See an Apocalyptic World Envisioned in Miniature | Short Film Showcase

[Music] I'm not the type of photographer that's gonna go out and find things to photograph. I'm gonna create things to photograph. Kathleen, I started this body of work back in 2005. It's a series called "the city postulates a world post mankind." Something has happened that's decimated the human population, so these are the city after man is gone. It's just the way that buildings age and crumble and nature takes back some of the spaces. I thought just the last thing that should be would be an artist's studio, and what better reference do I have in my own studio?

Even though I may only get behind my camera three times a year and I spend more time working with my hands, I'm definitely a photographer. I'm more than a sculptor. I feel like I know how to make the camera lie. I only have to build the diorama from one vantage point, so when you go into a 360, moving around, it's like going behind the scenes at Broadway. You know, behind the curtains are all the mechanisms to make it run. Same with the diorama. If you've been to our living room, you'll notice that it actually looks like the end of the world. It looks like a disaster, a disaster scene.

And this model is kind of funny; it's actually cleaner than our actual living room. It's kind of sad to say. We used to have a couch and then one little table to work on. We got rid of the couch and got a bigger table. Yeah, people either like all of the clutter and find it inspiring, or it makes people really anxious and they really can't stay here very long. It's nice working within the apartment because it ends up being a real blend.

So do this, and then I'll stop and maybe go make lunch, and then do some other house things while the paint's drying or something, to come back. If I had to go somewhere, I don't think I'd find it as satisfying. But then this is also the dining table, and you know it's a double-edged sword for sure. The subway was in the living room in the scene, so we knew that we had to have it in the final model too. So I made a replica of a replica of a subway.

[Music] Initially I was just coming in, I do a little bit here and there, and you know it was not either of our intentions for my role to sort of grow, but I like this. But you were already pretty established as you and you know we need that to keep going, but she gets so much grief from her mother controlling the anger. I think for now it's kind of wound up where it started—it is Lori's name on the work, and I'm fine with that.

I want to make things, and you know having my name front and center isn't necessarily why I want to do it. So far this has only had my name on this work, even though she's a huge part of it. But I think from here on out, if she wants it, we'll change the name from like Lori Nix to Nixon Gerber. Yeah, you know, Nixon / knocker burn eggs—that's a drug company.

If it's small and detail-oriented, Kathleen's gonna do it because she has the patience and the mindset for working small and delicate. And if it's large and requires any sort of measuring and knife skills, it's going to be me. Although you do have good knife skills, but more for carving, not for cutting. Yeah, there's always like one thing that we'll buy and we scale things up around it. But for this particular one, we fabricated just about everything in the scene—a flatbed scan of all the books and my bookshelves.

Same with my CDs. On the internet I was able to find all of these CD covers, so I typed in all the things that I have in my collection. I printed them up, and then I glued them onto flex and polished the edges to look like it's an actual CD case. I'm a huge Cowboy Junkies fan. Here's Kate Bush, here's a Patty Griffin. For Kate Bush, these Lori made—they were a piece of like PVC tubing and then as like a little washer to make it look like a pinky—very resourceful. We try to keep everything as real as possible.

I messed up on the flat files because mine actually has five and I only made four. I don't know why, because they open and close. Anyone? Yeah, they open and close, and it's very important for a still photograph that things open and close. But there's the little details that really make this scene come alive, like the fan in the back window, the power cords going everywhere, little items on the table.

Then Kathleen created this great chair and the light and everything else. I really like your brushes; I think they're just great—the cans and the brushes are amazing. But I thought this would be a nice way to end the series. This is just because we miss where we spend so much time.

Yeah, this is where everything is created. I'm too close to see the illusion; I have to like rely on friends to tell me whether it works or not. Especially with this one, most people look at—when they look at our work, I believe it's three seconds, maybe four if you're lucky. So hopefully by making that juxtaposition between real and not real, maybe they might look at the piece a little bit longer if they even get into this type of artwork. It's not for everybody.

After I've lived with it for seven months—because that's usually how long it takes us to build another photograph—then I take out what other objects might be able to be repurposed in a scene and then the rest gets broken down into small pieces, put into black trash bags, and taken to the curb. Some of the objects will find their way into the next body of work, but have no problem decommissioning the studio.

I love throwing my scenes away because it means I'm ready to start the next scene. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]