AN ALCHEMICAL CHRISTMAS CAROL

2002, 6 minutes, 16mm with sound

Also known as the Alkie X-mas Sing-a-long.

As the material being produced by the Junkies began to take on a vague Christmas-y quality, I saw the chance to make the experimental film equivalent of a Beatles holiday single. A yuletide postcard for the fans, this one with a decidedly bah-humbug flavor. The source of the spoken sermon-rant is unknown, but it is purported to be a genuine recording of a broadcast church sermon.

Direct animation techniques reach a pinnacle with Vivian's precise sliding rectangles that move gracefully and overlap with themselves and the candle wax background. I explored hand-made, hand-printed, and hand-processed bouncing ball sing-a-long titles, as well as punched out 35mm film retaped into a 16mm field. Colleen comes in with radically hand-stitched film and we also used the U.S. Postal Service to bring in Brooklyn Junkie Karen as a pen-pal.