(2003, 90 sec, DV on 35mm)
Two 35mm prints available
The Commuter is a short animation in which an office-worker shaves his face off every morning in order to blend in with the other faceless commuters on their way to work.
Stills from the film showing actor Pat Reid
Technique
The Commuter is live-action/digital hybrid. I shot the live-action component on video and then captured it on computer, before repainting it a frame at a time in Adobe PhotoShop with co-effects-designer Jonathan Mercer. The grainy image quality, which gives the film its distinctive look and feel, is an artifact of the image compression available in 1996.
The Commuter is a 90-second reworking of my 1996 film Shaving (see below) and was made especially for Interfilm Berlin's short film festival 'Going Underground' 2003 ( http://www.interfilm.de )
The film was selected to be one of fourteen to be screened on the trains on the Berlin Undergound on 4th, 6th and 7th February 2003 and again at the Urania cinema on 8th February. Martin and the film's star, Pat Reid travelled out to Berlin to see it, along with Karola Gajda who starred in The Big Heads.
Pat Reid under his own image on the Berlin U-Bahn, February 2003; the 'Going Underground' poster; Pat and Karola at the Urania reception; Pat and Martin onstage at Urania, 8th Feb 2003.
More recently it was shown in competition at Animafest Zagreb in Croatia on 17th June 2004. This was the first time it was shown at a festival dedicated exclusively to animation. Appropriately the festival mascot was a bowler-hatted man. I would like to thank the British Council for giving me a travel grant to attend the festival and Margit Antauer and all the festival staff for looking after me.
The Commuter Screening History
Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, Dazzle Films Screening
July 2008
Independent Film Festival II, British Council, Cairo, Egypt
Rushes Soho Shorts Festival, Dazzle Films screenings: 5:00 pm at Rushes, 66 Old Compton Street, London, and at 7:00 pm, The Hospital, 25 Endell Street, London
Welwyn Garden Film Society: 'The Commuter' and 'G.M.' were both screened as accompanying shorts for the Aki Kaurismaki feature film 'Man Without A Past.' Special thanks to Dawn Sharpless of Dazzle Films
EDINBURGH: TALENT CIRCLE SUPER SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL 2005, Brass Monkey Bar, 14 Drummond St, Edinburgh EH8 9TU: ALL 375 Films
Dec 5th - 9th 2005
LIVERPOOL, BBC Big Screen, Clayton Square
Nov 12th - Dec 9th 2005
BIRMINGHAM, BBC Big Screen, Chamberlain Square
Nov 12th - Dec 9th 2005
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, Digital Lounge, Tyneside Cinema, 10 Pilgrim Street, Part of the Northern Lights Film Festival programme. (nlff.co.uk)
ALL 375 Films screened
Nov 20th - 23rd 2005
BELFAST, Queens Film Theatre, 20 University Square
November 9th 2005
MANCHESTER BBC Big Screen, Exchange Square
October 8th -21st 2005
"The Commuter" poster
'As Is: A Downsized Life'
In 2005 The Commuter was incorporated into the 70 minute documentary As Is: A Downsized Life by Maryanne Galvin (USA, 70 min, 2005).
Dr. Galvin describes her film as follows:
"'As Is: A Downsized Life' takes you behind the scenes into the lives of nine diverse individuals who encounter economic simplicity. All were once upwardly mobile. In 2004 they found themselves earning, spending, consuming less and making incredible discoveries about themselves along the way. Some embraced voluntary economic simplicity as a lifeform long ago. Others recently found themselves unemployed, ill without insurance or otherwise without income. Each conveys a true grit approach to confronting consumerism, materialism and the implications on self esteem, dignity and freedom."
As Is: A Downsized Life Screening History
Broadcast on Comcast Cable and Urban Cableworks Channels 54, 48, 62 & 99
December 1st & 2nd 2007 at 5 PM and Midnight
November 30th at 10 PM and Midnight
November 27th 2007 at 9 PM
November 4th 2007 at 5 PM and Midnight
November 3rd 2007 at 5 PM and Midnight
November 2nd 2007 at 10 PM
October 30th 2007 at 9 PM
East Bay Media Center/Berkeley Video & Film Festival, in the Bay Area, CA, USA
Autumn 2005
The St. Louis International Film Festival, USA
November 2005
San Francisco State University Fall Film Series, USA
Autumn 2005
The Doctoberfest/Clark University, Worcester MA, USA
October 30th 2005
The Rhode Island International Film Festival, USA
August 2005
The Boston International Film Festival, USA
June 2005
Prehistory of The Commuter: 'Shaving'
"Shaving" (1996, 5'45", digitised VHS on Beta SP)
The Commuter started life as a longer film called Shaving (1996, 5 min, Beta SP) which followed a day in the life of an office worker. After shaving his face off and spraying on his suit, he spends the day working at the Bureau Of Missing Persons, looking at mugshots of other faceless people. Later that day he returns from work, steps under the shower and washes his suit off. He examines his face in the mirror: his face has grown back like five o'clock shadow. It was shot on a borrowed camcorder and manipulated in PhotoShop in downtime at mine and my collaborator Jon Mercer's places of work.
Stills from "Shaving" as they appear in the 25hrs video art festival catalogue
Screened on Canal+ in Belgium and France over a nine-month period starting in late 1996. A clip of an early version of Shaving was screened on Take Over TV on Channel 4 (1996) and subsequently on ITV and Channel 4 (2000).
Awards
Shaving won a Public Art Award at the Ars Digitalis Festival in Berlin 1996.
