The basis of Still Film is a fictional audio deposition of a “non-party witness” who testifies to the past forty years of cinematic exposure (a period aligned with my lifetime), with promises made and broken. The multi-generational characters include the witness, the lawyers, and the recordist. While no character is specifically me, all are performed in voiceover by me, addressing memories, biographical details, conspiracy theories, and ideas I’ve wrestled with for years. The script has been written as if an actual legal deposition.

The visuals are 35mm publicity stills from Hollywood movie press kits: a “carousel” of 140 slides chosen from the hundreds I’ve collected since 2019 that hold some associative meaning, however arbitrary, in my memory. Publicity stills are distributed by film studios to promote upcoming releases. 35mm film transparency slides were the standard until the early 2000s, when digital press kits took over (a turning point that happens to align with my legal coming-of-age). As objects, each are unique photographic prints subject to the ravages of time and handling, now preserved through scanning into 4K digital cinema.