The Next Clue:
The treasure hunt that found its own sense of humor I started with a song that felt much too serious. That was the problem. The first idea was beautiful, atmospheric,
Author: steve
The Colors We Carry: The day I learned to let the balloons go.
I have been thinking about empathy lately. Not the Hallmark-card version of empathy. The other kind. The kind where somebody else’s pain gets handed to you, and because you can
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MONDAY:
I thought I was making a quiet video. Then it started singing. Sometimes the smallest idea makes the biggest mess. This one began with a conversation, an interior monologue, and
CAK: How I invented a word and then gave it a TED Talk.
There are moments when you realize you have created something completely unnecessary. I had one of those moments recently. I invented a word. By accident. The word is “cak.” Three
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MONDAY
Sometimes a video starts with a story. This one started with a thought I couldn’t quite leave alone. What might a woman think after spending a little time with someone
The Rose and the Grey
There are songs that you listen to. And then there are songs that seem to listen back. I started with a cover of “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal. After
FOR NOW: making a film out of a question.
I started this project with a question that sounds simple until you actually try to answer it: Who am I to her? That is the sort of question that can
YELLOW SPARK: The quiet between the pixels.
Sometimes the loneliest place in the world is a crowded room. Not because nobody loves you. Not because nobody is there. Sometimes it is simply because there is so much
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Breathing pixels into a song that shouldn’t be literal.
There is a particular kind of creative problem I really enjoy. I have a song that is already emotionally loaded, and my first instinct is to make a video that
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The road between us.
Sometimes a video starts with a story. Sometimes it starts with a feeling you don’t quite know what to do with. This one started with two songs that, when I
DANCING IN THE DARK: when melancholy finally starts moving.
“I get up in the evening…” That line was enough to give me the opening image. Not a beautiful woman. Not a castle. Not even the forest. A person sitting
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SEEING — when getting closer means stepping back.
I used to think getting close to someone meant moving closer. More words. More time. More certainty. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I had it backwards. I made a three-minute
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I built a spaceship out of the Hotel California.
Sometimes a video starts with an idea. This one started with a feeling I couldn’t quite explain. I took a slowed-down instrumental version of Hotel California, shifted it into G
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BLINK: when a seven-minute song became something else.
Sometimes a project starts with a song. And sometimes the song starts digging around in your subconscious with a tiny shovel until you finally have to ask, “Okay, what the
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SOMEWHERE ELSE: How I turned a deserted island into somewhere else.
There is a woman standing alone on a deserted island. She’s not stranded. She’s not waiting for rescue. She’s not even particularly unhappy. She’s just… somewhere else. That distinction became
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SPARK: How I turned a friendship into a spark.
Sometimes a song starts with a melody. Sometimes it starts with a person. This one started with me staring at the clock and thinking, “Sunday is a really long way
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SEVEN SECONDS: How I taught AI that silence can hurt.
Seven seconds. That was all it took. Seven seconds of a woman saying something she probably shouldn’t have said out loud. “I think I like you more than I meant
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GET IN THE WATER: when a spark becomes a song.
I have a confession. I have apparently reached the age where my answer to existential dread is to write a song about skinny-dipping at midnight. Honestly, I’ve had worse ideas.
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The twenty-five thousand dollar song on a zero dollar budget.
I heard the ending in my head before I finished the middle. A fifteen-minute science fiction short. Quiet, deliberate, a little lonely. The kind of piece that needs one last
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MIDNIGHT RAIN: I built a blues song on an alien planet.
I built a blues song on an alien planet The song started with rain. Not real rain. Not the kind that falls over the wheat fields outside my window in
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