I hope everyone had a great Halloween! I’m still suffering from a serious case of Halloween Hangover, so I’m not ready to hang it up just yet, even though Christmas Creep has officially taken over. Hell, I’ve still got my decorations up. I should probably do something about that.

As I type this, I’m watching Jason X. Today was Friday the 13th and I wanted to do something to capture the mood. I was shooting for Part 4, but I don’t happen to own it, couldn’t find anywhere to easily stream it, and didn’t feel like waiting for it to download, so this was the next best thing. I say “next best” because I’ve always wanted to give it another go since I’ve actually only seen it once and barely remember it.

Let’s get down to business. In an effort to continue the Halloween spirit longer than society dictates, I’m dropping off a class project. I’m currently enrolled in a video production/editing class wherein I recently had an assignment as part of my midterm that allowed me to have a little fun. The assignment was to shoot an object of your choosing and edit it into a one-minute video. The only requirements were that you had to light it properly and all the sound used had to come from the object itself and nowhere else. You could manipulate those sounds however you wish, but the object itself had to provide the sound (by tapping it, rubbing it, pouring something into it, whatever). Also, it couldn’t be anything mechanical or living that would normally make a variety of sounds anyway (don’t shoot your cat purring).

Of course, as with all things, I had to go creepy with it. I’ve had this guy since I was a kid, and over the years it’s developed a steady leak, which worked to my advantage here. The leak is responsible for all its settling and drooping on its own, with the exception of the last shot, in which I’m slowly pulling it off the chair myself.

The sound is a result of three concurrent tracks. One is the sound of air escaping out the blow hole in the back. I took a snippet of it and looped it throughout. The second is just the sound of me tapping on his chest, and the third is me scratching the plastic after it was deflated. Since the leak is fairly steady, I spent a lot of time blowing it up, shooting it while it deflated, and blowing it up again. I actually shot a good 6 or 7 minutes worth of footage, but the assignment specifically called for it to be exactly 60 seconds, so I had to do a lot of picking and choosing. The lighting could have been a tad better in parts and I probably should have gone with a different ISO setting a couple of times to prevent it from being so grainy, but I personally prefer the graininess, even though I have a feeling my instructor won’t.

So, I present to you this one-minute short titled ‘A Long Day’.