THE TRYPTICH MINI-BRIEF and

THE FRAGMENTED FRAME

Friday  4th October

During today's session, I was introduced to spatial montage and multi-screen narrative within digital media.  An area which I am extremely interested in and enjoy exploring.

I used the sessions on 3/10/13 and 4/10/13 to re-visit some Adobe software, Premiere and After Effects which I had used in previous modules.

Within a team I was given the task of creating a very short 30 second tryptich film.  The planning stage was  important because we needed to decide how to portray a narrative using a single camera but utilising three screens.  The tryptich could include looped footage.

The initial idea was to shoot and edit three separate sequences.  The two 'outer' screens would display a montage of extreme close-ups of two different (unidentifiable) individuals performing tasks as they were preparing for a date (applying make-up, putting shoes on, brushing teeth etc).  The central 'screen' would involve a slow zoom out from a restaurant/cafe table, which would eventually reveal two people out on a date.

The idea was that just as the two main characters were about to be revealed in the central screen, they would leave the table and exit from the filmic space. It would be left to the audience to try and establish whether or not the couple dating were in fact the two characters we had been observing getting ready in the outer screens.

We were to add a twist whereby the two characters originally dating would then go their separate ways but by a strange twist of fate would encounter the two characters who were getting ready to go out.  We would link these characters by showing the same tastes in fashion and music as they were getting ready.

We created a list of shots we needed which included footage of iPods* being used, a train station clock to portray the passing of time and one characters' method of traveling to meet their partner.  Shots of money being inserted into a parking meter to depict the 2nd character arriving by car etc.

However, due to a few technical issues (low battery) and unforeseen encounters with Eammon Holmes returning from filming This Morning at Albert Dock, we decided on a change of story.

Due to a quick turnaround (the short video needed to be shot, edited and the post production completed in less than 24 hours) we felt we would be unable to source the actors we would need in time and so the idea changed.  

The final idea was to tell the 'everyday' tale of a person walking along using their iPhone as and iPod and how that person uses listening to music to reflect on the everyday things going on in their life.  (Paying for parking, walking the dog, doing sports, cooking the dinner, going on a night out).

After spending some time researching the genre on the web, paying particular attention to these amazing examples from:

 Tarrantino's Kill Bill (Daryl Hannah as a samurai assassin/fake nurse)

JW Griffiths' Split Screen (Nokia Shorts 2011 winner)

We decided to source individual shots from three cameras of 'the everyday'

We edited the shots into three sequences, using the two 'outer screens' (for the purposes of this blog I will refer to them as screens 1 and 3) to depict the 'daydreaming' sequences and screen 2 was used to show the character selecting his iPod* track and walking along putting on his headphones.

As a group, we encountered a few setbacks, which gave me as a potential digital media producer an insight into just how time consuming post production can be.  The rendering process took longer than anticipated and I believe that this was due to some of the shots being created on a Canon 550D Digital SLR, which due to the large format created codec issues when trying to convert via YouTube.

The final digital artifact was uploaded to an external hard drive and the file size compressed and converted to an MPEG format for easier transfer.  

This link is the original youtube upload, which failed to upload in its entirety.  It runs for 13 seconds and has no audio.  I will however upload the complete version next week.

I am also intending to re-visit this exercise individually and create some more of my own individual multiscreen narrative artifacts which I will of course share on here.

* Other mp3 players are available