New Year, Old Me

Stealing Away

Near the end of last summer I was set on really digging deep with a handful of projects. I've made good progress on a couple of them, but making regular Substack posts was a goal that I didn't really accomplish.

So now it's 2024, and I'm resolving to do more with this page. I am hoping to have some (very simple) new content in a month or so, but until that happens, I'm going to keep posting old content. The video I'm posting today is, perhaps, my OLDEST content ever. It's also something that I've never fully posted online before.

______

Around May of 2001, I put the final touches on a film project that I had spent almost 3 years developing. I was a theater major at the University of Missouri in Columbia and since, at that time, the school had no film program, I was essentially teaching myself film production. I decided to learn basic technical elements by trying everything at once. Some techniques worked, and some techniques were left on the cutting room floor. I shot everything in super 8, and 8 mm video, and used one roll of 16 mm film. In the editing, I tested about every different effect that Adobe Premiere had to offer at the time. Everything was complete trial and error.

“Stealing Away” (the film I made) was, like most things made by college students, a constellation of inspirations. Though the 90 minute film is completely experimental, it DOES have a plot and a story behind it. Despite this “story”, I mainly don't ever explain anything about the narrative. Like Samuel Beckett, my feeling is that if I explain the narrative (on this particular film) it kills it. Other authors that inspired me in writing this were mostly from the Beat Generation. I used William S Burroughs’ “cut up technique” in my editing style for the film, and several of my shooting and editing choices were inspired by Cut Ups, and Towers Open Fire, two films made by Anthony Balch and William S Burroughs.

Several experimental filmmakers were also influential in my choices (I dare you to figure out what parts of the film were inspired by Stan Brakhage …it's not hard).

All in all, I still find this film watchable and enjoy showing it to people. I'm always interested in hearing what people think it means as well. Let me know what you think!

Thanks,

Tyrone Davies