“Traversal.” I couldn’t find a better word to title this video due to the several parallel meanings that surround this term.
For one, this project was inspired from a dream that I experienced about a week ago. While lucid, I was browsing video projects on “my” computer and was rewarded with vivid imagery of Half-Life productions of mine that don’t exist in reality. Although the visual details are impossible to recall now, I do know that most of them portrayed levels of avant-garde with a bohemian-like flow of production. Knowing time was short, I indulged as much as I could, feeling as though I was given the golden opportunity to traverse in a multiverse and pick my own alternate brain.
After this dream, what really stuck with me the most was the immense feeling of infinite potential that washed over me. I was also struck with the realization of how much of my imagination that I was letting slip by. In the past 15 years, how many abstracts have I let slip by without materializing them? How many projects have I started, trashed, and completely forgotten about? I can only imagine how much more material there would be to look back at if I had given my ideas more of the time and attention that they needed.
Anyway, I felt as though this project would be a great way to recreate that alternate, “multiverse” feeling because: this video was edited entirely with unused shots from “Grave Shift” (2020) and “Cinerarium” (2021). I had a good bit of production left over from both projects and immediately pondered on merging them.
To my next point, this video serves as a crossover between both aforementioned projects– a traverse, if you will. It wasn’t my intention when producing the first two projects, but all three fit nicely in the same universe, and “Traverse” serves as the conclusion.
Surprisingly enough, it took me about only a day in total to conceptualize, edit, and luma-correct everything. I forgot how time-consuming the production stage can be, especially when perfectionism loves to haunt me. In the future, it’ll definitely remind me to record scenes with the best lighting possible…
To top it all off, this video is basically about traversing between reality and the realm of unknown, a very parallel theme to the feelings that I experienced from my dream last week. I hope you feel it too!