:: Hot Shot Director to Watch ::

At first, I didn't know what I thought of the film. The reaction wasn't immediate. Maybe that's a good sign. Maybe that is what film is supposed to do in a time when many blockbuster movies are so predictable, so easily digested, so comfortable, that even laughs seem to fall just right and all too easily."
David D. Robbins, Editor
 ArtisticEyeReview.com (Cinevegas Film Festival)
____

Based on kalin's prayer, DeSales was named a "Hot Shot Director to Watch" at the Raindance Film Festival in London by Elliot Grove, director of the festival and founder of the British Independent Film Awards, and won the Athena Award for "Best Director" at the Indiekino International Film Festival in Seoul, South Korea. 

 

DeSales on kalin's prayer set in Manhattan with producer Melissa Hammel (in her ear) and cinematographer Wendy Bednarz, back.
______

DeSales was chosen for Directors Showcases for "exciting new directors" in Sydney, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., and was featured on WVVH-TV in New York, WBAL-TV in Baltimore and on radio stations in Berlin, Dublin, Sydney and Utah.  DeSales additionally was one of the first directors chosen for the "Filmmaker Spotlight" on the internet's largest movie channel Hollywood.com.

kalin's prayer's success also attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg's Pop.com, Film Four (UK), Millivres Multimedia (UK) and The Donners' Company (Usual Suspects, Superman, X-Men).

The subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles from around the world (sans publicist),  DeSales and kalin's prayer was also featured on New York Cable's TED-TV and picked as one the top films at the Arlene Picture Show by The New York Post and The Onion

 

.

DeSales on the kalin's prayer set
in Times Square, NYC



"It puts you in a trance that
 doesn’t let you go."
Guilio Scalinger, Director
Arizona International Film Festival


"Utterly transcends its gay context and speaks to the eternal human condition in a way most works of art only hope to."
Stephen H. Segal
 InPittsburgh Weekly


"A strong and powerful piece that should be seen by the widest possible audience."
George T. Marshall, Director
Rhode Island Int'l Film Festival




On kalin's prayer set in Collinsville,
 Oklahoma with cinematographer Wendy Bednarz and 1st AC Marc Warner.

DeSales on location in Beijing with Chinese rock star & insite artist Leilin.











DeSales shows her 1st
Electric where she'd like  bounce in kalin's prayer, on set in Baltimore, Maryland

East Village, NYC

Copenhagen, Denmark

Beijing, China

St. Petersburg, Russia

Flag-draped coffins
protest the Iraq War

\


 

Kris Carr, awesome lead
of kalin's prayer, lets the
director know who's in
charge here. The director,
of course! Right...

:: Behind the Camera ::

Bessie Award-winning/Guggenheim "Fellow"
 French Tap Artist Roxane Butterfly



''A rare female presence in the male-dominated world of tap,
Ms. Butterfly has it all: looks, charisma and talent."
Gia Kourlas, The New York Times
 

"When I first saw her footage of my performance, I understood that DeSales had the kind of talent I had long been looking for, and which few of the well-established artists I have collaborated with possessed--she got inside the drama of the dance with as much depth as the music itself...with the spontaneity of a jazz-improviser in full control of her craft.  She literally paints with her camera." - Roxane Butterfly
                                     ----

Cinematographer
At NYU (and contrary to her cinematography professor's wishes ;), DeSales experimented with as many film stocks, filters, film processes and cameras as she could in order to create the widest palette of "feelings" to best support the emotion of the scene before post-production.

She served as Director of Photography for the 16mm short films Wanderlust (directed by Melissa Hammel and aired on the Sundance Channel), The Suitcase and All Good Things. She also co-DPed her 16mm documentary Paula..., for which she received the incredible honor (it was only the second film she'd shot) of being asked to serve as judge for Best Cinematography & Lighting at the Documentary Emmy Awards in 1997, 1998 and 2002, after the Chair of the judging committee saw its cutting-edge look and feel. DeSales also was recruited to serve as gaffer on numerous other NYU films for her lighting touch.

  
   Scene from 16mm Wanderlust, shot on Long Island, NY

SFX In-Camera Video Improviser
 

Check out DeSales' video montage capturing the enormous energy of the East Village music scene, edited by DeSales for the Rock the Planet DVD Promo > here (1.5MB - all effects are in-camera)

For Music
In order to stay on the cutting-edge of music, DeSales has videoed live music performances - singer-songwriters, rock bands and orchestras - in the States and around the world for over 13 years.  She started out in NYC as the official videographer for Fragglerock, which has showcased women rock bands at the Acme Underground and Meow Mix since 1992.  DeSales is favored by performers because of the funky special effects she improvises in-camera during the performance, which one artist described as "not just documenting, but capturing the soul of, my performance." DeSales prefers her trusty Hi-8 camera to DV because of the superior color of analog.

For Dance
In 2003, DeSales videoed a dance for a friend and ended up collaborating regularly with two of the most cutting-edge and socially progressive choreographers of our time: Nathan Trice, founder of Nathan Trice-Rituals (also the choreographer for Rock the Planet) and Bessie Award-winning French-Moroccan Tap Artist Roxane Butterfly, founder of Worldbeats.

For Butterfly
Called "a true tap virtuoso" by the New York Times and one of the most innovative tap-dancers of her generation, Butterfly is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow (Sister!), the only woman tap-dancer ever to receive a Bessie Award (for Outstanding Creative Achievement in 1999), was named one of Dance Magazine’s 25 Best and was chosen a member of UNESCO’s International Dance Council.  Butterfly allso has collaborated with some of the world's legendary dancers and musicians, including Gregory Hines (Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk) urban tap sensation Savion Glover, Argentinian tango great Pablo Veron, and jazz legends Les Paul, Stanley Jordan, Ron Carter and Ravi Coltrane, to name a few. Butterfly also was featured in the BBC special, Fascinating Rhythm.

After seeing DeSales' first video of her performance in 2003,  Butterfly asked DeSales to co-direct, video and edit a  biographical short film of Butterfly's work, Artist in the Making..., which she now uses to book international gigs.  It recently was selected to screen at the Monaco Dance Forum in France and  Tap Ahead in Dusseldorf. Germany.  In 2005, Artist became part of Butterfly's show Hoofalogies, which features one of the world's most celebrated tango dancers, Argentinian Pablo Veron, who starred in Sally Potter's award-winning film, The Tango Lesson (for which Butterfly coached him).

DeSales also videoed Butterfly's two sold-out performances of her 2004 show, Improvizions, which combines globally-aware spoken word, live jazz, and various forms of dance including break, African and, of course, tap. 

insite Films will be producing the Roxane Butterfly DVD in Spring 2005.

For Nathan

"Nathan delivers drama, charm and wit
with a reality that leaves no waste. "
-Jennifer Dunning, New York Times

Nathan Trice's soul-shattering dance Their Speech is Silver, Their Silence is Gold (below) is the dance that turned DeSales onto dance (besides the dance she loves to do at clubs!). This Alvin-Ailey star wowed DeSales from the first time she met him (through his dance), and she asked him straight-away to be her choreographer for Rock the Planet. More info on Nathan is on the Rock the Planet site under Imaginers.

Alex Torres stars in Nathan Trice's amazingly intense and empowering dance about the psychological, physical and emotional rape of women and their search for authentic identity in a patriarchal society.

For Film
DeSales also shot the SFX shots in kalin's prayer on her trusty Hi-8 and later transferred them to 16mm film. These shots help give kalin's prayer the special "emotional feel" for which it was so popular.

DeSales also has served as key grip, sound mixer, boom, dolly grip and first AC on numerous short films and as a PA on the Hype Williams Grammy-nominated Busta Rhymes music video, Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See (the one with the live elephant...:( ).

For Activism!
DeSales also enjoys videoing protests and other rabble-rousing events.

2004 United for Peace & Justice March at
 the Republican National Convention in NYC

:: Behind the Soul ::

Kris showing the director who's boss on
kalin's prayer set in Baltimore, Maryland

Although she loves out-there technology and eye and ear candy, DeSales fancies herself an "actor's director" because she thinks actors are incredibly courageous and that working with them is the best part of the job. After all, it's all about people.

She has studied acting herself with two of the top acting coaches in the US - as Ana Strasberg’s teaching assistant at NYU/Lee Strasberg Institute and as one of the few directors allowed to work with American Place Theater Founder Wynn Handman at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Handman has coached Michael Douglas, Johanne Woodward, Richard Gere, Denzel Washington, John Leguizamo and Mira Sorvino, among others. 

kalin's prayer was highly praised for its naturalistic acting.

 

:: Behind the Desk ::

As for the film business side of the show, DeSales worked as a Development Intern at the Emmy-Award winning HBO-NYC and as a Marketing Intern at Artistic License, an arthouse film distributor in New York City. 

On the music end, DeSales worked as a Sales & Marketing Assistant at Knitting Factory Records - one of the leading avant-jazz labels in the world with 400 titles - and has worked sales at the Knitting Factory NYC Merch Store. The Knitting Factory is known worldwide as New York’s most avant music venue and now has a hot new club in, dare we say...Hollywood.