I began my work in television and video production in 1990, as a natural outgrowth of my serious interest in fine-art photography, which began four years earlier in 1986. My heroes in photography were people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, who believed in seeing strongly and deeply into the essence of things, then recording "equivalents" of that inner seeing to share with others, in an effort to call forth that inner vision for the viewer as well. Therefore, my editing style is less frenetic than what's currently fashionable. It is not designed to stimulate the surface of the mind with flashing, off-kilter images, superimposed layers, weird angles or strange transition effects. Where there are special effects I use them judiciously, for a particular purpose, rather than in a continual barrage to artificially hold the viewer's attention and preventing "channel surfing."* Frankly, another reason is that it never occurred to me to "spookify" a program about reincarnation, because reincarnation is not spooky to me. Reincarnation is elegant and natural, and while it holds great depth and mystery, I don't perceive it as weird or scary, so it never occurred to me as an artist to portray that mystery in a carnival atmosphere.

To illustrate my point, I've created a spoof, which I call "Ansel Adams on Steroids." This is what it might look like if a presentation of Ansel Adams' photographs, which convey the majesty and mystery of nature, were edited in the modern "corporate" style--with apologies to Mr. Adams, who, having had a rather mischievous sense of humor, would hopefully be amused...

Recently I ran across this very stiff-looking board meeting with one of the young participants obviously bored to tears, and couldn't resist putting it here (sans company motto, and with an added caption) as an example of what happens when you have impeccable production values, but completely ignore the atmosphere and energy dimension:

Here's another one I found recently (also my caption), used on a chiropractor's home page, which I couldn't resist posting here:

In my commercial work, I constantly fought the classic fight of the artist trying to make a living with his art. In this sample commercial I'm demonstrating that I can, in fact, build a piece around special effects; but this promotional video for the local Celtic festival is really more where my artistic sensibilities lie. (I'm not deliberately trying to usurp Irish culture for commercial purposes--it just comes out naturally, probably as a result of several past lives.)

Just for the heck of it, I uploaded two brief videos to the online video hub, "metacafe.com". One is the crucial portion of Angela Grubbs' account of how she confirmed the reality of her past-life dreams and visions. (Angela's case can be seen in the "Cases" page of this website, and her entire interview can be seen in the streaming video Interviews section.) This is a real case. I know Angela personally--she really is an attorney, which means her mind is trained to be precise much as a scientist is trained, and I judge her to have very strong personal integrity. The events transpired as she desribes them, and if you look at her case carefully, there are basically no normal explanations for it. Coincidence is beyond the absurdity point, it's not fraud, and it's not something she encountered in reading or the media and forgot, because the past-life personalities were obscure. It's not wishful thinking or jumping to unwarranted conclusions because the details are too specific. So, I posted this as being a "reincarnation proof case". The second video I posted, strictly for the purposes of trying to bring some funds in here (because metacafe.com starts paying if you get over 20,000 hits), is about "alien blood" and is a shameless scam full of sound effects, voice distortions, and ridiculous pseudo-science. I spent $30 on props--a white shower curtain liner, shelf liner, a porcelain baking tray, a syringe, two clear plastic siphons, a funny-looking bottle with a cork, a white nylon jacket from the thrift store, several boxes of corn starch, and dye tablets for kids to use in bathwater--and pretended the dyed corn starch was "reptilian alien blood." I did the narration in an accent--sort of a cross between India and Count Dracula--distorted the heck out of it in Sound Track Pro, shot the scenes (I had a hell of a time dyeing the corn starch--in my first take it wasn't solid enough, and when I hit it, it splattered all over the room)--and the result is what you see in the links I'm going to add in a minute here, below.

Now, the point is, which of these videos is going to be more successful? A case that actually provides rare, solid proof for reincarnation--with all the immense philosophical, scientific, academic, and therapeutic implications that flow from it--or the alien blood, which is a blatant scam, full of cheesy sound-effects but which contains the popular buzz-words "alien" and "blood"?

So this is turning into a little experiment. As of 2/25/07, I have just recently submitted them and they haven't gone through the approval process yet. Once they do, let's see which is more popular with the general public!**

I think it's a no-brainer--if either of them are popular, the "alien blood" video will beat the real reincarnation case video by a huge margin. And this is precisely why you will find sensationalized, glitzy, frothy programs on national cable TV about ghost hunting and other spooky things, but "In Another Life" only found one PBS station that would consent to broadcast it.

Oh, here are links to the two videos (streaming off this website): 1) Angela Grubbs describes discovering that her dreams were of real people who had actually lived, and 2) The Strange Properties of Alien Blood.

See my further comments about documentary editing styles, and about why I chose to edit "In Another Life" as I did.

*I bowed to this style relatively more in the "In Another Life" trailer than in the documentary itself, partly because the nature of trailers is that they have to be impactful in a short space, and because it's expected in that genre.

**As of 2/28/07, the real reincarnation case had been posted for six days, and had been viewed 95 times; the phony "alien blood" video had been posted for two days, and had been viewed 264 times. As of 4/9/07, the score is real reincarnation proof case, 152; "Alien Blood" 426.