Mr. Silleck described ''To Be Alive!'' as a simple film that sought to convey the joy of life, and he said the multiscreen projection, while not a new technique, inspired the Canadian filmmakers who went on to create Imax films, the big-screen shows that seem to bring the audience into the film. [Ref: Francis Thompson, 95, Whose Films Inspired Imax, New York Times, 2003]
In the center panel, a young man muses on the seashore where mermaids beckon, then he walks through the woods, accompanies by Titania's fairy brood. He's then shown as a grown man, walking a city street where temptation and dissolution teem. Those images from his youth keep him away from sin. Then, alone in a bed sit, we see him old, with a bottle, despair, and fading memories. The fairies try a last visit. The words of Aldrich's poem appear above and below the triptych
The screen was built according to the original specifications, with the center 120 degrees curved and the 13 degrees on each side flat. Larger screens didn't usually need to have the sides flattened. Over the years, until the advent of the Super Cinerama theatre design, a great many variations in screen installation were used in order to accommodate architectural features in each theatre conversion.
[Ref: Widescreen Museum, Martin Hart, 1996-2010]
Difficulties in mounting a full screening of Napoleon with three simultaneous projectors mean that a true Polyvision presentation is rarely seen, and the last documented screening of Polyvision were the December 2004 Royal Festival Hall and December 2009 Cité de la Musique screenings of Napoleon.
Sub Rosa presented Legs with the video contingent of Diesel's "Only The Brave" fragrance launch. They knew they wanted more than one film, but were open to exploring exactly how many films and how they would function together. The themes Legs needed to include were "Heart", "Mind" and "Nerve". Legs pitched them a "film triptych" concept featuring individual films for each theme. The idea was create a fourth experience when watching all of the films at once.
Questions and Answers with Legs
How do you feel about the three films as the individual clips? How did you come up with the idea to have all three play at once tell a story together? Was this always the main idea?
Although all the films stand alone in their own way, the real magic appears when the films are played as a triptych. The triptych was always the main idea and we knew that the Heart and Nerve stories would serve as visual punctuation for what the center Mind piece was saying. It made a lot of sense to us that the Mind piece would be the conduit and narrate the whole piece, while Nerve and Heart served more as visual poems.
Why did you want to have all three play at once?
It made sense for the three themes of the campaign and was a new and challenging thing for us in terms of writing, shooting and editing. Plus we were excited to see if we could pull it off as nicely as our boards looked.
Did you have any film references for the spots? Or anything else that inspired or influenced you?
A ton of influences are at play here. Overall, there is a Lynchy feel. But we were really inspired by Jurgen Leth's "The Perfect Human" for the Mind piece as well as the art films of Stan Brakhage. The Nerve piece was inspired by David Lynch's "Lost Highway", Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train" as well as Sam Raimi and Dario Argento's horror cinematography techniques. That one was a lot of fun to research. The Heart story was influenced by Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" and the trippy graveyard scene in "Easy Rider".
What was the feel/experience you were going for?
Since we were dealing with the Mind, we wanted to try to push it as far as we could and get as strange and psychadelic and visceral as we possibly could. We wanted this thing to be funny and strange enough for people to lose themselves a bit and get in to it and perhaps find deeper meaning.....and see all the interrelations in a vivid way.
Tell me about the production process of making this project a reality? It must have been challenging, yes?
Our concept was very ambitious. We shot two cameras on each day of shooting and really just worked as a team to be as mobile and efficient as possible so we ended up getting a lot to work with. We also were blessed with an incredibly dedicated editor, Paul Snyder at Lost Planet, who really went above and beyond to make this thing work.
How many days was the shoot? How long was it in post in order to make the spots match up?
We shot 3 proper crew days and 2 bare bones pick-ups days. The post was about 13 insanely long days.
Anything I should know?
Geremy composed all the music. Paul Snyder is the editor of the universe. And Legs is available for birthdays, weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.
In this work two monitors are placed at head height, so that the performers stare out directly at the viewer. Two professional actors recite the same series of one hundred phrases, beginning in a flat tone but becoming more emotional. Because they are talking at different speeds, the actors fall out of step with each other, and the continuously looped videos become out of sequence. Many of the statements imply moral judgements which, through repetition, seem increasingly threatening.
Though this may not be what I was ultimately aiming for, content wise. I like the use of having two monitors instead of one and would definitely be something I would be interested in achieving for displaying my FMP.[Ref: From The Display Caption, 2008]
