Back in 2006 when we shot the Woke Up New music video for the Mountain Goats, I wanted to also make something for my favorite song on the album, “Wild Sage.” So I shot John Darnielle singing the song in front of a black background, turned the footage black and white and high contrast, and printed out every frame of it on 8x10 paper. I then took these stacks of paper to Cape Cod and began to animate them as stills, shooting with my Canon 5D. It took much longer than I thought, and my vacation was over before the video was shot, so I took them back to NYC intending to finish the video there. I never did. So this is all there is.

The printouts somehow ended up in my cousin Nathan’s possession, and seven years later he found them stacked in a box and asked me what these thousands of bizarre photos of John Darnielle’s face were for.

And I said “oh yeah, that thing. I should upload it to Vimeo or something.”

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    WHAT this is amazing, I wish it was finished.

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    I completely understand why he wouldn’t finish it (this must have been a buttload of work), but I love “Wild Sage” and...

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    wait but this is so incredible

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