it began with a photographic record of activity, during daylight hours, on the broadwalk, the main thoroughfare in London's Regent's Park. The raw footage was shot using a combination of real-time, time-lapse and long exposure. In composing the final work, Raban selectively re-filmed this material from projection at varying speeds and extended the screen time five-fold, further abstracting the image from real time and real-life.
Re-photography alters the speed, exposure levels and framing of the image, and the view become dreamlike and ghostly. occasionaly, raban shoots directly into the gate of the projector and the screen is flooded with white light. the action of the rotating shutter, the mechanism that provides the illusion of cinematic movement, is clearly visibvle at this point.
The sound of footsteps(actually recorded later) were then processed by tape manipulations to build up phase and delay shifts, similarly transforming the commonplace into the ethereal.
"By using freeze frames, bleached images, under-exposure and inclusion of the frame line, the film asserts both its physical and illusionistic realities." (W.R.)
