Video Direction, Editing, and Animation

I first dabbled with video editing during what I'd call "the AMV era," when people were editing animes and video game cut scenes to go with songs. My first full-length anime music video was the song "It's the End of the World as we Know It (and I Feel Fine)" by REM with cut scenes I took off of the Windows 95 discs for Final Fantasy VII on a Windows XP computer. I don't remember how I figured out how to rip all those cut scenes off the game disc like that, but I do remember the song being a bit ironic but also perfect for the plot to that game!

I also dabbled a bit with more "serious" film making using 8mm black and white film stock and ideas inspired by German Expressionist films and Surrealist films from the early 20th century! However, in my 20s, I was encouraged more towards being in front of the camera instead of working in production roles, even when I was taking classes on how to use the camera. One thing I heard a lot was "the camera either likes you, or it doesn't," and the camera loved 20-something me. So for a while, I lived in NYC and focused on acting more than directing or editing.

Ironically, the film sets closing in NYC in 2020 indirectly lead to me getting more into the behind-the-camera side of things again while reinventing my career, and I felt like I had never left off on the things I originally played around with in Windows Movie Maker-- except now I had much more sophisticated tools to work with, and much higher quality output!

I am Proud

This is a video I've been working on for the Student Success Center at Southeast Technical College. It's a digitized, animated version of notes that people write about their academic, professional, and personal achievements.

They Came from the Kitchen Sink

The concept for this video was a day in the life of an inanimate object. I chose a pair of Halloween-themed salad forks that I found at a dollar store to make an Addams Family-inspired campy horror comedy short. At the beginning of the video, there's a thumping noise-- that is from one of the first recordings ever made.

Reel Life

Low-budget reality show parody (like that doesn't already describe the entire genre-- it tends to be a parody of itself!)

The Dashing Pirate

An exclusive interview with Sioux Falls' local legend, the Dashing Pirate! It be an arrrrrr-rated film, matey!

Just a Shadow

Lyric video of a section of the song "Just a Shadow" by Big Country. This video is one of my first experiements with using AI images. I found the AI results to be less beautiful than what I would have drawn or painted myself, but also very eerie in an uncanny valley way. I ended up liking the "uncanny valley" effect so much that I integrated a lot of AI use into my art installation "Out of Lockstep."

Kinetic Typography- Featuring Jay Bhattacharya

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is an interesting subject to me because he was portrayed as so unhinged and "dangerous" in 2020-2022, but when I met him in person, he not only sounded level-headed, he had a very warm personality. It's hard to describe this entire story because it's that fine line where the political becomes the personal and policy affects everything from careers to socializing to mental health. When I met Jay Bhattacharya, I blurted out "you changed my life!"