Destinies / Signals
Experimental short - running time: 8 minutes 17 seconds
Now available for cinema display.
Synopsis:
A journey of wonder.
An experiential, experimental ride.
Closeness perceived in the infinite.
Constant subtle mutations of form.
Imagined destinations.
Credits:
Peter Urpeth - Director / Producer
Music - Makeshift ‘Boot Battery’ from the album ‘Wrappers’ (2020)
Full details and a full online preview of the full film are available at FilmFreeway here
About the film:
I am interested in creating films that emerge from generative editorial processes applied to original footage.
The original footage for this film began as a 25-second clip of a broken passenger digital information display board on a train running on the Liverpool Street to Southend line in Essex, England. Instead of the next station stop info, the board displayed only flickering and disjointed lines, random numbers and letters.
The train that night was full of weary travellers. The night was very dark, and the train was being buffeted by heavy rain and high winds.
The randomness of the forms generated by the display was fascinating to me, especially in the context, and the display was a fire to the imagination, compelling in its insistence to communicate.
What was the purpose of this communication? Was it truly working, and was this flow of symbols telling us our true destination? Was I the only one to realise what was unfolding?
Other destinies. Perceptions of closeness. Signals.
How readily, seeing the flickering of the broken display, I saw form and narrative emerging, like a child looking into the embers of a fire, but without losing the menace of the night, the material scene of the encounter.
To make this film, I designed a sequence of highly improvisational digital edit transformations controlling changes in form, edges, colour, movement, and time to create a sense of journeying.
I applied that sequence to the original footage of the display board and watched it unfold.
I created a soundtrack from raw audio materials supplied to me by members of my band, Makeshift, and used similar transformative processes in terms of sound manipulation. The duration and evolution of the music defined the parameters of the film, its duration. The music is the material reality of the journey; it shapes it, limits it, defines the possible.
The film is designed to be an immersive sensory journey with the viewer fixed in the middle of the frame as the heart of the form moves closer, transforming, revealing, and surprising us.
I hope there is wonderment and joy in how we search for and find narratives in random process encounters.
[In all creative endeavours, I reject AI in all its forms. The process for this film was crafted in digital editing software, trial and error, evolution of ideas, improvisation and chance.]