Something a little different–a live-action comedy sketch created with Nicole Stamp, starring Hayley Hudson, Ben Hudson, and Danielle Ayow.

format: DV video
software: Final Cut
Toronto, 2008.

A realtime recording made with GPS data and popcorn.js, based on the classic “actuality film” shot by Harry Miles in San Francisco, April 1906. Here’s the code used to create this.

format: website
software: popcorn.js, After Effects
Toronto, 2011.

It’s very rude to stare! Experimenting with my new Canon video DSLR…

format: HD video
software: After Effects, Flash
Toronto, 2010.

My cousins used to play this odd little game; they were about five and three years old at the time. The older one would pick up the remote control to the TV, point it at her sister, and say “Turn you off”–she’d obligingly fall to the ground and play dead. Then the remote changed hands, they’d change places, and the game would begin all over again. It was carried out with the solemn gravity of an execution by firing squad.

This short is a grown-up version of the same game, played with a grown-up weapon…

format: DV video
software: Commotion, AfterEffects, Painter, Final Cut, Audition
Pittsburgh, 2002.

Broadcast on CBC TV 2002.

I’d seen pictures of it before, but an especially dramatic photograph caught my eye on a magazine cover in the grocery store. It almost looked like another vegetable: a brilliant marigold-orange “fuel-air” bomb, the most powerful non-nuclear weapon on the market.

format: DV video
software: Commotion, AfterEffects, Painter, Final Cut, Audition
Los Angeles, 2003.

The painter in this short may think she’s only painting circles on the ground. But from our privileged vantage point, we can see well enough where it’s all going to lead….

format: DV video
software: Commotion, AfterEffects, Painter, Final Cut, Audition
Los Angeles, 2003.

“Remember, you never need to solve the problem right now.” Apparently, no problem could possibly arise that this handy video self-help pamphlet is unprepared to deal with.

This short, a dance for camera, was created at the Point Park Conservatory in Pittsburgh, choreographed by Doug Bentz.

format: DV video
software: AfterEffects, Final Cut, Audition
Pittsburgh, 2002.

I was in my car, parked, and it was raining. I was under a giant neon sign, a grocery store sign that hadn’t had all its letters lit since I was a kid. The battery in my camera was still good, so I pointed it out the windshield and began taping. It lasted long enough to catch the sky turning dark, and the sign turning to gibberish as its un-lit letters faded away, and a most unusual song playing on the radio. The whole thing felt like a funeral.

format: DV video
software: AfterEffects, Final Cut, Audition, Photoshop
Huntington, West Virginia, 2001.

The message consisted of nothing but the distant ringing of church bells and a voice that said only “Hello?” before hanging up. It arrived in my voice mail on July 8, 2000. How did it get there?

It must have been entrusted to a tiny electronic messenger, a wayward soul who somehow got lost in the phone system. It’s a short journey, but a very dangerous one, and maybe she didn’t reach her destination in time…

format: DV video
software: AfterEffects, Premiere, Audition, Photoshop
Pittsburgh, 2000.

If you search for a needle in a haystack for too long, you start to get bored, then tired, then angry. If you get angry enough, you might even throw the whole haystack away, but then you’ve lost the needle forever…

format: DV video
software: AfterEffects, Premiere, Photoshop
Pittsburgh, 1999.