Bicycle Messengers is a short film about New York City bicycle messengers in which all of the messengers are animated and all of the backgrounds and environments are live action footage shot in midtown Manhattan. By juxtaposing the animated messenger on top of the live action, the film highlights the peculiar relationship between bicycle messengers and the modern city in which they operate. In Bicycle Messengers I experiment with both media and narrative methods. The background images and narration of Bicycle Messengers are presented with the tone of a documentary. However by using animation, I introduce artistic interpretation to the subject matter. The result is more of an overt mythologization than the traditional documentary. At their cores, both documentaries and myths are explanations and interpretations of the real world. Though documentaries are traditionally associated with fact, and myths are traditionally associated with fiction, filmmakers from Gillo Pontecorvo to Ken Burns and Michael Moore have been actively blending the documentary and the myth for years. Bicycle Messengers explores the uncomfortable yet crucial area in which these formats bleed together. Bicycle Messengers is a unique film that utilizes, examines and subverts the documentary format. Its choices of storytelling tools, media and visual style serve the expression of its ideas and its combinations of media announce new possibilities for independent film. The theme of juxtaposition is echoed throughout its methods in order to present an image of a group of people who are utterly different from the world in which they live.

Forms: Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Narrative Fiction, Multimedia, Short
Animation Techniques: 2D Computer, 3D Computer, Experimental, Mixed Media
Genres: Alternative, Drama, Educational, Microcinema, Underground, Musical, Avant-garde, Independent, Post Modern, Rejected, Spoof, Sport, Surreal, Environmental, Science, Mockumentary, Anime, Urban, Satire, Dramedy, Action/Adventure, Reality, Docu-Drama, Culture, Art, Hip Hop
Niches: African American, Black, Hispanic