Instant Video #16 — Moon and the Stars by Tammy Lin Foreman (3 min. 2009) Directed, shot, and edited by Lester Alfonso for the collaborative weekly video project that ran from 2008 to 2010.

Check out also: The Instant Video Showcase and Before Instant Videos featuring videos prior to the Instant Video project and broadcast on CBC’s ZeD TV. Audio tracks are available for purchase on Tammy Lin Foreman’s Bandcamp page.

In House Production

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Tammy thinks of Florida. There’s a sale at Fabricland. A sign in the window says it’s 66% off the regular price of most fabrics. Tammy remembers the green curtain they used as a green screen for tourist photos at the hotel lobby where we stayed last month.

You don’t even have to leave the hotel. You can get your photo taken in front of the green screen and the friendly resort photographer can put in any background you want. It doesn’t matter how gusty the hurricane winds are outside. We can key-out the green screen behind you and slip in a picture of the Everglades.

I can do that! I say. Here at Fabricland, Tammy finds a shade of green that might work. She gets four meters for twenty bucks. A few thumbtacks later and the living room is now a green screen studio. I teach the kids how to take the lint off the fabric using some masking tape.

I wonder what they’ll remember from this period. Will they grow up to really take part? Will Sunny start to edit? Will Georgia play the drums? This has become a real “in-house production.”

The kids watch movies, stay in their pajamas and forage for snacks. Mom and Pop shoot the next video. We’re in our Instant Video bubble.

All the time, I’m cheesy zooming with the camera and thinking “What the heck am I going to put in the background?”

Moon and the Stars
by Tammy Lin Foreman

cars and castles
create more hassles
than the sky and earth
giving birth
to more awe and wonder
hear the thunder
lightning came first
followed by the burst

meant to scare
to make aware
you have no power
with your castles
and cars
building great speed
more than we need
marry myself
to the
moon and the stars

perfect wedding
darkness spreading
no question of
my lover above

oh a
perfect wedding
ah uh oh

Georgia leaves a trail of pictures in the camera for me to discover. Close-up snapshots from the 5 year-old perspective. Clues to the private world she shares with her older sister.

For use in Tammy’s background I started with excerpts from Craig Baldwin’s 1999 film “Spectres of the Spectrum.” Craig Baldwin’s been a huge inspiration to me, especially his editing of public domain archival footage. Shout out to this innovative filmmaker / artist.

🙂

I was not sure at the start whether or not I’d like this one as much as the others… but by the end I was caught up in a strange trance… :)I suspect I was in the same ‘condition’ watching this, as Lester was when he edited it. lol Which is why I say – I LIKE it!

G. January 21, 2009 at 8:17 PM