Suburban RED
Early stage of Eichler shot with video elements (bottom photograph) and the various characters that populate the scene shot (top photograph) with the intentions of doing split-screen effects. The split screen-effect is one of the first major inventions in cinematic special visual effects going back to the early silent era - with films, for example, by Georges Méliès.
The split-screen effect is achieved by having the camera fixed on a tripod and static. Then after choosing the various areas in the composition that I will be populating, I dress up in costume and step into an area, and acting in character. Then I repeat this process in another area of the space and then again with another.
This process had me acting out my characters, (dressed so that they pop and are noticed in the final wide shot), in my friends studio apartment in San Francisco. I then brought a composite of the populated interior into the miniature model of the Eichler house.
I used the FS17 process that I developed in collaboration with Claire Bain, where we bring a pile of clothes and wigs and accessories and then play with them and come up with spontaneous character creations.
As quirky as it might seem, playing all the parts, it fits the premise that I had for this whole project - of the artwork being like a dream where all the inhabitants and places in the dream are about my own psyche.