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In Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” the scene of Denzel aka Malcolm walking to his death is set to Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” It is an exceptionally powerful moment despite the somber implications of the scene — and revisiting the film this year, I can’t help but connect it and Malcolm X with 2020 — as it is an epic milestone in the fight for racial justice.
A change has long been coming. A change is definitely going to come. I see part of that change as the dissolution of structures that no longer serve the collective good, to be replaced by those which are more equitable. Victories have and will be gained in this time of great change — but one must remember that they are also temporary gains. The only constant is change, even though it comes in waves.
This piece was filmed COVID-safe with an extremely barebones crew and separate shooting locations for both performers, Shaina Shepherd and Duff McKagan. It is the blend of live performance footage with my many years of experience as a video artist and VJ for live bands and electronic artists. Most of it is constructed in post-production — and the resulting piece has one foot in this world’s historical memory and one in the timeless eternity of nature. Together, we find that everything flows in cycles. Yes, a change is gonna come. But after that change, some rest… before the change begins again.
I co-directed and edited this piece for Seattle Musicians Access to Sustainable Healthcare (SMASH), produced by All is Well Studios in 2020.
I directed and edited this piece for Swahili’s 2015 full-length record, AMOVREUX, released on the record label Translinguistic Other.
The premise for Solo Soundtrack was a “silent disco for movies” series at Northwest Film Forum. I curated a soundtrack for “Down with Love,” the candy-colored kitschy 2003 riff on 1960s “no-sex sex comedies,” matching the swagger of blinged-out hip-hop with the ridiculous back-and-forth flirtations from Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.
Video art experiment for an unofficial music video for Gardens & Villa.
Music video created for an installation at Holocene in Portland, Oregon in 2010, presented in collaboration with REDEFINE magazine. The publication and venue invited artists of all types to create a music video for the Hoop Dreams track, “Spirit Momentum.” I created this one from primarily archival and found footage.