Life Is...

Title Sequence

Little longer than 30-40 second but all images are my own. It might seem like a series of random pieces of imagery entering and leaving the screen, but there is a method to the madness (soon to be explained by a madman). That is if anyone ever reads what people write on these blogs.

The idea for the selection of selected images was inspired by hearing At the Zoo by Simon and Garfunkel. Thought provoking verses like, 

The monkeys stand for honestyGiraffes are insincereAnd the elephants are kindly, but they’re dumbOrangutans are skepticalOf changes in their cagesAnd the zookeeper is very fond of rumZebras are reactionaries,Antelopes are missionariesPigeons plot in secrecyAnd hamsters turn on frequently

gave rise to a search through several years worth of images for zoo pictures and other odd things I might have on my hard drive. The fusion of the plants, animals and other things which are nouns were inspired by hearing the music of David Bowie. There is no diffenative song to point to as inspiration for these oddities as there are too many great songs to talk about when talking about Bowie. Personally I like Life on Mars as my all time favorite but certainly for this project I listened to Underground from Labyrinth for its muppets and surrealic elements while fusing the creatures.

Finally, I watched three dvds worth of Monty Python's Flying circus while using aftereffects to make the animation. As I was watching on dvds from the library it sometimes skipped over damaged bits, thus making what is already an absurd series even more absurd. It is from these sources: the imagination of Simon and Garfunkel, the whimsy of David Bowie and the absurdness of Monty Python which birthed the masterpiece which is...Life is...

Now, I could go on and drone for another hundred or so thousand words on the psychological implications of each figure (for example the Eagle/Skeleton is an allegory for the death of democracy as we know it) and other hogwash which I will not just make up because I feel like writing, but no one is reading anyway. I just keep writing because I find it funny we had to come up with a method to the madness as it were -- use images while not telling a story but not be random. Perhaps I'm having fun writing. Or I just can't stop. Wonder what I should eat for dinner. Oh right I have left overs. I need to go to the library to return my Monty Python dvds. What was my point. oh yes. The point. The point is very simple: ...is odd.