ISAAC OLSEN'S APPETITE FOR FILM >>>

Sometimes a building's exterior, its face to the world, is almost as difficult to read as a person's face; both can conceal much of the activity buzzing behind the surface. While its neighbor, Chase Bank, devours the attention of most passersby, a piece of Spaceworks Tacoma emits a dull stare of blank window glass onto Pacific Avenue. But Isaac Olsen has, for the last six months, used this quiet eye amid a bustling downtown to make movie magic.

The 24-year-old self-taught moviemaker sees cinematic potential in places the rest of us tend to disregard. Like the characters from his first feature Quiet Shoes, which premiered at the Rialto last summer, Olsen's gaze returns to dark rooms and highways in his newest creation, I Hunger. Spaceworks gave him the, well, space to, um, work on the whimsical Fantasia-like effects he devised from scratch for an abstract quasi-horror film with heavy nods to German Expressionism.

Currently Olsen has his eye on the Tacoma Artists Initiative Program, a city-based funding opportunity for artistic residents, and will submit segments of his project for the Jan. 24 application deadline.

The birth pains of I Hunger commenced in late 2008, within the frigid forests of Flint, Michigan. Over two years and 2,000 miles later, Olsen's production company Schnelluloid hopes to release his work this summer - another visual feast for us all. For a peek at the I Hunger trailervisit www.schnelluloid.com.