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JOEL BACHAR IS a busy man, and the local film and video community is better for it. Since moving to San Francisco from Seattle in 2001, Bachar has done publicity work for the Roxie Cinema and maintained his monthly Microcinema International screening series, Independent Exposure, which will be a decade old next year. Right now, though, Bachar and Microcinema cofounder Patrick Kwiatkowski are venturing into the DVD realm with two new projects.

This move makes sense: the short film and video work associated with Independent Exposure is well-suited to the individual chapters of the DVD format: whereas a videotape comp of shorts might demand copious fast-forwarding, DVD viewers can quickly leap from one film to another when watching a compilation. One of Bachar and Kwiatkowski's new brainstorms, the Blackchair Label, expands this freedom. "Through our database and Web site, someone can customize their own DVD," Bachar explains. A showcase for Independent Exposure's programming, the Blackchair Label also plans to sell a series of low-cost "DVD singles," each devoted to a particular short; the first is Evan Mather and Kirk Hofstetter's "Icarus of Pittsburgh," a mock doc about the biggest Pittsburgh Steelers fan of all time.

"Icarus of Pittsburgh" 's theme hooks into The Rainbow Man/John 3:16, one highlight of Bachar and Kwiatkowski's other DVD project, the Blackchair Collection – a broader catalog of titles from outside Independent Exposure's library. The DVD of Sam Green's disturbing portrait of rainbow-wigged sports superfan "Rockin' " Rollen Fredrick Stewart includes a number of Green's short works. A look at proto-riot grrrl cult phenom Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, codirected by the late Sarah Jacobson, "The Fabulous Stains: Behind the Movie" includes interviews with Diane Lane and Christine Lahti (who claims she's never seen the film). The politically acute "Pie Fight '69," a joint venture with Christian Bruno, foreshadows Green's Weather Underground, while a lovely William Klein-like new short, "N Judah 5:30," steals portraits of San Franciscans from a Muni rush-hour crush.

The Blackchair Collection is beginning with a big bang, thanks to a series of titles, including Rainbow Man, issued by Artists' Television Access's Other Cinema. Anyone familiar with Craig Baldwin's brainy-antic films and personality will get a kick out of the initials – OCD – attached to Other Cinema's digital-video subsidiary. Baldwin's Spectres of the Spectrum is another of OCD's first releases, and its Director's Commentary feature – capturing Baldwin in conversation with Bay Guardian columnist Patrick Macias – yields many stories behind that film's conspiratorial narrative. Baldwin reveals the Exploratorium's role in the creation of Spectres, explains self-coined terms such as "availabilism" and "cinéma concrète," and marks the differences between "compilation narrative" (his approach) and collage.

"My films aren't about perfection," Baldwin says at one point during the commentary. "My films are extremely funky, and they're more about energy." Other funky energy can be found on a pair of OCD comps. Experiments in Terror features Peter Tscherkassky's Outer Space, a mind-warping work that triples the creepiness of its source material (1981's Entity, a bizarre spirit-rape tale starring Barbara Hershey). A stag and nudie archival romp curated by Oddball Film and Video's Stephen Parr, The Subject Is Sex throws a few queer curveballs, including a military training film devoted to enemas and a President's Council on Fitness short that would make AMG's Bob Mizer jealous.

Bachar's Blackchair-monikered projects have already spawned an offshoot, the Blackchair Sessions, a series of limited-edition DVDs in which each release is curated and designed by the artist whose work is featured on the disc. Much like Blackchair's DVD singles, the idea has musical roots. "One analogy for the Blackchair Sessions is the Peel Sessions," Bachar explains, referring to the BBC live studio recordings prized by certain record collectors. "John Peel brought known or unknown bands into the studio to record a live set. The packaging was unique – it had a brand to it. What we're doing with the Blackchair Sessions is focusing on particular artists. Our first release is by [Ohio-based filmmaker and musician] Kasumi – she's very prolific, and this is an ideal way to give her a pedestal." (Johnny Ray Huston)

For more information go to www.microcinema.com and www.othercinemaDVD.com.