Local Newswire Filmmaker Sean Williamson unveils new video, new Kickstarter at Saturday’s Altos release show

Saturday’s release party for Altos’ terrific self-titled album isn’t just a celebration of the group’s accomplishments. The Stonefly show will include four opening acts, live storytelling, the debut of local filmmaker Sean Williamson’s music video for “Sing (For Trouble),” and the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to complete Williamson’s feature-length crime drama Heavy Hands. The night promises to be less a rock show than a vaudeville commencement of the Milwaukee arts.

The video for “Sing” stars all 12 of the band’s members in a “micro-epic drama.” Spanning the song’s eight minutes, it features four disparate scenes from four separate stories. Each story represents what Williamson calls “a developing Polaroid, a snapshot of a moment of a story… without showing the beginning or end.” Erik Ljung, along with Anthony Lopez and John Salimes of High Frequency Media photographed the project.

The music video also hints at some of the things Williamson is up to with his feature film. Like “Sing,” Heavy Hands dramatically contrasts country and city landscapes. The filmmaker says both projects favor “the juxtaposition of images to convey atmosphere… to make it feel like something instead of being highly scripted.”

The film’s Kickstarter goal of $15,000 would fund the homestretch of a project long in the making. Work began on the rural revenge film three-and-a-half years ago. The film stars Williamson, Modus Operandi director Frankie Latina, and Nick Sommer of local-horror-film-turned-Troma-movie Blood Junkie. The Kickstarter funds would go toward a final round of filming, post-production sound and music, and possibly securing a known actor to play a small part in the film—a tactic similar to Danny Trejo’s appearance in Modus Operandi.

If “Sing” is a launch pad for the completion of Heavy Hands, then the feature film is a three-stage rocket for other projects, including a surfing movie that Williamson is currently writing. “This is the start of something bigger,” says Williamson. “I want to involve lots of people that are talented, not just in Milwaukee, but all over the state.”