Green Porno

Last updated
Green Porno
Green Porno.jpg
Promotional photo from the Housefly episode of Green Porno
Directed by Jody Shapiro
Isabella Rossellini
Written byIsabella Rossellini
Produced by Rick Gilbert
Jody Shapiro
Isabella Rossellini
StarringIsabella Rossellini
Edited by Stacey Foster
Cynthia Madansky
Angelika Brudniak
Music by Andy Byers
Rick Gilbert
Release date
  • 2008 (2008)
LanguageEnglish

Green Porno is a series of short films on animal sexual behaviour. The series, which began in 2008 and aired on The Sundance Channel, is conceived, written, and directed by its star, Isabella Rossellini.

Contents

In the eight films that comprise the first season, Rossellini enacts the mating rituals of various insects and other animals (including the dragonfly, spider, bee, praying mantis, earthworm, snail and housefly) with cardboard cut-outs and foam-rubber sculptures. Season two is devoted to marine life. Season three deals with ocean life threatened by commercial fishing.

Origins

According to Rossellini, the idea for Green Porno stemmed from her relationships with both Robert Redford and his Sundance Channel. Rossellini had previously worked with Sundance on a previous short film My Dad Is 100 Years Old. [1] Redford believed that the internet and the burgeoning mobile internet, allowed for the "re-launch of the short film format." [2]

The Sundance Channel set aside an experimental budget and proposed that Rossellini's project should fall into the purview of Sundance's program The Green. [2] Rossellini's love of animals and desire to balance out the current projects focusing on home and food with the animals that “surround us every day” yet have an “incredible variety of mating, which is very scandalous.” [2]

Concept and growth

Isabella Rossellini (left) with Jody Shapiro (center) and Andy Byers (right) at the Sundance Kabuki Green Porno crew 4.jpg
Isabella Rossellini (left) with Jody Shapiro (center) and Andy Byers (right) at the Sundance Kabuki

Rossellini says that she does a great deal of research before each episode, then spends a while determining how to translate that research into "something visual and how to make it comical." [3]
The goal, according to Rossellini, is to be both entertaining and educational.

Jody Shapiro and Rick Gilbert are responsible for translating the research and concepts that Rossellini has into the paper and paste costumes which directly contribute to the series' unique visual style. After the costumes are designed, approximately one animal is filmed per day, for a total production time of about ten months per season. [3]

Over the course of Green Porno's three seasons, the focus of the show has shifted. Season one dealt exclusively with invertebrates that humans can realistically encounter on a daily basis. The second season focused on sea creatures, but also included an episode on the sexual organs. For the third and shortest season, Green Porno adopted an overt environmental theme, specifically one which focused on the issue of over-fishing as contrasted with the mating habits of animals commonly used as food. In season three, Rossellini is joined by biologist Claudio Campagna. [4]

Multimedia expansion

With the third season, Sundance Channel embarked on a Green Porno multimedia push. All four episodes of the season premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Friday, September 11, 2009. On September 14, 2009 the series premiered on the Sundance Channel's website, and September 21, 2009 saw the broadcast television premier. Green Porno: A Book and Short Films (HarperStudio – 2009) was released in September 2009, eight days after the internet premier of web series' third season. The book served as a supplement to the series and included full color photos, backstage footage shot by her nephew Tommaso Rossellini, and a DVD with all three seasons worth of Green Porno short films. [4] [5]

Sequel series

Bon Appetit was the theme of the third season of Green Porno, looking into the reproductive behavior of sea creatures that are part of the food industry, and the environmentally unsound practices involved in the fisheries. Seduce Me was called the "spawn" of Green Porno, and featured several short films on the various courtship displays and mating behavior of a wider range of animals. Rossellini also worked with Burt's Bees in a short series called "Burt Talks to the Bees" discussing the biology and behavior of honey bees as well as colony collapse disorder. In 2013, a third series titled Mammas looks at the various levels of parental investment mother animals give to their offspring, appropriately released on Mother's Day.

Rossellini also filmed a special for the Discovery Channel titled Animals Distract Me in the style of her Green Porno and other videos, describing the nature of the various animals in everyday life.

Supporting cast

The Male Bees are played by Roberto Rossellini, Dallas Giorgi, and Louis Giacobetti. The part of the Baby Bee Larva is played by Ona Grandey. [6]

Awards and Media references

The series was mentioned by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report on 12 May 2008. [8] It was also mentioned by Graham Norton on The Graham Norton Show (which airs on BBC America) on 31 May 2009. Clips from the Green Porno segments on ducks and on bedbugs appeared as "Kick-Ass Clip of the Week" on the 7 May 2010 episode of The Soup as well as in an installment in their occasional series The Soup Presents. The segment on bedbugs was mentioned by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 24 August 2010.

Several of the films were displayed at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's temporary large exhibit on animal reproduction in early 2014, and at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center's permanent exhibit on Animal and Plant Seduction in July 2022.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Redford</span> American actor and filmmaker (born 1936)

Charles Robert Redford Jr. is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades such as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Honorary César in 2019. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabella Rossellini</span> Italian actress

Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model and an established career in American cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Riegert</span> American actor (born 1947)

Peter Riegert is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Donald "Boon" Schoenstein in Animal House (1978), oil company executive "Mac" MacIntyre in Local Hero (1983), pickle store owner Sam Posner in Crossing Delancey (1988) and Lt. Mitch Kellaway in The Mask (1994). He directed the short film By Courier (2000), for which he was nominated along with producer Ericka Frederick for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Metcalf</span> American actor

Mark Metcalf is an American television and film actor often playing the role of an antagonistic and aggrieved authority figure.

Sundance TV is an American pay television channel owned by AMC Networks that launched on February 1, 1996. The channel is named after Robert Redford's character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and, while it is an extension of Redford's non-profit Sundance Institute, the channel operates independently of both the Institute and the Sundance Film Festival.

In 1969, Robert Redford purchased 6,000 acres (24 km2) at the base of 12,000-foot (3,700 m) Mount Timpanogos in Utah's Wasatch Mountains. He named this land Sundance. The Sundance Group is a listing of all the businesses that run under the Sundance corporate umbrella started by and run by actor Robert Redford.

The HUMP! annual film festival in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, initiated in 2005, showcases home-movie erotica, amateur sex cinema, and locally produced pornography. Films are rated by the audience, and awards are given. The films are then destroyed before the live audience at the final showing of the festival, by the master of ceremonies, Dan Savage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Fried</span> American film director

Andrew Fried is an American documentary filmmaker, producer and director, and the president of Boardwalk Pictures. Fried is known for producing documentary films and television series, such as Chef's Table, The Black Godfather, Last Chance U, 7 Days Out, My Love, Men in Kilts, Booktube, Street Food, Cheer, Val and The Goop Lab with Gwyneth Paltrow. He directed the 2020 documentary film We Are Freestyle Love Supreme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serinda Swan</span> Canadian actress (born 1984)

Serinda Swan is a Canadian actress best known for her work on television. From 2019 to 2022, she starred as Jenny Cooper in the CBC/CW crime drama series Coroner. In 2017, she starred in Marvel's Inhumans and HBO's Ballers, and also portrayed Anne Bancroft in the first season of Feud (2017). Previously, she guest starred on the WB/CW Superman prequel series Smallville as Zatanna Zatara, a DC Comics-inspired recurring character who is an actual magician. She also starred as Paige Arkin in the USA Network action drama series Graceland (2013–2015) and as Erica Reed in the A&E drama series Breakout Kings (2011–2012). She currently stars as Karla Dixon in the second season of the Amazon Prime Video series Reacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundance Film Festival</span> American annual independent film festival held in Salt Lake City, Utah

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 attending in 2016. It takes place each January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mantis</span> Order of insects

Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all Mantodea have forelegs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with forearms folded, has led to the common name praying mantis.

<i>Zelly and Me</i> 1988 film

Zelly and Me is a 1988 American drama film written, directed and produced by Tina Rathborne and starring Isabella Rossellini, Glynis Johns and Alexandra Johnes. Filmmaker David Lynch features in a minor role.

Condé Nast Entertainment is a production and distribution studio with film, television, social and online video, and virtual reality content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lowery (director)</span> American filmmaker

David Lowery is an American filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Negri</span> Italian film director and screenwriter (born 1964)

Anna Negri is an Italian film director and screenwriter.

Craig William Macneill is an American film director, writer, and editor. His feature film Lizzie, starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, premiered in the U.S Dramatic Competition section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The film was acquired by Roadside Attractions and Saban Films and released theatrically in the fall of 2018. Macneill's first feature film, The Boy, premiered in the narrative competition at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival and which was also based on a previous short film he co-wrote, directed, and edited titled Henley, which screened in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the grand jury prize for "Best Short Film" at the Gen Art Film Festival and Clint Eastwood’s Carmel Film and Arts Film Festival. In 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Dunn (director)</span> Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer

Stephen Dunn is a Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer. He made his feature film directorial debut in 2015 with Closet Monster, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Wildwood Enterprises, Inc., is a film and television production company. It was founded by actor and director Robert Redford and producer Bill Holderman. It is sometimes credited as South Fork Pictures. In 1987, the company had partnered with Cineplex Odeon Films to launch a feature film subsidiary Northfolk Productions, which spent the next five years making five films, all with a budget of between $4 and 5 million.

UNHhhh is an American comedy web series starring drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova. In the series, Trixie and Katya discuss a topic humorously in front of a green screen. UNHhhh premiered on March 25, 2016, one year after Mattel and Zamolodchikova appeared in the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. The show is aired through World Of Wonder's YouTube channel, as well as through its video-on-demand service WOW Presents Plus. UNHhhh has been nominated for ten Streamy Awards throughout its run, winning Unscripted Series at the 2020 ceremony, which the duo also hosted.

References

  1. ↑ "Green Porno: a series of short films by Isabella Rossellini" (Press Kit). The Sundance Channel. 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  2. 1 2 3 Sancton, Julian (2009-03-25). "Isabella Rossellini: Let's Talk about (Barnacle) Sex, Baby". Vanity Fair . Archived from the original on 2009-11-26. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  3. 1 2 Kung, Michelle (2009-09-21). ""Green Porno" Creator Isabella Rossellini on Animal Sex, Crazed Fans and Web Entertainment" . Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  4. 1 2 Richard, Michael Graham (2009-09-14). "Green Porno 3 with Isabella". TreeHugger. Archived from the original on 2009-12-12. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  5. ↑ Lanegran, Katie (2009-09-04). "Green Porno 3 with Isabella" (Press release). Sundance Channel. Archived from the original on 2009-12-07. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  6. ↑ "Green Porno Press Kit" (PDF). The Sundance Channel . 2008-03-24. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  7. 1 2 "Webby Nominees". The Barbarian Group. 2009. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
  8. ↑ "The Colbert Report". 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2008-06-14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.