Douglas Anderson Professional Portfolio: Scholarship: Videos

Medaille College
Douglas Anderson
Professional Portfolio

Through the mid-1970's, I was deeply involved with theater. I wrote, acted, and directed, none of it particul

arly well, but I enjoyed it. For several months in 1971-72, I worked as a stage hand at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, England, during the previews, through opening night, and well into the run of the musical Applause! with Lauren Bacall. I learned a lot. My main frustration with a theater production was the necessity of other people. I couldn't do it myself, on my own time, in my own way.

I turned to the written word. Even though I directed some plays at Medaille in the late 1980's and early 1990's, I put my creative effort for fifteen years into writing fiction. Then that romance ended, as I recount on the fiction page of this portfolio.

When I wrote the sabbatical proposal in 1997, I did not plan to make the career transition that I ended up making. One of my ideas was to add a visual component and links to an online version of some of my unpublished fiction.

This illustrated, linked, online version of Gypsy Blue, the first three chapters of Fleshtones, shows the result of my experiment. This brief experiment in lightly illustrated words convinced me that the proportion was incorrect for what I wanted to do. Instead of the pictures illustrating the words, I needed the words to be subordinate to the pictures -- to tell the story with pictures, not words.

So I have turned to video. I don't see myself making theatrical or dramatic or narrative productions. I don't want to make a feature film. I don't want to direct actors.

I enjoy the problem-solving involved in videotaping. I enjoy cutting and arranging video clips, adding music and text.

First attempts

"Garden of Earthly Delights" was my first attempt at a presentable video. I made it in summer of 2006 out of video I shot the previous two years for Donna Ioviero to promote her business, Clear Light Studio, in Clarence, NY, selling water fountains made out of copper and baked enamel.

As a first attempt at a promotional video, it has its moments. I'm most concerned about the production values -- spotty audio, a shaky camera when it's not called for, some unfortunate lighting. I can do much better.

This video is way too large to make available online. [ excerpt on YouTube? ] If you would like a copy on a DVD, please request it via email.

I have more footage of Donna and her work that I am using for "Courtyard Sculpture", a video in progress. Donna and a group of teachers and students from Alden (NY) High School designed and built a large fountain for the courtyard of their school building. This video documents the process.

Next up

The recently accepted sabbatical proposal says that I am going to make a variety of videos over the next year and a half. Learn more from my 2006 self-evaluation.

This web, offered in fulfillment
of the requirement in the handbooks of
Medaille College, Buffalo, NY,
Volume IV: Faculty Handbook,
section 4.5.4.3 Faculty Portfolio,
is © 2007 and licensed under a Creative Commons License.

web established: February 2007
page last modified: September 2008
by Douglas Anderson
http://toLearn.net/portfolio/scholarship/discoveryvideo.htm