Jacob Gooch
Angels A’Destroyin’
Wet Concrete
Film School II
Who and Where
NITE FLIGHTS
Selected Plein Air Work (2024-2026)
Selected Figurative Work (2024-2026)
Animation
Information
NITE FLIGHTS (2024)
Utah Valley University
Utah Valley University
NITE FLIGHTS, my BFA thesis, is a series of apocalyptic vignettes built around an ongoing narrative inspired by Scott Walker’s song “Nite Flights.” It grew out of a conflict I carried through my training: a love of entertainment design’s craft and its possibilities for new narrative art, alongside a contempt for the industry it serves. The story plays modern conspiracy theories completely straight, giving them an apocalyptic purpose in order to parody them. Many of these theories are violent by design, built to shock just by being heard. I answer with the childlike violence of the Three Stooges and Animaniacs: ultimate wedgies, wrestling moves, a bad guy shaken upside down for his lunch money. The only exposition is a short film in the style of How It’s Made, using 3D animation in a medical style to explain how “Bloodlite,” a term from Walker’s song, is produced. Everything else stays deliberately vague, so the viewer builds their own story and has to ask what it means to enjoy a violent scene.