extra-normal waste of time

As part of an ongoing effort to stay at least in sight of the curve when it comes to social media, I've been tinkering with "xtranormal"(new-ish, free-ish filmmaking software). I made this movie: 

My idea is to show it to the students in my Studies in the American Novel course as an example of a way to demonstrate a strategy of novel writing--a task I'll be asking my students to do.

I'll probably tell my students that this 1-minute movie took me 5 minutes to make and I won't exactly be lying. But I also won't be saying how I spent an afternoon (on an unseasonably sunny day) tinkering with the many, hilarious gesture and facial-expression options on xtranormal.

The script was easy to write. The voice, also an easy decision. We all know, even Oprah, how instructive a proper British sensibility can be. The camera angles were easy, too. I produced the shot, reverse-shot effect fairly easily. But the "expressions" and "look-ats" took forever.

There was something about watching this bald, digital British man try on such faces as "mild disappointment" and "you bet!" that was totally engrossing.

It got me thinking about what Lawrence Weschler  calls the "uncanny valley," the frightening, fascinating state of being into which we viewers of fake faces sometimes fall.