Art direction and world building: guided by a collage of found sounds, The WATER WORKERS unfolds in an underground world somewhere between a cave, a factory, and a handmade stage. I built the environment from black cloth and a sparse collection of props—a conveyer belt carrying glasses of water, water arranged like an altar, shovels, rope, a leaky faucet, and real frozen fish. i handmade papier mache puppets, whose faces float in darkness. The workers break for lunch to eat individually drawn and hand-painted fabric cutouts of meat. water moves through the film as a REOCCURRING motif, shifting in meaning as it is carried, packaged, arranged, consumed, and elevated above ground. The soundscape was assembled from found audio and an original contribution from a collaborating musician.
