Study No. 1 for "I Love the USPS":
A wash, dry and polish for the spirit of Uncle Sam

Concept, Script and Direction by Diana Falchuk
Camera, Editing and Effects by Barry Penland (barry@pixelflip.com)

During morning rush hour, dressed in flip-flops, a knit grey sweater and a Doris Day style flowing long black satin skirt, I lovingly scrub a USPS mailbox with green bath soap and a pink washcloth, buffing it dry with a lavender towel, finally painting a gold frame around the "Mail Theft...is a Federal Offense" sticker. The video color is de-saturated and the contrast and brightness are heightened, giving the video a slightly fuzzy, romantic quality. After Effects is used to create a kitschy, almost too-clean gleam on the gold frame.

Tampering with the institution of mail-individuals' letters and the postal service that people trust to deliver these letters-is a federal offense for good reason: Disrupting this system harms the people's trust in it and therefore dilutes its functionality. By contrast, a gold frame assigns value to the object it embraces and the social function of that object. Cleaning the surface of the mailbox shows my personal care for it and the service it provides; using the institution of the gold frame to simultaneously deface the object and give value to the "sticker of the law" demonstrates how an action that violates the legal institution (graffiti) can be used to elevate the value of another institution (the United States Postal Service).