Catching Up With Jeffrey Scher

Jeff Scher struck up a conversation via email when he noticed I'd posted his short film "Reasons To Be Glad" on this blog. He's said he doesn't post his own work to YouTube because his painted-film technique suffers from the low frame rate. He did send on a WMV file of his beautiful 2004 short "You Won't Remember This," a film of his infant son which was satisfyingly complete - a difficult effect to achieve with multiple short scenes using an experimental method, but one Scher accomplishes by tying his visuals intimately to well-chosen music, and working from a theme that is both recognizable and refreshing. The film also featured a short scene that was something I had never seen before - a pure black-and-white image of a tiny white face being revealed and obscured in a familiar pattern, along with the tiny shapes flickering by behind him in a defined frame. The highly abstract image almost instantly registered as the view in the back seat of a car at night, the child dazed but wakeful, quiet and alert - one of the many strange things he will not remember years from now. I loved it.

Scher also sent on a couple of images from his "new hobby," 3D photography. He writes:

If you cross your eyes you will see three images. If you can "merge" the two images that you are seeing in the middle you will suddenly see the image in 3d. You might have to rock your head slightly to even out the merge. If you look deep into it - and get used to the eye muscles in this odd position - you should be able to look around, changing focus from one plane to another.

Thanks, Jeff!