Watch it here. This was done as part of an iron editor challenge through BentoVid in 2026. Participants were tasked to edit a video using live action sources only in a limited span of time (eight days). I had recently seen this video by Nerdwriter1 discussing the film Un Chien Andalou, and, since I am constantly on the lookout for artsy films to impress my LA film friend, it seemed like an excellent choice to use. Given it is pretty short I also wanted to us L’Age d’Or just so I had more options. Both are directed by Luis Buñuel and involve Dali so they are artistically linked to me.
The real difficulty for me was finding a song. I did a bunch of trolling on youtube before finally settling on Kerala by Bonobo. I think there is probably a better choice, but given the limited time I just went with it. I really wanted something a little more abstract and possibly discordant, but I never really found anything that hit those marks. So it goes sometimes.
Production was remarkably quick, partly do to the nature of the event and partly because there is really no story or idea behind this work. I wanted to embody the surrealist mindset of not telling a linear or sequential story. I simply grabbed clips that looked odd, surreal, weird, etc. and put them almost randomly on my timeline. I specifically tried to avoid putting clips in story order or to hit any specific musical beats. As you would surmise things go quick when you work in this manner.
Director’s Commentary:
00:10: Famously Un Chien Andalou starts with a lady getting her eyeball sliced in half. I thought about using that, but it was just too much to start with so I cut to black here.
00:15 – 00:20: Right from the jump here you can see the non-linearity at play as this bike rider crashes and then the next scene you can see him riding.
00:39: This box is a recurring prop in the film, but it is never explained. I wanted to keep that mystery by using clips with it a lot.
00:54 – 00:55: One of the objectives of this event was to play with the speed of clips. That works pretty well for a surrealist work like this as you do not need a reason to speed up or slow down a clip. I experimented with briefly stopping this clip and then letting it play. I like how it looks, but it could be executed better.
01:17 – 01:27: I really like how these three clips play on each other.
01:50 – 01:53: I made this clip play in reverse, but I still go back and forth on if it looks good or not.
02:04 – 02:06: The woman looking in fear at the car coming here was a very quick cut in the original film. I wanted to have it linger, but the footage was not there so I just played it twice out of order. It looks ok, but it is not what I wanted.
02:32 – 02:35: Maybe the funniest sight gag in the video.
02:40 – 02:48: No, I cannot explain the foot scenes, but I love the cut to the face of the statue.
03:02: I really love the little shrug the old man gives here.
Conclusion
As usual, I am pretty happy with how it all turned out. I got to make something very quickly that is pretty weird with unique sources. I also got to impress my LA friend. Mission accomplished.