ABBANDONATA is story about a woman whose companion goes on a trip, and after years away, still has not returned. It was inspired by the story of Penelope and Odysseus. I worked on Abbandonata from February 2013 through May 2015. Within this time period I created 10 video episodes, 45 “fragments,” details about the video episodes, and a short book, printed in a very small quantity with new material, related to the first video episode.

Some months after the 10th video episode, which was completed in January 2015, I decided that the 10th video episode had brought this experiment in storytelling to a close. Abbandonata was based on a short story I wrote on the subway while commuting to work, and it took off in its own direction over time via video, photos and writing. While it is not conventional story-telling, it has a thread which is unmistakably a story, however mysterious, ephemeral, and intuitive.

Some explanation about the additional pages below – in addition to the main video episode section, there are three other sections on this blog associated with ABBANDONATA:

ABBANDONATA: Fragments contains information that is pertinent to the general creation of this story, a kind of online workbook which revealed whatever inspired me as I moved forward with the project. There is also a Fragments Index which keeps track of these.

ABBANDONATA: Details contains posts describing the creation of specific video episodes, including technical details about cameras, editing, music, writing, and artwork used.

ABBANDONATA: Video Chronology is a page that lists all video episodes in one place, rather self-explanatory.

Update 9/6/2015: When I initially wrote this post, I thought about creating a single movie for this work, linking all the episodes together. Some time has passed, and my desire to alter it even more to progress to something it was not initially supposed to be has waned. Therefore, it will remain as is – an experimental web story, with footnotes of images and words. Onward to new ideas and projects.