Archive for the ‘Student Film’ Category

We Are Now Starting Our Descent

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

We Are Now Starting Our Descent
(click to play)

A mostly true story about bugs.

format: SD video
software: Flash, AfterEffects, Painter, Audition
Toronto, 2009.

The Story of Enoch

Monday, January 23rd, 2006

The Story of Enoch
(click to play)

Enoch receives a premonition of disaster, so he sets out to collect as many books as he can find, to preserve the knowledge of the world. But, lacking reliable divine guidance, all his careful preparations come down to a straight-ahead, all-or-nothing gamble….

format: DV video
software: Final Cut, Audition, Photoshop
Los Angeles, 2003.

Broadcast on CBC TV 2005.

The Little Bird of Disaster

Thursday, January 19th, 2006

The Little Bird of Disaster
(click to play)

This is a story about a little bird who claims to be able to predict the future. Don’t trust him.

The Little Bird of Disaster was developed at The Kitchen’s 2003 summer workshop. The speaking characters are real-time “video puppets,” controlled with Mark Coniglio’s Isadora software. The piece was actually performed, like they say, in front of a live studio audience (you can hear them in the background).

format: DV video
software: Flash, AfterEffects, Painter, Isadora, Final Cut, Audition
Los Angeles, 2004.

Screened at Rotterdam Film Festival 2005.

Mother of All Bombs

Wednesday, January 11th, 2006

Mother of All Bombs
(click to play)

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 Option of War

Friday, January 6th, 2006

The Option of War
(click to play)

In this adaptation of an early Kafka story, a soldier is taken prisoner in the night by a pack of jackals. Offering a pair of scissors, they demand that he use the makeshift weapon to kill his sleeping friends. They overwhelm his initial, shocked refusal. Slowly, incredibly, he begins to see their point of view. He takes the scissors, and…

format: HD video
software: Flash, AfterEffects, Painter, Final Cut, Audition
Montreal, 2005.

Screened at Ottawa Animation Festival 2005.

Bird’s Eye Bull’s Eye

Wednesday, January 4th, 2006

Bird's Eye Bull's Eye
(click to play)

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.

Fast Voyeur

Wednesday, December 21st, 2005

Fast Voyeur
(click to play)

I began to take a video camera out at night and peek into hundreds of other people’s windows, just for a few seconds at a time. I wasn’t sure quite why I was doing this…

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

Manipulations

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Manipulations
(click to play)

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.

An Iconoclast

Monday, December 19th, 2005

An Iconoclast
(click to play)

The letters used in this short fell off a movie theater marquee one Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1998. They’d originally been part of some grand, meaningful words, but now they were stranded and helpless. So I gave them a new home.

format: DV video
software: AfterEffects, Premiere, Photoshop
Pittsburgh, 1998.

Stoel III

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Stoel III
(click to play)

Stoel III is a musical group based in Amsterdam. Its three members (Govinda Mens, Tilmann Meyer-Faje, and Peter van der Jagt) compose and perform musical pieces written for a very remarkable instrument: the folding chair. After years of practice, they can coax an amazing variety of sounds out of their instruments.

This short is a documentation of one of their practice sessions, in the basement of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.

format: SVHS video
software: Premiere, Photoshop
Amsterdam, 1998.