Can you guess where we were? ;-)

A tiny little video about my two brothers and me backpacking in the Sierra Nevada’s, just outside of Yosemite [that's your only hint]. 3 days, 3 brothers and too many great memories to count.

—————-

• Shot on my good old-fashioned Sony DCR-PCS MiniDV Handycam.
• Color corrected in After Effects, edited in Final Cut Pro.
• Music via http://www.pdinfo.com, Sync. Lic. #M022010M, #M037020M “Down South” & “Arizona Blues”

The built-in mic sits on the top of the body and is pretty terrible, but we managed to salvage some of the funnier sh*7. Enjoy!

Yes, I am Average Joe.

Just a couple of Average Joes having fun in the Cascade Mountains.

Or your could say, “Ice Man and Goose play hookie for a day or two, bring the camera, ski, snowboard, fall down, freeze their a**es off, and nearly ski off the side of the mountain. Then they do it again.”

Acutally, we just shot around 50 minutes of fantastically average riding and then cut in a whole bunch of cool/funny stuff to make us feel really cool.

Filmed on March 30th and 31st, 2009, with a circa 2001 Sony DCR-PC5 Mini-DV Handicam and a Kenko 0.5X Wide KGW-05 aftermarket lens, all of which was wrapped in a Glad Freezer Bag and tied off with duct tape in an attempt to keep everything somewhat dry.

Time to upgrade, yes?

Hey, it IS an Average Joe production! Hope y’all enjoy it.

See you next year!

7 year-olds crushing it old-school on the sand lot. These boys didn’t care much what the score was as long as they were making goals every few minutes. Fall Season, 2009. Lake Hills Soccer, Bellevue, WA.

Shot on my trusty Sony DCR-PC5 Mini-DV Handicam with a Kenko 0.5X Wide KGW-05 aftermarket lens and processed the he77 out of it in Final Cut Pro.

Single channel video projection on stretched plastic and acrylic, dimensions variable, 90 second cut on a 90 second loop.

BADASS MOTHERF***ERS OF THE AMERICAN WEST TRILOGY, PART I – “Pugilist at Best; HBK v. The Chairman, No Holds Barred.”

Starting with a score by Akufen (“Akufen” representing the phonetic spelling of the word acouphne, French for tinnitus; a constant, painful ringing in the ears,) I selected two pieces of video I was interested in working with; ten seconds from Wrestlemania XXIII, and five minutes of a teenage friend’s speed-bag workout in a garage in suburban southern California. Cuts were initially dictated by the blows delivered by the Heartbreak Kid (HBK) to The Chairman.

Graphical elements were then inserted in different patterns and random combinations, enhancing or detracting from the violence portrayed by the sports-entertainers/athletes. I was going for a meditation on struggle, desire, and the beauty of cinematic violence.

Single channel video. Dimensions variable, TRT: 8:31

After the murder of his terminally ill older brother, a small-town journalist searches for answers to the senseless crime.

In his brother’s apartment he finds an old shoebox and a sad and beautiful interior life begins to unfold in this lyrical tale of memory and loss.

Single channel video, dimensions variable, TRT: 18:53

This video is a record of a visit to the neighborhoods I grew up in: Bellflower, Downey, Compton, Inglewood and Watts. I thought I could find the places I remembered from my childhood, but I became hopelessly lost.

What started as a nostalgic journey turned into an extended meditation on memory, isolation and the idea of globalism and its promised sense of community which, it seems to me, is an empty one.

Sublimation does not pretend to explain, but it does attempt to mediate a part of Los Angeles culture, my memory of growing up in these communities, and my-and my camera’s-cultural experiences and assumptions.