Carson Mell is a writer and filmmaker living in happening Hollywood, California. He comes from Arizona and made ‘Cold Operator’ as a music video for his friend Miles Jopling’s song.

I was first introduced to Carson’s work through an animated short he made called ‘The Writer.’ I watched it on the first issue of Wholphin and it instantly became my favorite video on that dvd. ‘The Writer’ is now on YouTube and I’m anxiously anticipating the long-delayed second installment.

Carson’s made 2 cartoons and written a novel about a character named Bobby Bird. From myspace.com/bobbybirdmusic:

“My girl she’s like a tiger, with suntan through venetian blinds.”

I’m Bobby Allen Bird, a rock musician, and that’s a lyric from my song, “Tiger Girl.” I’ve been in this fucked up rock game since I was eighteen years old, signed to Colony when I was just nineteen. I’ve made some good music, some bad music, and I’ve drank some drinks and did some drugs. I’m sixty-two years old now (time flies, motherfucker) and I guess I feel this way about myself and the life I’ve led: C-. I don’t know if an American man with five too many automobiles can feel much better than that without lying to himself. I enjoy hot cakes, sausage, small ankles, and free love.

Carson introduced the character in an ‘interactive short’ called ‘Bobby Bird: The Devil in Denim.’ In the its best presentations, it’s an illustrated dvd menu where you click on the tattoos covering Bobby’s naked body to learn the origin of each one. It showed in Sundance in 2007, was included in the third issue of Wholphin, and is currently available on iTunes.

After that, Carson wrote and illustrated a novel called ‘Saguaro: The Life & Adventures of Bobby Allen Bird.’ Saguro’s recently been reprinted and is now available through Carson’s site. You can read a chapter of ‘Saguaro’ here, or listen to Carson read from it here.

Earlier this year, Carson completed the latest installment in the ongoing saga: ‘Bobby Bird in Chonto.’ Chonto screened at Sundance 2008 and was included in Wholphin No. 5. It’s playing in the Los Angeles Film Festival this Sunday (6/22) and Tuesday (6/24) and is also available on iTunes. I can’t over-stress how worth your $1.99 both this and ‘Devil in Denim‘ are.

‘Cold Operator’ isn’t Carson’s first foray into live action. In 2006, he made a nature show called Zewesawan with his cousin Grant Falardeau. We showed Zewesawan at the very first Community Shorts screening last year and now you can watch the ten minutes of Cuate and B-Mon’s adventures (and see some awesome illustrations) at zewesewam.com.

Carson and Grant also worked together on a short called ‘Frito Lo‘ and a series of features turned internet tv show called ‘Rodericks’ (the first episode in on YouTube in three parts).

Wow, guy’s got a lot of hypertext… Anyway, we’re beyond pleased to present ‘Cold Operator‘ –

See you on Monday for Hero/Psycho…