Series One: One Verse is the first digital storytelling short that Inye made as an independent producer. The piece is a hybrid of short documentary and music video genres and explores the confluence of creative and familial experiences of hip hop emcee Yirim Seck. Yirim Seck is also his brother and in many ways this piece is an early iteration of work he would create nearly a decade later. There is an thematic throughline connecting this piece to An Elegant Utility, This Is Who We Are, Separation Census, Wa Na Wari, and a host of other projects in his archive. An interrogation of familial dynamics as a defining force for our social, political and economic experiences is a consistent point of entry in nearly all of his work, a fact punctuated by Yirim’s prominence in much of the work that Inye created over the following decade.
Inye produced, shot, directed and edited the short on his own in 2008. At the time he had been working exclusively as an assignment photographer taking on editorial and photojournalist projects for magazines and clients in the non-profit and private sector. Having received his bachelors in journalism and film, then working several years on film and television projects in the eastern and southern film market, his focus on photography was an adaptation to Seattle’s creative marketplace.
Series One: One Verse was produced amid the tectonic changes in the photography of the mid 200s. The emergence of digital technology opened up new possibilities for creative image making and simultaneously collapsed the established economic models of the photography industry. For the first time in a decade Inye saw a possibility to reconnect with his love of film as an independent producer. This appealed to his desire to experiment with storytelling and form, which shows up in the variety of visual approaches deployed in the piece. He incorporates traditional archival photos, cinema verite, documentary interview segments, and music video style sequences. This collage of styles reflects his ongoing interest in stylized portraiture, documentary film, and popular culture.
This short was shot on a Canon XL2 Digital Video Camera, technology that straddled traditional analog and emerging digital formats.