A lot of thoughts may run through the minds of Atlanta drivers as they sit in traffic on the downtown connector, but it’s safe to guess that admiration for the boundary-breaking aspects of experimental filmmaking isn’t typically one of them.
That may change this week as Atlanta director Felipe Barral unveils his new work “Pixel,” a film which was specifically created for Atlanta commuters to watch in a series of short episodes on a digital billboard that faces the interstate.
“I’ve been looking at that particular billboard for so many years,” said Barral about the screen on the side of the W Hotel in downtown Atlanta. It’s one of the most prominent in the city, visible to motorists on southbound I-75/85 between the North Avenue and Williams Street exits, and seen by an estimated 250,000 drivers a day.
In creating the film, Barral faced some serious challenges: There could be no sound or dialogue and the film had to be divided into 10-second episodes to fit within the billboard’s regular rotation of advertisements. And per mandates of the Department of Transportation, the images can’t disrupt distract drivers so motion has to be limited to the first or last two seconds of each 10-second clip.
Fortunately, Barral is an artist who loves challenges, and the limitations just fueled his creativity. Instead of actors, Barral chose to use dancers, including John Welker of the Atlanta Ballet, to tell his story because he said they best know how to express emotion and create narrative without sound. “Pixel” tells the story of a young woman who receives a mysterious email from her deceased father, which leads to a series of intriguing discoveries.
Each 10-second episode of "Pixel" will screen multiple times over the course of two weeks, taking 26 weeks to show all 13 episodes. Viewers can also follow each new episode after its billboard premiere on the project's website at www.watlantadowntown.com/pixel.
Barral takes particular pleasure in creating a film for a space typically reserved for advertisements.
“It’s using a medium, a commercial space, that’s not designed for screening films,” he said. “We’re not selling you anything. We’re sharing an idea with you. We’re sharing beauty.”
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