The day before departing Korea, a friend drove us up to the top of the Gimpo region, near the North Korean border. Along most parts of the border, the heavily fortified green space of the DMZ, or demilitarized zone, separates the North and South. In this part, soon after the merging of the Imjin and Han Rivers, and not far from the Yellow Sea, the river essentially takes over the function of the DMZ. The river is made inaccessible by a barbed fence and frequent guard towers. In the hills beyond, military transport roads can be seen.
It has been more than half a century since the Korean war divided the nation. Life goes on here near the border, and I wonder if it’s even on the mind of the people I see here, or if they’ve just gotten used to the idea that they live near a wall. Meanwhile, the birds and the bugs travel freely back and forth.
This narrative documentary follows my Grandpa and I on a journey across America. Against the backdrop of 19th and 21st century meta-history and North American geography, it places the life and travels of my Grandpa, a man of his times, in a bigger context. The trip takes us on a journey from my Grandpa’s ranching community in south Saskatchewan, Canada, across the border to Montana, and then on Amtrak trains through Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and finally back to Canada.
As editor and fellow traveler, I’ve done my best to make the film relevant for both my family and for a public audience. I hope the film might have some appeal to everyone from rail enthusiasts to grade school Social Studies teachers.
The film is 30 minutes long.
It was filmed with a Canon HV-20 camera. Various archival footage was taken from archive.org and youtube. The film was edited using Final Cut Studio.
This is a music video for the song “Visions Creeping” by the Kamloops band Sleeps With Matches (myspace.com/sleepswithmatches) … note that the video is unfinished, as it kind of peters out about a third of the way in. It’s the first thing I’ve ever tried to make using 3D software (well, 2D objects in a 3D space – using the software called Motion), and my idea certainly exceeded my abilities – but that’s part of the fun of the video, I think. A few of the animated elements, such as the rat, the lizard, the helicopter, and the radio, were downloaded from animationfactory.com, where I had a membership at the time. The plan for the rest of the video was to leave the house, then venture down a wasteland highway, passing by all sorts of weird characters and distant factories, then enter into a nuclear factory where there’s a spill, and finally to pass through a smokestack into the sky, and drift through stars, looking back at earth.
I’ve been working lately on two other videos for Sleeps With Matches. Check out Forgot Your Face and Inspiring Expiring.
I submitted this video for the KISS Contest, the Kamloops Independent Short Short film competition on May 15, 2008. It is the most recent example of my experiments with my portable projector connected to my video iPod. The video shows images of animals that used to live where I now live projected into different spaces of the house. Then, projected videos of youtube into nature, hoping the animals in the shadows might enjoy them.
These are some excerpts from the Skir party at the warehouse – March 29th, 2008. A month earlier I had VJed at the Tempest party, for which I’d prepared a bunch of bad weather visuals, so with the weather warming up, I thought I’d prepare with a spring theme for my visuals for this party. I dug up all the flowery footage I could from times when I was in Okinawa or Seoul, and also downloaded a bunch of spring-related clips at animationfactory.com
Again, I was using the Arkaos VJ software with the Kaoss Krossfour mixer and Korg Kaoss Entrancer video effector. I had a lot of fun at this party, filming the crowd and mixing in that footage. Jump ahead to about 1:58 to see what I’m talking about.
The setup was great again, with screens everywhere. The organizers made a giant butterfly hung from the ceiling – but somehow I didn’t get that on my video tape.
Anyway, the party got shut down around 4 AM after a bit of a disturbance.
This party was in a warehouse in the Mount Paul industrial park. Thanks to Vinny Franchesco for the chance to VJ, Graham (How Sound) for the sound, Kyle for the lights, and all the DJs: Smurf Logic, Sean Gunn, Danger Dan, and there were others but not listed on the flyer (as I’m writing this well after the fact, I can’t recall who was there).
This video presents some excerpts from the Tempest party at the warehouse – March 1st, 2008. I just taped together a bunch of 10-15 second clips in an attempt to leave behind a document from the night. It was freezing cold that night. In the last minute of this clip, I added in the footage of a guy named Ryan doing some wicked fire spinning outside. In the background, you might be able to see the white glow of Mount Paul.
The set-up was great again. There were four big screens – two showing my visuals, and two showing automatic visualizer content. Also, take note of the awesome mandala behind the stage.
Thanks to Vinny Franchesco for the chance to VJ, Graham (How Sound) for the sound, Kyle for the lights, and all the DJs (as listed on the flyer: Danger Dan, Dope Tito, Myshell, Sean Gunn, Smurf Logic, and Wandalicious).
By the way, since this party had a Tempest theme, I tried to track down a bunch of stormy visuals: lots of lightning, flooded streets, blizzard scenes, and trees being blown over.
Again, I used the Arkaos VJ software, in conjunction with the Korg Krossfour mixer and the Kaoss Entrancer video effector.
Here’s the flyer from the party:
Also, here’s a youtube clip recorded by Sean (DJ Herbal Vegas) of DJ MyShell’s setup, which captures the party in all its wicked energy. Some of my visuals appear in this clip, but I want to mention that some of the visuals seen in the background of this particular sequence come from some automatically generated visualization software that the lights guy Kyle set up that night – I found myself switching back and forth to that, just cause my own stuff is not as timed with the music and a bit thin at this point to make it through 6-7 hours straight.
Just came back to Kamloops. I stepped out into my backyard and saw the same moon I saw days previous in Tokyo, but now further along in its cycle. If it’s a full moon in Kamloops, would it also be a full moon in Tokyo?
This film presents autumn scenes filmed around Seoul in November 2007, particularly on the walking trails of Namsan Mountain in central Seoul. A lot of the footage comes from the day I spent hanging around with my friend Matt – he was shooting photos, and I was doing video. It seems like I’m less shy about shooting people if I’m with someone. This video also represents my first film with the HD camera (Canon HV-120) that I bought from my friend Billy just a day or two previous. I love being productive with new technology right after I get it.
The music is an old Korean song by Kim Min-Gi called “Kaeul Pyunji” (“Autumn Letter”) (in Korean: 김민기 – 가을 편지).
I lived in Tokyo for about a year from ’99 to 2000, but somehow never visited the Tsukiji Fish Market, though I realize now it wasn’t far off the route I took to work every day. I even lived near Tokyo Bay.
Anyway, on my recent multi-day stopover in Tokyo, I finally did it. I got one of the first trains of the morning over to the market. I was advised to go straight to the back end as early as possible if I wanted to catch any of the auctions of giant tuna.
I thought about editing this footage into some kind of proper film, even an educational one, and I might yet, but for now I think raw footage tells the story.
Plus, the market has been extremely well-documented in recent years, so I didn’t think further explanation was needed.
If you want to read up more on the market, besides Wikipedia, here’s a few links:
- book: The Fish Market at the Center of the World
- Vanity Fair article by Nick Tosches
- I know I’ve seen a few good videos with Tsukiji scenes on Vimeo. Here is one.
Update: I saw the Cove the other day. If you’ve seen it, you might recognize the lengthy Tsukiji tuna auction time lapse scenes 2/3rds of the way through the movie. In the years, there’s obviously a lot more questions about how long this tuna trade can be sustained. It’s truly boggling to think of this amount of huge fish being caught every day.
