ArtLab/Mixed Media Video Production/First Light Stills and Frames

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First Light Stills and Frames

Upscaled production frames reveal useful flaws, strange spaces, painterly motion, and the possibility of turning the mixed-media experiment into a printed photo book.

Originally published 2026-08-01 on Advisory Hour.

Originally published as an Advisory Hour Substack post on 2026-08-01. This first-party copy preserves the original text and public supporting media beside the finished work.

Original post

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

The gallery of stills and clip images are not perfect or without flaw. What I will say is that many of them have redeeming qualities. In some cases, such as the image at the top of this post they are tempting enough to use as inspiration for an oil painting. Others are strange and hint at a world within that can’t quite be understood, such as this image with the aviator pointing to an impossibly long corridor on a plane nowhere near the size required to support it.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

I didn’t upscale all the film clips as a storage saving move on my part. There are many that were upscaled, such as this inspired aerospace scene of dancing aluminum. We can quibble on details and accuracy of the planes, sure. Overall? It’s an inspired scene that’d be a delight to see in oil-the texture, brush and momentum at work.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

Other scenes are what would inspire a fantastic Netflix style series. I have one such example here. This scene of an aviator clawing his way along the ground, pack still attached and still half-kitted up from piloting the craft as ominous light loom on the horizon has the aesthetic of something they’d fund and put on for show.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

One project inspires the next. It’s a strange loop.

This project has inspired me to consider publishing a printed photo book-a coffee table book of frames and scenes from this or another project. In my recollection, I do not recall doing that yet with anything around any project on my main website (www.ericrhea.com). I did do a magazine spread and e-book that’s available on the Kindle marketpace for Summer into AI-just no printed editions.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

I could be easily convinced to put these stills and scenes into a printed photobook. I could see full page spreads-similar to one of the gallery books you might see leafing thru reference art books at the bookstore.

A full color, high gloss photobook-I’m nearly talking myself into this one. If you’re interested in such a thing, message me. First person to message me for a copy gets theirs for free. You’ll be what pushes me over to just doing it.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

What I learned in doing this project is that there’s a compounding loop enabled by AI that is becoming visible in my projects. I made mistakes in this 42+minute production. I achieved not one mistake-I made hundreds (thousands? 😂 …) across three videos, each 40 minutes long. However, the lessons that enabled me to even attempt this project are based on prior projects that you can find on my site. In this project, I’ve learned several lessons that I’ll carry on to the next project.

If you’re just getting caught up and haven’t seen the video production, then I’d first say check out this article: https://www.ericrhea.com/artlab/projects/mixed-media-video-production/ which has both an embed of the video as well as related content.

What about the image gallery?

I’ve got you covered. Check it out over at https://www.ericrhea.com/artlab/projects/mixed-media-video-production/gallery/

This has quite a bit of content to navigate-including a highlights reel per song. Each of these tracks are featured in the full-length movie production.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

Expanding them you’ll see the story that I attempted to tell-and didn’t quite land.

First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.
First Light Stills and Frames image from the original Advisory Hour post.

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Connected work

  • Mixed Media Video Production: Watch the finished production and read how the three long-form experiments were assembled.
  • The Stills Room: Browse all 374 production images and compare 35 curated frames in 4K UHD and ultrawide.
  • ArtLab: Browse image, motion, sound, and the work between versions.