I went to the Tate Modern and the theme that was being covered throughout its exhibition was voyeurism. The one thing that really stood out to me was a technique in a film called ‘Eye/Machine’ which utilized two screens simultaneously playing various footage. This isn’t exactly unheard of and i’m not quite sure if i’m a fan of it or not. A negative I find with it is the same as when subtitles are used in films. Now, it’s not that I don’t like subtitles, my point is that it takes your eye away from something you are supposed to be looking at. So in some circumstances such as a quick-cutting part of a film, you might miss something of importance. The same could be said for the use of multiple screens.
However, it can be useful for bringing alternate perspectives to the piece which if used cleverly can be really effective. Probably the most logical uses i’ve seen it used for is in a music video. Music videos usually cut between a narrative and the band members playing the song. In the video to ‘Everything went black’ by The Black Dahlia Murder they tell a comic-strip style story and in each section of the ‘comic’ are different videos. This allows there to be unusually slower shots without reducing the pace of the video because there is still so much happening on the screen at one time. The genius behind this in a music video is due to the way it can allow you to see the narrative and the musicians playing at the same time.
The video itself isn’t great because the band don’t take themselves completely seriously but the use of multiple shots on screen at one time works really well.
Level 3 