The Bees

The Bees is the first seriously involved video project I did after the acquisition of my first camcorder (a Panasonic PV-GS150) in late June 2005. Created over a period of time from late July 2005 to late August 2005, it is a tale of repression, rebellion, and occultish artifice starring the central species of the mighty and powerful Bees, and their suppressed yet gothicly burly underlings, the Flies.

The process of creation of this video is somewhat interesting to note. All footage was ‘collected’ completely independant of this ‘production’. The story was actually created and sequentially evolved out of the seed ideas of the contents of the footage I had previously shot. For example, the idea of the “Omnipotent Artificial Consciousness” / Brain-in-a-Chamber-Pot was concieved and added into the script after the footage was shot, which was when I was about halfway completed with it.

Looking back on The Bees, there are some technical elements which I could certainly do better (notably, sound design and mixing!), however I am quite enamored with the amount of nuance and obfuscation in the story. I also love the stylistic approach of synchronizing audio and video, in both cuts and motion within the frame. This is evident throughout The Bees in the cutting, and to a more obvious degree in the fly breakdance scene. Note that this represents an imperfect initial exploration of this technique, and that I have honed and perfected my approach and skillls in later projects, such as the music video I did for edIT‘s track “Laundry.”

The editing was accomplished in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, and various video effects were done in Adobe After Effects 6.5, with sound capturing and processing done in Sony Sound Forge 8.0.

Cinematography, sound and video editing, voice talent, video effects: Jed Smith
Music by Autechre, µZiq, End, Aphex Twin, Aix Em Klemm, and John Dowland.

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