Tale of a Motorcycle Man

A tale of a man building a beautiful but dangerous machine, Deus Ex Machina explores the artistic philosophy of filmmaker legend Jack Churchill. 

Original story crafted by Etsy Editor Tara Young, and can be found here!

This fall, at the excellent Camden International Film Festival in Camden, Maine, I had the chance to see Seth Brown’s remarkable Deus ex Machina. In this short film, Seth creates a beautiful portrait of his friend and mentor, Jack Churchill, a former cinematographer who now repairs and builds motorcycles. The bike he builds in the film is like nothing I’ve ever seen — a steampunk monster of a motorcycle, pieced together from a gazillion parts.

For Jack, bike building is about the process and losing yourself in the work. For Seth, making the film was an opportunity to learn about his mentor in a world apart from film, and to discover something about himself along the way. As he explains, “When I first started the project, Jack was tearing apart this bike, a machine designed to have its parts totally hidden from view. The film was my way of dissecting him and putting it all on the outside — a medley of moments and personality quirks that makes this man work.”

More on this film can be found here.