Deadwood (The Evil Twig)

A photographer on a nature shoot carelessly litters — and unleashes nature's wrath in the form of a vengeful tree branch. No, really. This was getting toward the end of the first half of NYU's SIght and Sound class, and the assignment was for a chase film. I had been struck by reading about Sam Raimi's "Raimi-cam," the low budget camera-on-a-2x4 system that allowed him to get crazy smooth shots in The Evil Dead — so naturally wanted to rip it off to get some crazy smooth chase shots. I guess it never occurred to me that I could use the system outside of a haunted woods environment! This was going pretty badly in the edit room — a slow, languid, plodding assembly. Until my good friend and mentor Eric Witkowski grabbed hold of a handful of footage and forced me to see the magic of editing, and how quick (and quicker still) cuts could make all manner of connections and raise the energy level and involvement of the audience considerably. It was an epiphany, and I credit that moment (and his friendship and insight) with kicking me out of my staid ways and finally getting some momentum going for the rest of my cinema studies.