A Celebration of Dirt

Prepare to witness some of my worst work yet. It is titled accordingly. 

I give you; DIRT!

I consider this a special occasion. A celebration, if you will. 

On January 1st, 2014 I will be releasing something extra special. If you can guess what it is, good for you! If you can't, it's most likely... probably... maybe -- ok, it is; VALLE MORTIS.

I've shown the finished film to a handful of my mentors and close friends and they described it as my best work. I kid you not, their actual words! I was skeptical at first, so I decided to sift through my film work over the last six years seeking validation. They were right. So I thought it would be appropriate to re-release my first ever experimental art film shot on my first ever HD camera. (Notice there is no high definition to be found.)

DIRT was filmed after a bath with a flashlight and some food dye -- shortly after I breached the realm of adulthood, during my first year of college, when I had a hair loss problem, and at a time when I was considering film more seriously. Before this point, I basically made up silly characters and forced my younger sisters to be them for a few hours. They were my film company.

I was trying incredibly hard to be serious for some reason. Maybe because I was trying to say something along the lines of even the tools we use to cleanse ourselves of imperfection are muddled, therefore true purification and perfection is impossible. I was really upset about being a disgusting human around this time. Understandable for a college student suffering from hair loss.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and shame myself for how terrible my first film was. There are a lot of interesting aspects of this piece along with parts that I cringe at. The cheesy mask, the choppy slow motion, the transitions, the repetitious shots, the length... (just to name a few). But the lighting is interesting and my timing worked well for the most part. The most significant piece of this work is that I did it. I started somewhere. If this film never happened, VALLE MORTIS would not have happened. 

I grew as an artist and as an individual by getting a silly project out of my system. 

After four years of failing, falling, and succeeding, I've made something that made a filmmaker of 12 years experience express awe. So I'm strangely and incredibly grateful for whatever made me pick up that food coloring and save chunks of my hair.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. If you dream of something, or even just want to try something, do it now. Don't wait until something or someone comes along. Don't make excuses. 

If you don't start as soon as possible, you may never start and you may never know.

Here's to the next four years of experimentation!