Side/Walk/Shuttle (1992)

Interesting facts

Side/Walk/Shuttle is a 1991 American avant-garde film directed by Ernie Gehr. It shows downtown San Francisco as seen at different angles from a moving elevator.

Production

Gehr made the film shortly after moving to San Francisco. Filming took place over the course of nearly a year at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. He was interested in the topography of the city, and his process as shaped by "reflections on a lifetime of displacement, moving from place to place and haunted by recurring memories of other places [he] once passed through." He chose the location aware of its close proximity to where Eadweard Muybr…

The building had a glass elevator leading to a restaurant at the top, from which Gehr shot the entire film. He began by riding up and down the elevator, making notes and sketches about the angles at which he could position the camera. He filmed between 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to minimize reflections on the elevator glass and shadows cast by surrounding buildings. Gehr filmed without asking permission from the hotel, not expecting to need it.

When Gehr edited the film, he spliced in some of the shots backward. This had the effect of not only flipping the orientation of the image in the film, but reversing the direction of the elevator in the shot and the movement of any objects visible at ground level. The soundtrack was created from cassette recordings Gehr had made in Grand Central Station in New York City, Geneva, Venice, London, and Berlin.

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