CREATIVE MEDIA PRACTICE: THE TRIPTYCH

The first of the concepts we were introduced to in Creative Media Practice was triptych. Triptych is the exploration of split screen presentation in film. The most common way of presenting or viewing film and movie is in one standard screen frame. With triptych, there is a exploration of the 'multi screen' thought process. This arguably allows for more expression and allows the viewer to become more submersed in the film.

Triptychs as a concept has been around since early paintings. They were mostly used in Catholic Churches as decorations for altars, deciptating scenes from the Bible, such as the one here:

There are many advantages to using triptychs. They can offer different view points on one situtation at one time - or they can show three completely different images which all convey the same message. It's an interesting and complex way of getting the artists intended message across to their audience.

Myself, Ian Gardner and Josie Webster all set about exploring this format in our own way in the form of a short film. At first, I think the initial feeling of possibility overwhelmed us when it came to discussing our initial idea's. Our brain storming session went from our film being an exploration of a location in Liverpool (mainly Bold Street) to a complex story about two flatmates who mistake the other person for a burglar. Both this idea's failed on the fact that they were too complicated and large to film in our production time bracket. What we instead lumped for was a simple idea of showing the process of someone waking up and going to University:

"In The Morning": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w431iv23FsA

Here we played with the simple idea of showing one narrative through many different perspectives. One of the best examples of how we did this was in the bathroom scene in which one screen you see the protagonist washing his hands and then his teeth, whilst the other one is a close up on him preparing the tooth brush and the other one is him switching on the taps. Two of the screens were giving context to the other at one point which I found an interesting notion. Another aspect I liked was the idea of timing the screens to come into time with the beat of the song - something which I felt made the video more exciting visually.