the movie stars ellen page (who i'm sure everyone now recognizes from juno) and follows tracey burkowitz, a 15 year old girl searching for her lost younger brother.
what i think is really cool about what mcdonald did with this film was that after he shot and edited the whole thing, he uploaded hundreds of hours of raw footage, the soundtrack (by broken social scene) and the script to the internet for people to download, with the idea that they could then re-edit the material and make a new project of their own -- "a new feature film, rock video, trailer or personal manifesto."
each scene is shot from multiple camera angles, and many of the frames have a fragmented collage of multiple shots and perspectives, which allowed people a lot of options when re-editing the footage.
i think, aside from being a really fun & interesting idea on mcdonald's part, putting up the footage on the internet is forward-thinking and a bit avant-garde as well. especially considering how much in our lives is connected to media, entertainment, and the immediacy in which we're able to get it. not only is he making the media readily available, he's putting it out there with the intent that people will download it and make their own art out of it. going back to the isolating feelings of a postmodern society, media culture, etc, in a small way mcdonald is promoting something interactive, creative and personally meaningful with this project. (this could also point back to what i mentioned in the four eyed monsters post.)
the trailer and the re-fragments are up on the film's website.
1 comment:
this looks amazing. i think the idea of the multi lens shots usually might scare me, out of the sheer fact of "oh shit this has gotten to be too much." but the shots you have up here look gorgeous. it seems like without knowing much of anything about the movie the idea of seeing all of these things can add so much emotion, so much opportunity for viewer reactions and different opinions and ideas on what's happening and why.
On an almost related note, like two years ago one of my relatives realized i had gotten into photography so they randomly bought me a camera that is the size of a small kids camera (also its plastic...i think) and has the ability when you take one picture to make four shots show up.(i know these in the movie aren't coming from the same camera at the same time but it made me think of it) i just remembered it's at home and ive never used it, though it'd be really kinda cool to check out.
a four-picture series on one print..no focusing, fixed aperture, no shutter-speed. weird and funky but also the opportunity for something you'd never expect to come up. if i say, start taking portraits with this, you'd start to almost realize way more about a person than with a normal candid or focused shot. i don't know...its pretty ok to me.
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