24 on|24 off :a documentary

"24 on|24 off" is a documentary where I shadowed the firefighters of the C-shift of Engine 2 in San Jose, Ca. My intention was to show the "family" side of life in the firehouse and rather than documenting the fires, which I saw as cliché, I wanted to go deeper into who these people were and how they live in this place that is both home and work.

This multimedia piece was created in the days before soundslides (remember, soundslides only blew up a year ago) and I culled it together using Adobe Premier and Audition, where I took the firefighter’s story and set it to a musical piece I edited together. My aim was to explore the full canvas of presentation and envelop the viewer in my piece. It also allowed me to change the pacing of the story and expand on the images to give a richer sense for who these men who live in this house for 24 hours at a time are.

They do more than fight fires; they have lives, personalities and develop friendships we seldom see.