LIFE THE UNFINNISHED AND UNSATISIFING ODDISSY

LIFE THE UNFINNISHED AND UNSATISIFING ODDISSY

– B & W, 3 min, ½ inch video tape, sound, 1972.

While I was working at my high school's library as an AV tech, I discovered that they had a Video Camera and recorder which they used to tape the basketball and football games for the coaches and players. During the times I was waiting for AV work I would teach myself how to use it. One I had an understanding of how it worked, I decided to design a short video that could cover several assignments in 3 of my classes; Art, Photography and English. Since I didn’t have any way to edit the project, I had to script out a piece that was all one shot with music that the system recorded as it was being shot. I decided to use the theme music from the movie 2001 (Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra"). I took and edited this music into three crescendos, one right after the other. I then scripted out a story around the music. I had my girl friend handle the camera while her brother and I acted out the story. I got permission to shoot it in one corner of the main library. I took white bed sheets and hung up two on the shelves in a corner and put several down on the floor so that we had the look of an all white room. I then dressed up in black sox’s, pants and T-shirt while her brother dressed all in white. I barrowed the starting pistol from the PE department and I used some fishing line to hang the gun from the ceiling so that was suspended in midair at head level. As the music starts, the camera shows the two of us lying on the ground, sleeping. The music seems to wake us and once we are awake, I notice the gun at the second booming drum crescendo. We both walk over to it and walk around it, afraid to touch it as it floats in midair. I then decide to grab it on the 3rd crescendo. I’m holding it and examining it while the guy in white watches. On the 4th crescendo, the gun goes off while pointed at him. He (holding a small bag of catsup) slaps his chest squirting blood (black in B&W) all over his white shirt. He looks at his chest and then looks at the gun, then falls face down on the floor. I then get down and kneel beside him, wondering what happened. I start to poke him and then turn him over onto his back where I see the stain on his chest (crescendo). As the music starts up for the last time, I slowly start to look at the gun and while turning it around in my hands. I am still kneeling next to the man in white when I accidentally fire the gun while it is this time pointed at me. I fling my hands up and out as I fall face down and let go of the gun which lands a few inches away from my hand. The camera then slowly zooms in till the frame fills with the tips of my fingers and the black gun on the white floor.

I got ‘A’s in the three classes that I used this as an assignment. The teachers and other school faculty were so impressed with the project that for years after I left, they would show it to new students. Years later I went back to the school and asked to see the video. When we threaded it up and started to watch it, a basketball game interrupted the film. Someone had recorded over my work!