Hexatic Phase
Independent horror, written and directed by Ariel McCleese
At the time, I was more comfortable with Adobe Premiere, but Adobe After Effects has the tools for achieving exactly the right tempo and blur and overlay behaviors for the fade in, fade out of the opening title. I wanted to suggest anxiety and uncertainty without simply resorting to a jittering motion. I animated an overlay effect to burn in a text ‘tattoo’ that would respond to the underlying image and interact with an animated blur, to make text that can’t quite decide whether it’s happening or not.
Again, my favorite still photo from the movie. The sight of that drippy slime on the bare skin of a foot is appropriately unsettling. A shiny object is eye-catching; at the same time, you can’t help imagining that if it were your own foot the sensation would be most disagreeable.