Artist Statement

My purpose in making film (or video) is to create something that is beautiful but somewhat problematic. What I mean by problematic is that I want my films to challenge people in some way. It doesn't necessarily have to be on a conscious level; sometimes it merely consists of having some visual element that is slightly different than what you would expect it to be. Sometimes it means presenting the viewer with a situation that is difficult to understand.

I think film, and art in general, should be like a maze; the viewer has to find his/her way through. But just like a maze, the walls don't have to be drab and empty. There has to be something beautiful for them to see along the way, and sometimes there needs to be something there to guide them.

One of the ways this has come to manifest itself is in the way I like to light things. I have discovered, in the past few months, that I like a very shadowy, very harsh sort of lighting in my films. I like for my subjects to have a very sculptural quality to them. I like this because of the duality it creates; on the one hand it makes the characters more real because you are more aware of the space they occupy, but on the other hand it sometimes turns them into abstract shapes. I like this because it is like a visual conundrum that the viewer has to work through while watching the film.

I get these ideas from many different places; from independent filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch and David Lynch to well-established Hollywood directors like Stephen Spielberg. The message I get from filmmakers like these is that a film image should be like sculpture. It should be something that the viewer wants to reach out and touch.

The effect that I want to achieve with all of this is to present the viewer with something stimulating; something that pleases, but also presents challenges. Above all, I want my films to present something new; put a new twist on something old, or allow the viewer to see something slightly out of the ordinary. When you do that, the viewer is pleased, but also has to create new mental frameworks to understand what's happening. I'm not very good at this yet, but I'm working on it.