A native of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Burtt is the son of David R. Burtt Jr.[2] and Barbara Carey Burtt.[3] His father worked in the sales divisions of WMTW (TV) and WCSH; serving as National Sales Manager for twenty years for the latter organization.[2] He was educated at Cape Elizabeth Middle School[4] and Cape Elizabeth High School (CEHS);[5] graduating from the latter in 1981. While a high school student at Cape Elizabeth, he won second prize in the Maine Student Film Festival (MSFF) for the film Killer Pop Tarts.[6] At the age of 16, he was awarded the Young Author Award by the MSFF in 1979.[7] That year he submitted six films to this competition in a variety of categories, and according to the festival's sponsor, "just blew away the competition", leading to a special award being given just to him.[8] His entries in the 1980 MSFF included Hitchhike and Santa Claus−Hitler;[9] winning first prize in the ages 16-19 category that year.[10]
For his early work Burtt worked in 8 and 16mm film. Jack Sargeant commented that Burtt's works are "equally engaged in presenting the audience with the nether regions of the psyche as manifested via the darkest forms of paranoia, psychosis and insanity." He also noted that themes of mutilation and inanity occur in multiple Burtt films, specifically The Psychotic Odyssey of Richard Chase and The Death of Sex.[13]
The Psychotic Odyssey of Richard Chase, which used Barbie and Ken dolls, primitive drawings, and slowed-down audio to cover the murders committed by Richard Chase, was screened at the 1999 New York Underground Film Festival,[14] as well as Other Cinema's 2008 Experiments in Terror video exhibition and the 2013 retrospective for the Chicago Underground Film Festival.[15][16] The film was included in the 2001 exhibition "Bad Trips: New Directions in Independent Horror" at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.[17] It was later released as part of two anthology sets by Troma Entertainment and Microcinema. Reviewers for DVD Talk and the North Adams Transcript reviewed the short favorably. The Transcript's reviewer found that Burtt's methods made the short "profoundly creepy" and that "it's the kind of experimental horror that many would never consider."[18] The reviewer for DVD Talk noted that while Burtt "seemingly trivializes Chase's crimes through made-up and mutilated dolls and soupy terror-narration. In actuality he's doubling the true horror and pathos through brilliant misdirection."[19]
Burtt's 1999 short Mind Control Made Easy or How to Become a Cult Leader was featured in the 2005 Hell on Reels: Astoria Moving Image Festival. An instructional film outlining the techniques used by destructive cults, Mind Control was also featured on Supersphere.com where it received an audience award. Fragments from Mind Control have been used by Flying Lotus' alter ego Captain Murphy on the album Duality, released in 2012. Burtt's films have been shown in several festivals including New York and Chicago Underground and The FanTasia Film Festival. In January 2009 the Boston Underground Film Festival held a retrospective screening event of his work.[citation needed]
In 2019 Burtt completed his second feature Corpus Chaosum which won best experimental film at the 2021 First Hermetic International Film Festival.[22]
Music
Carey's Problem formed in the summer of 1986 with Cindy Brolsma and Lisa Jenio. The band released the album Arena of Shame in 1990, produced by Dave Sardy.[23] The song "Led Zeppelin" had college radio play and was featured in the Steve Zahn film Freak Talks About Sex which played on Cinemax.
Gigi Disco Rock was formed in 1998 and put out two CDs: "Will You Love Me?" and "More Songs For Clucky."
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