The Austin Film Festival presented a special screening on June 26 of "Sonic Youth: Sleeping Nights Awake," a black-and-white concert documentary covering the seminal American rock band's performance in Reno, Nev., on July 4, 2006.
The film was an undertaking by Project Moonshine, a program that teaches filmmaking techniques to high schoolers in the Reno area and then sends them to document important social events in the city. While this initiative would seem to be the kind of thing that would only work on paper, the viewer quickly forgets it was shot by amateurs. The concert shots give you all the angles you want, and the framing is very expressive.
"Sleeping Nights Awake" winds up being a very effective concert documentar - an accomplishment that owes much to the editing and direction of Michael Albright, who was in attendance Thursday at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek for a post-show question-and-answer session. When asked why he chose to go with black and white over color, Albright said that, along with it corresponding to the title, black and white seemed to capture the band's performance better. Albright was correct: The stark black and white works with the venue lights to match the drive and sturm and drang of Sonic Youth's sound.