Dean
View videos at Vimeo.com:
Zoom (Dean,1962-2006)
Dean sunsets (1952-2006)
Driving (Dean, 1946-2006)
A distant relative gave me a collection of home movies, shot from 1946-2006 by a man named Dean. By persistently recording 60 years of his everyday experiences, Dean captured his own life cycle. After months of sifting through 104 hours of Dean's footage, I began editing a series of short videos, trying to understand and reason about the materials at hand.
In 1962, Dean got a zoom lens. Like a kid with a magnifying glass, Dean immediately engaged with this new tool for intense seeing, frequently zooming in to examine all sorts of subjects. I began isolating this footage, resulting in an incredibly idiosyncratic archive. His choices are not arbitrary or intentional, but seem to reflect a certain human will, curiosity, & desire.
For the video titled Zoom (Dean,1962-2006), I chronologically stitched together all footage involving a zoom movement, shown in fast motion. This systematic approach produced a fast-paced montage of images—a highly fragmented narrative.
From 8mm film to DV, Dean filmed 24 sunsets. Displayed simultaneously—tiled, like a surveillance monitor—at normal speed, 24 tiles of sunset footage begin playing in a video titled Dean sunsets, all of them (1952-2006). As the footage runs out, the screen flickers to black, tile by tile.
Zoom (Dean,1962-2006)
Dean sunsets (1952-2006)
Driving (Dean, 1946-2006)
A distant relative gave me a collection of home movies, shot from 1946-2006 by a man named Dean. By persistently recording 60 years of his everyday experiences, Dean captured his own life cycle. After months of sifting through 104 hours of Dean's footage, I began editing a series of short videos, trying to understand and reason about the materials at hand.
In 1962, Dean got a zoom lens. Like a kid with a magnifying glass, Dean immediately engaged with this new tool for intense seeing, frequently zooming in to examine all sorts of subjects. I began isolating this footage, resulting in an incredibly idiosyncratic archive. His choices are not arbitrary or intentional, but seem to reflect a certain human will, curiosity, & desire.
For the video titled Zoom (Dean,1962-2006), I chronologically stitched together all footage involving a zoom movement, shown in fast motion. This systematic approach produced a fast-paced montage of images—a highly fragmented narrative.
From 8mm film to DV, Dean filmed 24 sunsets. Displayed simultaneously—tiled, like a surveillance monitor—at normal speed, 24 tiles of sunset footage begin playing in a video titled Dean sunsets, all of them (1952-2006). As the footage runs out, the screen flickers to black, tile by tile.
