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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.
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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.
This short is based on an old joke, a perennial in compilations of Jewish humor. Although the details differ between versions, the scene remains the same: a priest challenges a rabbi to a debate on the spiritual condition of Jewish people. But neither speaks the other’s language, and…well, I won’t spoil the punch line.
format: HD video
software: Flash, AfterEffects, Final Cut, Audition
San Francisco, 2005.Screened at Ottawa Animation Festival 2006.
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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.
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.
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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.
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“Is the nail attracted to the magnet?” “Yes!”
This oddly martial drill on the properties of the magnet comes to us from an old, damaged album of ’50s educational songs. I just couldn’t help imagining what the recording session must have looked like, and out came this little cartoon.
format: DV video
software: Flash, AfterEffects, Final Cut, Audition
Pittsburgh, 2002.
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“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.
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What if you’re offered only two options, and neither of them are any good? The poor creature in this short can’t hope to understand that it’s trapped inside a completely arbitrary system.
format: DV video
software: AfterEffects, FrameThief, Premiere, DVD Studio
Pittsburgh, 2001.
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At the start of the Afghan War, I heard the title’s classic Cold-War motto resurrected by Texas Congressman Dick Armey. Oddly enough, it made me think of the Lewis Carroll poem “The Voice of the Lobster,” in which the Panther and the Owl sit down to negotiate an agreement. The story just seems to have a timely ring about it.
format: DV video
software: Commotion, AfterEffects, Painter, Premiere, Audition
Pittsburgh, 2002.
