Early work
The Horrible Green Wreck (1982) (additional still 1, page)
Camel (1982) (additional still 1)
Frost Guard (1983) (additional still 1)
OR (1986) (additional images 1, 2)
The Slurpee Movie (1983) (additional images 1, 2, page) WATCH ON YOUTUBE
The Grass Is Never Greener (1983) (additional image 1)
These are early works mentioned here for purely academic reasons. None of them are available for exhibition.
The Horrible Green Wreck was the last super-8 film that Brian Stockton and I worked on together. Following our series of shorts from grade 6 to 12, this was a longer work telling the comical story of a car that ate things and eventually people. It was based upon one Brian's father's work cars which we used sometimes and always found inexplicable things under the seat of (a rifle cartridge comes to mind). We used a more (un)stylish 1960 station wagon to represent the car in the film. It was never properly finished but most of the footage got transferred to video and roughly edited to be a 10 or 15 minute film.
Camel was a video Brian Stockton and I shot where I played a noir detective who walked around complaining about things in voice over. The footage was eventually cut to two minutes and set to music, remaining incomplete and unrealized.
Frost Guard was my first 16mm film, made in my first year film production course (Film 200). It was edited on 3/4" video. I show it occassionally on the last day of classes when I teach Film 200 myself.
OR was a student video I shot as a third year project. I had been doing poorly in this course, taught by Chris Gallagher, as I was cocky and so was Chris and I often sabotaged my own projects to spite him. However, I got pneumonia near the end of term and needed to be hospitalized for 10 days and defer my projects. As a result, I was able to shoot this project during the summer where the sun brings light to spirits and I did a much better job than I would have been inclined to in the winter. This 10 minute experimental video is an eclectic set of footage of me in different locations, unable to quite begin the project until it is too late and I need to conclude it. A bit funny, but only a bit.
The Slurpee Movie was a second year student video drama staring Dave Saunderson as a man addicted to drinking slurpees from 7-11. It was a group project, I worked with Minoah Tam, and Valerie Phillips. Back then, at 7-11 the employee poured the slurpee and we convinced an early morning employee to let us shoot in the store. We also shot his workplace, some desks at CKCK radio where Brian Stockton had been working, with Bob Campbell doing a marvelous job improvising as his boss "You look like you spent the night in a gin mill". Hundreds of empty cups were strewn in every scene, giving it the best overall production design/values of any of my student films, impressive since it was shot in a summer course so it was idea to 10 minutes on the screen in one week.
The Grass is Never Greener was a three minute poetry video I shot the week after The Slurpee Movie. I was ridiculous enough to try to slow down my voice to give it some sort of unearthly tone, but it was terrible. My timing in my editing was off due to my error in trying to edit picture first and time spoken (and poorly written) poetry to it, rather than cutting picture to match the pacing of the words. The video featured my friend Scott Teece as a man who is really a tree. Szymon Choynowski, who taught the course, said he liked it but I never show it to anyone.