*All of the films have no digital effects, enhancements, or alterations and contain raw footage edited together with text and music added.
NEEDLESS VALIDATION
Duration: 6 minutes, 50 seconds
Needless Validation uses raw video footage of aquatic life as actors to reflect on psychological impulses. The film conveys how natural enchanted imagery can provide solace when social interaction becomes devoid of meaningful impact. Through communicating with texts, the film speaks to the audience to seek validation from within, rather than from malevolent individuals only looking after their own interests. In essence, Needless Validation is about personal growth and how hypnotic natural imagery filled with ethereal qualities elevates self-awareness, far removed from the influence of others.
NIHILISM OF DIGITAL REALMS
Duration: 4 minutes, 9 seconds
The short film takes the viewer on a journey of enchanted natural realms full of fantastical aquatic life contemplating on the futility and nihilism of digital realms. Through texts, the viewer becomes challenged to question their reality and much of their perception is shaped by artificial environments, particularly through digital applications. These images offer solace through real unedited footage against the backdrop of noise from digitized automation.
BEASTS OF THE ABYSS
Duration: 14 minutes, 42 seconds.
Beasts of the Abyss is an arthouse film shot in a documentary manner. Although this is not my first motion picture project, I consider Beasts of the Abyss to be my very first serious film executed professionally. The work entails my longstanding fascination with the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. When I first gazed my eyes on a whale shark for the first time in person, the beast did not even seem like a real creature, more like a fantastical creation from a film like Avatar or from the books of Jules Verne. At first I started to photograph the whale sharks, then I started to write about them, which led to making assemblages depicting the beasts, finally, I decided to dedicate a film to the whale sharks. The concept of the film highlights the ancient, mythic, titanic, and fantastical elements which are available to us, such as the ethereal coral depicted in the film. Like the whale shark, we all yearn to be as powerful and not bound by the constraints of contemporary society. In essence, I wanted to express how some sea creatures and vegetation can appear and give off an aura of fantasy, especially whale sharks, manta rays, jellyfish, and coral. Through careful editing, fantasy-based audio, and focused filming, I reveal a realm which we could imagine in our dreams, but does indeed exist in reality.