’Pearl’ by Morgan Beringer Studio, 2018.
Released today via Vimeo On Demand: www.vimeo.com/ondemand/pearl4
A short abstract film.
1920x1080 HD video (Original in UHD). 03:44 duration. Intended for installation on a wall mounted flat screen or projected within a dark space. Suggested home viewing on wall mounted television or coffee table tablet. Please do not distribute or screen in a public setting.
Some thoughts on Pearl:
One of Pearl’s larger themes, and a theme present in many of my videos, revolves around the impulse to define or draw precise boundaries and the inherent problems that appear when following such pursuits.
One often divides the world into dualities or opposites with which we might judge or navigate our lives. Good vs bad, light vs dark, etc. That said, rather than define one’s world they provide the spectrum for expression, the scale for measurement, as our judgments upon actual events do not take the form of absolutes but land somewhere within this spectrum between opposites. These further details of description or judgement might also be described in binary in the form of sequences of opposite values.
I’ve found the process of looking at the space between these opposites to be of great value in that by detailing this ‘middle ground’ one is able to understand, draw, or conceptualise the connections between what are often considered to be unrelated, opposing, or ‘incorrect’ ideas. This leads to both feelings of understanding, connection, and the inspiration to continue that exploration.
In Pearl we have the image of a scallop. It is in itself an animal whose form consists of a central ‘body,’ split by two symmetrical protective casings. While it is but one animal, its world is perceived as everything that exists between these two shells, where its mouth is, where its hunger originates.
I wanted to play upon the convention in video of ‘mirroring’ images for the purpose of creating aesthetic intrigue. This simple form of abstraction is used often in advertising, music video, etc. I wanted to give its use a more justified purpose in the case of Pearl, to make the structure serve more of a conceptual if not narrative purpose. Maybe also a reduction of film narrative into this sequences of revelations, events and their outcomes, cause and effect, titles to credits, dark to light, and so on…
While the image of the scallop is dancing in and out of visibility, light and dark, the overall structure of the screen is split down the middle, akin to the form of a scallop. It gradually opens to reveal another, not quite identical, but still dancing scallop, moving between light and dark. This process then accelerates as the video splits in upon itself time after time until we are left with no structural substance and the jump is made to the idea of something ‘between.’ In this case, white light is used to express this unknown/transcendent/absolute end.