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I've never seen digital media so effectively used in story telling. Sitting
next to a small video monitor displaying an endless burning campfire,
Atchley used a wireless mouse to manipulated icons on a large computer
projection behind him. Clicking on an image would start the audio-visuals
for the story the image depicted. He asked the audience which stories they
wanted to hear, then arranged the icons chronologically along a road at the
bottom of the screen, which became a metaphor for the course of his life.
Above the icons was the representation of a drive-in-movie screen on which
the drama of Atchley's life played out.
Clicking on a wedding dress icon caused the drive-in screen to show clips
from home movies taken by his grandfather. The clips paraded three
generations of Atchleys before the viewer. Clicking on a moose head brought
pictures of Camp Moose Head with the campers in Native American regalia,
and an explanation of how he was cheated out of becoming a tribal chief
even though he'd won the most feathers. One could only marvel at the effect
such a skillful mixing of technology and technique would produce if only
the life it was revealing were interesting.
Yet the problem is not that Atchley's life is not interesting, rather that
what we see has been packaged into sound bytes and sanitized for digital
consumption. It seems no coincidence that his artistic resume prominently
lists "emotional branding (TM) for Hallmark Cards."
As presented, it is a life recorded in detail, but barely examined. We
learn the date of his parents marriage, and the date of their divorce. We
learn the date of his first marriage and the date of his divorce. But we
have less insight into the the rituals of his marriage than the rituals of
his summer camp. Indeed, at the end of the evening, Atchley revisits Camp
Moose Head for his climax. Only an off hand remark about his second
marriage, "My wife told me to tell less stories of the 50's tonight, I
don't know whether that means I should tell less, or more," gives us a hint
of what the dynamics of his relationships may have been.
Clicking on a large pair of lips launches a clip wherein a friend giddily
describes the effect a particularly red lipped woman had on him. Through a
series of broad gestures and inarticulate expressions he conveys that it
was wild but worth it. Atchley will only add that her effect on him was so
severe, he burned all pictures of her. Those are the pictures I'd like to
see. Mr. Atchley has an undeniable talent for telling stories and a genius
for embellishing them with digital media. One could only wish the unseen
images in this life had been used to take the author and the audience
closer to the edge.
Flash Light
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