Happiness

This music video uses a combination of stop motion animation and live action footage to tell a simple, linear narrative.

The artist used muted colors and stuttering rhythm--those are the two elements that stuck out most anyway--to give the images a natural, innocent vibe.

All of the shots in the video are mid-range to closeup. So the space within which this narrative takes place is cramped. It gives me the sense that it all takes place within the pages of a children's book.

The most jarring change happens when it switches between stop motion felt cutouts to live action with few visual cues that the two scenes are even supposed to be one in the same. Yet, it does get that idea across, so I guess it was effective enough. They convey it by the wardrobe, if nothing else.

The narrative portrayed in the video could be said to loosely relate to the content of the song, at least thematically--the theme being love. At one part the two merge: Oberst sings, "Your eyes must do some raining..." as the character drains water from her eyes.

My instinct is to say that this video was shot with very little concern for the way it looks, but I know that that means much care was taken to achieve that effect.

Self portrait and biography

I don't have a favorite movie anymore. When I was young, I liked Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. But for the past decade or so, I have enjoyed Coen Brothers' movies, and I have never seen a Stanley Kubrick movie I didn't like.

I used to play music in various bands. I play guitar--who doesn't?--but not much anymore.

I write, mostly, and with some frequency. I am the editor of The Preface, IU South Bend's official student newspaper. I freelance, occasionally, for The South Bend Tribune, after having completed an internship for course credit there last spring. The Tribune pays $60 an article. So I wouldn't call that my career. The Preface pays more.

IU South Bend has no "J-school," but instead, has a journalism track with the mass communication degree offered by the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts. There are only a few journalism classes to take there, but that's OK because it leaves room to diversify. That's what the editors at the Tribune wanted: diverse media capabilities. They said the journalists they hire in the future will be able to write, shoot video, edit it, post it to a website and various social media platforms, and do this many times a day, too.

If I could produce any media, I would produce magazine articles with references to additional content on a website where the reader would find my multimedia accompaniments to that article--things like podcasts and mini-documentaries produced from the material I generated when reporting the main article.