SHAVING(1996, 5’07”, QuickTime) The Commuter started life as a longer film called Shaving in which we follow a whole day in the life of our commuter. After shaving his face off and spraying on his suit, he spends the day working at the Bureau Of Missing Persons, looking at mugshots of other faceless people. Later that day he returns from work, steps under the shower and washes his suit off. He examines his face in the mirror: his face has grown back like five o’clock shadow. The Commuter was shot on a borrowed camcorder and manipulated in PhotoShop in downtime at mine and my collaborator Jon Mercer’s places of work. It was my first proper film with actor Pat Reid. CREDITSThe Commuter: Pat Reid SCREENING HISTORY25hrs video art festival, Barcelona, Spain, May 9th-10th 2003 It won a Public Art Award at the Ars Digitalis Festival in Berlin in 1996. TELEVISIONIt was screened on Canal+ in Belgium and France over a nine-month period starting in late 1996. A clip of an early version of Shaving was screened on Take Over TV on Channel 4 (1996) and subsequently on ITV and Channel 4 (2000). |