Video Self-Portrait

 I decided to feature the two main things I've been doing for the last couple years: playing music and conducting interviews. Since the interviews were audio recordings, I had to use archive footage for images of the interviewees. I wanted to go super lo-fi, but unfortunately my version of FCE doesn't have the bad tv or vignette filters. The best I could do was record directly from my computer screen and then mess with the levels.

Documentary Review – Seltzer Works

I was struck initially by the Seltzer Works documentary mostly because I've always loved the aesthetic of classic cocktail culture. The documentary also takes full advantage of the steampunk aesthetic of the bottling plant itself – except it's the original equipment and not a retro imitation. The cinematographer obviously spent plenty of time getting a wide variety of footage so there would be plenty to work with in the editing room: a talking head interview, and interview while working, b-roll footage of a worker performing various tasks, and great shots of the bottles and machinery utilizing the narrow depth of field and shifting focal plane techniques. The colors of the bottles, the old wooden crates, the equipment, make it difficult not to get immediately drawn into the character of the plant.

I assume only a fraction of the original interview was used for the film, but it was edited in a very coherent, well-structured way, starting with the history, then describing seltzer (with its great candid shot of Kenny Gomberg spraying seltzer into his mouth), then addressing the current state of the industry. Having Gomberg sit for a talking head as well as having him talk while working was very effective as it not only added visual interest, but I imagine he spoke differently, or at least addressed different topics, while he was sitting and while he was at the bottling machine.

I also appreciated the interview because there is an actual story there, as opposed to the other two selections for this assignment, which were more contemplative portraits. I have nothing against video portraits – they can be beautiful works of art, such as the amazing crane footage in City of Cranes and the gritty realism of Office – but I need to be in a certain mood to watch them. I'm always up for a good story. Even being able to include once sentence like the reference to the guy who bottled seltzer for the tsar of Russia can spark the audience to ponder all kinds of questions about those characters. Is that all this bottler did, or was it part-time? How did he get into it? Did the tsar really love seltzer so much that he needed an exclusive bottler?

Finally, the music in Seltzer Works was also well-selected. The reflective vibraphone music at the beginning and the end suits the images of bubbling seltzer and slowing rotating machine parts. Then the upbeat music paired with the activity of the bottler makes a great midpoint to the piece.

Photo Collage

This photo was taken at an exhibit at MoMa PS1. It was a completely empty room with a floor covered in old LPs. The walls were blank, which made it easier to underlay the sheet music in the background.