See the smallest film in the world, on the biggest TV in the world.

This has been popping up on the internet anyway, so I thought I might as well share it with my three devoted readers here on the website... News of my tiny new film below the photo... Cheers!

The Playhouse Project lights up Liberty Hall in Dublin

"The Playhouse Project in Dublin has been showing short animations for the past two weeks, using two sides of Liberty Hall – the tallest building in Dublin - as an immense 16-story television screen.

Now Tod & Viv, a two and a half minute animated movie by Irish novelist Julian Gough, will premiere on Dublin’s Liberty Hall late Friday night.

Says Julian Gough, “It’s a very low resolution TV screen – each window is a pixel, so it’s only 10 pixels by 16 on each side. So very strong, simple images show up well. People have done some great stuff, mostly a single idea, often a single image, moving or repeating, and a bit of music as a soundtrack. Someone did Space Invaders, someone did static… But I thought it would be interesting to be madly ambitious, and make an entire feature film, with love and death and murder and forgiveness… I wanted to see if you could make a film with a bit of a narrative. A story that was strong & simple enough to work on this amazing screen, that was so primitive and high-tech at the same time. And a film that was written for Liberty Hall, that used the fact that the screen was also a building in Dublin. And could you pack it all into in a couple of minutes?”

The result is Tod & Viv, a-two-and-a-half minute murder mystery/ghost story/drama that starts with the words “Tod & Viv live in a big house…” as two windows light up on Liberty Hall. It wouldn’t be giving anything away to say that Tod & Viv are trapped in a hellish relationship. And, as Flann O’Brien said, (in the original title for The Third Policeman), “Hell goes round and round…”

“You could loop the film, and they’d be killing each other forever,” says Julian Gough. “I wrote it as a loop, because I couldn’t be sure people would catch the start of it, walking along the Quays, or over O’Connell Bridge. This way, they’d get the whole story even if they only started watching halfway through. But you wouldn’t want to watch it more than twice, it would wreck your head pretty quickly. It’s all death, nightmares, and slamming doors.”

The project is high-tech: 100,000 low energy LED lights light up 330 windows. Inspired by the amazing, seminal Blinkenlights installation in Berlin, Playhouse has gone one, or even two, better, and added colour, and sound.  But the animation in Tod & Viv is minimal in the extreme. “Yeah, Tod is a single pixel. And Viv is also a single pixel. Two pixels in love. It doesn’t get more minimal than that. My favourite bit is where Tod takes off his clothes to have a bath. A single window turns from white to pink… Most of the effort went into the soundtrack, which will go out simultaneously on the radio in the area around the building, 94.3FM. I had kids pounding up and down five flights of stairs in our apartment in Berlin to get the footsteps, and slamming doors. Luckily, our upstairs neighbour is a professional actress, Elisa Gelewski, who’s done a lot of TV and theatre in Germany. So she popped downstairs, we put on a pot of coffee, and she recorded the only line of female dialogue. So the total cost of the film – apart from everyone’s time – was a pot of good coffee. Berlin is a bit like Sesame Street, if you need someone to help you with a film or anything else, you just lean out the window and shout.”

Tod & Viv has its world premiere late on Friday night, half an hour after midnight, and is best seen while listening to the soundtrack, broadcast on 94.3FM in the vicinity of the building. It can be watched live on the internet at here at justin.tv. A film of the performance, taken from across the river, will be available later on the internet. You can check out more details here."

Comments

[Fanning Sessions]

Excellent, will be in Dublin tonight, might manage to make it in for this, never been to a premiere before!

[Julian Gough]

Really, nothing exciting will happen! It's just a little experimental thing, and there won't be any fuss or fun, they've just scheduled to play it at half past midnight. So, though it is technically a premiere, it's a premiere as minimal as the film - even I won't be there (too broke, busy, and in the wrong country), and I made it! The vast majority of the people watching won't even know it's a premiere. There won't be so much as a single tray of finger-food, so you'll have to bring any sense of occasion with you in your heart. I do like the sound track, though. If you can hear that at the same time, it might have a nice spooky effect, with the building looming up...

I have no idea if it'll work, if it'll be a satisfying 2 minutes for someone watching the actual building, and listening, in real time, so I'm really nervous. There's been no time for a demo on the building, we've just run it on a screen. (The story runs around the roof as text for people that can't hear the soundtrack on the radio, but it's a better effect with the radio, and I've no idea how many people will have/bring a radio...)

Actually, here's two useful tips if you do decide to see it: Bring a transistor radio! 94.3 FM, not a strong signal I gather, but you can pick it up within sight of the building. And stand in a place where you can see the two active sides of Liberty Hall.

The project itself (the building, the lights) is amazing, though, and worth a look. But I wouldn't want you to go just for my tiny, ultra-minimal, very short film, it's sweet but not worth a special trip into the Inferno of Dublin.

-Julian