fears are explored: it is destroyed, re-created, and finally revealed to be less unique than we thought.

The film's visuals are an animated collage combining live action footage, animated elements, illustrations and treated photographs, including photos taken by the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity made available to the public domain by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Plan of the City was created in collaboration with composer Judd Greenstein and NOW Ensemble, an acclaimed new music chamber ensemble; the ensemble, including Greenstein, feature prominently in the film as live actors set inside the animated framework.

The audio of the film consists solely of Greenstein's Change, performed by NOW Ensemble; Change and Plan of the City were created in parallel, each expressing its own artistic intention while simultaneously serving its "sibling".

The film has been presented with the music performed live, synchronized to the film, by institutions including the Library Of Congress and BAM. It is the winner of the Arch Film Lund award, and has received over 150k views on Vimeo and YouTube.

My next collaboration with Judd and NOW Ensemble is a multimedia opera about Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, called A MARVELOUS ORDER.


Selected Press:
Washington Post
Alex Ross/The Rest Is Noise

In conjunction with this film I created a series of silkscreen prints on paper.

These prints return imagery from my digital processes back into a mechanical technique, completing a loop.

The image of the Chrysler Building rising on the moon also includes handpainted elements.

Each print is 19 x 11 inches and printed in an edition of 24.

PLAN OF THE CITY

Director: Joshua Frankel
Music: "Change", composed by Judd Greenstein and performed by NOW Ensemble
Cast: Sara Budde, Patrick Burke, Logan Coale, Mark Dancigers, Judd Greenstein, Michael Mizrahi, Alexandra Sopp, Susie Simpson, Celia Au, Jonthan Chang, Dan Chen, William Lex Ham, Ting Hu, Tammi Lee, Doua Moua, Rachel Shapira
Producer: Elissa Federoff
Directory of Photography: Clayton Combe
Choreographer: Will Rawls
Edited by: Joshua Frankel and George Westberg
AD: Rachel Horlick
Key Grip: Christopher Fisher
Gaffer: Justyn Davis
Props: Eve Biddle
Script Supervisor: George Westberg
Stylist: Jenni Shaw
Asst Stylist: Julianne Laney
Casting Lauren Charkow
Greenscreen Keying and Rotoscoping: Spline VFX
VFX Supervisor: Leslie Chung
Tools Development: Clay Budin, Dan Fast
Digital Artists: Dave C Frankel, Carolyn Frisch, Rio Harrington, Minwoo Lee, Suzanne Porush, Hyun Jung Ra, David Sarma, Adam Yost
PAs: Clark Frankel, Daisuke Kasagawa, John Kitsis
Studio and invaluable Support provided by My Active Driveway
Images of Mars Courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Caltech
Made possible with a grant from the New York State Council On The Arts