Ukrainian flag on this woman evokes the kind of powerful image akin to Michael Stipe’s live performance of Everybody Hurts
We all remember how COVID-19 changed our lives! We mourned for those we lost and counted our blessings our symptoms were mild in comparison. We were like hermits dreading to leave home for masked up grocery runs, but loving all the extra time on our hands to sleep in, binge watch shows on Netflix or finish overdue projects around the house. My discovery was a band called Hot Sardines, but R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts became another surprising addition to a music collection dominated by classic R&B tunes. Michael Stipe performing that song live with blue paint across his eyes still gives me goosebumps. Perhaps inadvertently it also was a metaphor for the suffering we all endured losing loved ones or having lives disrupted by the pandemic. Watching music videos on YouTube wasn’t my only guilty pleasure – I spent tons of hours watching clips and even signed up for online tutorials on how become a video editor. I also immersed myself in watching umpteen videos on motion graphics. After years working in television news as a reporter and acting assignment’s editor, the production side of the job was usually handled by video editors. Why not learn their skills I figured during my pandemic hiatus? It’d be a perfect marriage of skills for a production company that I hoped to start.
And thus began Oxpeckr.
