Reservoir “Title”

Documentary Title Sequence

Reservoir is a freeform mashup documentary about nostalgia for youth. Sunshine, Hampshire College students, a bliss vibe. This is its opening title — twelve seconds long, which is exactly as long as it needs to be.

The frame that carries it: a girl holds a detached camera lens up to her eye, and her smile lives inside the glass. That’s the whole thesis of nostalgia in one image — you’re not seeing the summer, you’re seeing the lens you keep between yourself and the summer.

This is 2004 — the earliest piece in the portfolio’s film shelf, cut when a “mashup documentary” meant hauling DV tapes and trusting the texture. Every artifact of the format (the soft video grain, the blown-out sun) is doing emotional work that clean footage couldn’t.

The manifesto describes the studio’s origin as a confrontation with avoidance — and nostalgia is avoidance’s sweetest flavor. Reservoir doesn’t pretend otherwise: it names the reservoir, holds the lens up, and lets you feel the distance between the eye and the summer. Look directly — even at looking itself.

Proof: the title sequence on Vimeo — live since 2009.