After doing a whole lot of talk, I thought it was time to try and make sense of my concept by producing some draft footage. This thought initially struck me as I was sitting at the end of a tram, looking into the driverless operator’s cab. Staring through the window of the tram, I thought about what I was seeing as a unique perspective, a fragment of reality that only existed in that very moment. This led me to think about what could be seen through the tram’s window, what could be seen in the operator’s cab, what could be seen in the reflections of the screen that separated the cab from me, and how each of these views combined to become what I could see.

In order words, I became more aware of the different layers before me, and how they each contained a space with distinct activity happening within them. It is sensible and intuitive to link these spaces, although they could just as easily be perceived as disconnected events if we chose to perceive them as such. Although our perception guides us to link them to make sense of the bigger picture, the activities within them are unrelated (for instance, someone reading a book in a tram is disregarding the cars driving out on the street). 

I decided to film roughly what I was seeing in a long take. Through this investigation, I found personally that as the take continues, my attention as a viewer clearly favours individual layers and the activity happening within them. They gradually become more and more disconnected – eg: as the tram comes to a stop, so too does the space displayed through the driver’s window, but the activity within this space continues. I felt that I became more aware of the interior of the tram as a distinct space with its own interpretation of other outside spaces. The process of making this, out of pure spontaneity, prompted me to think about how I might approach the framing and composition of the long takes I produce in the future.

Anyway, here’s the footage. Disregard my blatant “uhh maybe I’ll use this for Ways of Making” and notice the activity in each of the different layers, ie: the traffic through the window, the various people and signs exposed in the reflection, etc. and the ways in which these activities interact or do not interact with each other.

Tram from Timothy Palstra on Vimeo.