Archive for the ‘Live Action’ Category

Elegy

Saturday, December 24th, 2005

Elegy
(click to play)

Available on: youtube.com | archive.org

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.

One New Message

Wednesday, December 21st, 2005

One New Message
(click to play)

Available on: youtube.com | archive.org

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.

Manipulations

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Manipulations
(click to play)

Available on: youtube.com | archive.org

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)

Available on: youtube.com | archive.org

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.

Meal

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Meal
(click to play)

Available on: youtube.com | archive.org

This short is about an argument over dinner, an argument that goes around in circles. What’s unusual is that the dinner goes around in circles too; what’s eaten by one combatant comes out of the mouth of the other, so neither the eating nor the fighting ever has to end.

format: DV video
software: Premiere, Audition, Photoshop
Pittsburgh, 1997.

Open Quote

Monday, December 19th, 2005

Open Quote
(click to play)

Available on: youtube.com | archive.org

Have you ever looked at a sentence until it stopped making sense? For this short, I took a bit from a little-known Lewis Carroll poem, and repeated it until it lost any kind of meaning.

format: Hi8 video
software: Premiere, Audition, Photoshop
Pittsburgh, 1997.