Exquisite Corpse

This is a rotoscope loop that was meant to be part of an Exquisite Corpse. It's just a short little loop. Maybe some other corpse sections will pop up on the internet soon.

exquisite corpse section from Morgan Morel on Vimeo.

The SEA Project

I have spend the past year transferring DAT tapes to a hard drive for the Language Resource Center. Most of these tapes are language instruction tapes and are filled with lessons, readings, and drills. One day I stumbled across a pile of tapes labeled SEA Project. After looking through a few of them, I found that it stands for Southeast Asian Project. The tapes are cryptically distinguished from one another with letters and numbers. Most of the tapes involve people telling stories in strange habitats. You can often hear exotic birds and animals in the background. The series labeled G however, hold the best of all treasures: Gamelan Performances! I decided to take these recordings and release them as cassettes. I did the artwork and liner notes, along with dubbing. I wanted to spread these because the performances are beautiful and mysterious. There is no way for me to know exactly what is happening. I believe they may be recordings of Shadow Puppet Theater, but cannot be certain. I used the medium of cassette tapes because the original fidelity of the of the recordings seemed to call for it.

Check out the blog

THE SEA PROJECT

Chile 2009: Grandmother's Birthday

In the winter of 2009 my Grandmother Paz Morel Fuenzalida turned 80. My sister was lucky enough to be flown out to the ceremony to document it. The footage she got was breathtaking. While I was editing I felt that my cousins were talking to me, not the camera. It's been so many years since I've seen them, and seeing them in such beautiful photography made it so emotional for me. Ever since then I've been a fan of HD (especially HD shot by my sister). The whole video is too long to fit on youtube, but here's some clips.

Interviews from Morgan Morel on Vimeo.

Paper Flyer vs. Video Flyer

During my senior year at I worked on a thesis project that revolved around performative video. I designed a video feedback system that functioned as a synthesizer, and used it along pre-recorded video I shot and processed to give live video shows. I often played along with musical performances, often with my friend Isaac of Korgborglar and Nick of Grass Canyon. The point was to create a video instrument I could play live. The culmination of the project was a performance called VIDEO SNACK ATTACK. Here are two of the flyers I made for the show, one on paper and one on video.

VIDEO SNACK ATTACK from Morgan Morel on Vimeo.

Tour Video

While working at U of M's Language Resource Center I've done a load of multimedia projects. Some have been a little more technical than others, such as taking the subtitles form one VHS, and sound from another VHS, editing them together and burning a DVD of it. Others have been creative and super fun (not that digitizing VHS tapes isn't fun). Here is a tour video/promo for the University of Michigan I directed, shot and edited. I made sure to give North Campus all the love it deserves because WHO ELSE WILL?!

Telephone Callers

Here is a music video I directed, shot and edited for a band called Telephone Callers. It's short. Very short. That's because I used it for an insert during a class on Television Production. The assignment was to write and direct an interview. In the script I wrote, the interview was being held on a public access "Community Features" show. The interviewer was speaking to a new-comer to town, who turned out to be a deranged cult leader. The maligned matriarch was trying to use the televised opportunity to recruit members, while the clueless interview thought her satanic outbursts where quirky. The interview cut to this video after the cult leader said "Would you like to see my family?"

Black Crow

Here is an animation by my mother Patricia O'Connor. She asked all of her many many artist friends to submit a painting of a crow. She used the paintings she got to make a short digital animation. The piece is inspired by both her recent move to the Seattle (crows are everywhere there in case you don't know) and her favorite musician Joni Mitchell. For the music, she asked me and my brother to do a cover of the Joni Mitchell song "Black Crow." Here's what we came up with.