I don't really understand
But suddenly the path to take in this work seems so clear! I know what the plot will be and what I want to see, what I need to do. Usually these things are pretty
DADA and I feel the randomness of the universe playing me like a piano. In a serendipitous fashion, just the right piece of paper seem to fall in my hands, or appear on the magazine page. It's so mysterious. It's what keeps me in this business of collage.
But this time it's different.
I really need the audio before I can do the visual
The process of creating an animation to music is pretty involved....Over time I have stumbled my way into some pretty archaic workflows! One thing I am sticking to is that I have to have the music before I can animate my collage and artwork. I like to make the figures and objects almost dance to the music. It's key to making things even slightly believable. When I am working in the Flash animation timeline, I can see places in the sound track where the beat is heavier, and I can place emphasis on certain chosen points in time.
So it was critical for me that the music for these pieces get started. Lucky for me, I have some really creative and interesting friends. Anthony is a musician from Utica, NY who I met through my inspirational coworker Travis. Anthony has a band called
Draculatron and he passionately belts out his wailing songs in front of local audiences constantly. He's driven creatively, and I enjoy his enthusiasm and overwhelming emotion. He's a prolific singer and songwriter. How happy I was when after I proposed my video idea to him, he accepted!
The story of the video evolved slowly.
There are these 2 barns on Blaine Rd. I took a photo of them one morning on the way to work and I used a setting on my phone that allowed me to apply random filters to the image. I shot from the hip and the picture that was born inspired me. It's not a particularly excellent image. But I live here and see these 2 barns all the time. The feeling I get from them goes way deeper than the image.
I thought about how it must have been when this land was first settled. I tried to imagine what was happening back then, and how things might have gone down here at the 2 barns.
The plot
Two lovers are wrapped arm in arm in early morning slumber....when they are awakened to the sound of cries in the distance. They only appear as black silhouette's against a backdrop of fading tin ceiling and dark shadows of bottle green and sapphire. Facial features are indistinguishable but you can tell that they are in a loving embrace (i picture a silhouette of their arms wrapped around each other) A sweep of the curtain in the window reveals that there is a raiding Indian war party racing towards the home. In haste, the 2 lovers gather themselves together and run down the back stairway, while the front door bursts open and the Indians rush in. Their darkened black figures are seen rushing downstairs and flowing like ghosts. The words of the music will spin and scroll across their figures in barbed wire like flowery colonial script and disappear . Down the stairway and out the back door they ran for their life, straight to the 2 barns on Blaine for refuge. The sun comes thru the window and the figures of the 2 black shadows are revealed. They are both men.
I feel like I am taking my clothes off
I have not really voiced many of my deeper personal opinions here on this blog.
It's all getting so personal. (somehow I can't help but believe that it's all about the process of getting personal and the art is incidental and so I am compelled to write here as though this blog and the writing itself is part of the art) It's going to get personal, and it's okay, I am assuring myself. I have a friends of every persuasion, color, religion, creed and sexual preference. I love my gay and lesbian friends as much as anyone else in my life. They are some of my closest friends. I feel that we should all love one another....as we are all ONE. (
john lennon anyone?) It would be a good way to spread my personal message. Using our history and bringing it into a different context--that which is mine. I imagine gay and lesbian people were quiet about their preferences in those colonial times--these were some freakin' Puritan times!! People were forced to go to church all day long under penalty of law and I am sure these folks were fiercely punished if they were discovered. Colonial writings and stories about the lesbian or gay community I have not seen, but they must have existed. And there must have been some instances where these people also had to feel sting of the growing pains of our country. Why not I tell the story that I thought must have existed?
You didn't see it coming
You have already become quite sympathetic to the couple and your heart should race as they run down the stairs, shadows...ghosts. And then there is the striking reveal that they are gay. This should prove my point. We are all one. By then it's too late for you and you would have to admit we are all just people.
The birth of the audio and being naked
Asking Anthony to collaborate on this particular video was no coincidence. He is gay. And his passion for the gay community will help him bring ALL of his emotion and creativity to the music. I got my first glimpse of the music today. I was so excited to hear the beginning of something entirely new...inspired by the deepest parts of me. But that's for another post. Enough of my rambling. I already feel quite naked out here.
