"In 1972-73, David Hall and Tony Sinden collaborated on a series of films designed to explore the
assumption shaping conventional film-making and the expectations underlying conventional filmviewing.
Each of the resulting five films involves a specific consideration of the properties of the
medium (e.g., framing, or deep space, or synchronous sound, etc) and they are perhaps best
considered as a closely related group which, as a whole, invokes the various aspects of
mainstream cinema to challenge the entire signifying system of narrative film!.
Deke Dusinberre for the Arts Council of Great Britain, 1974.

"Actor"
An actor, deliberately "acting!, converses by telephone with an unseen and unheard person. His
monologue attempts to draw the audience across the time barrier between the shooting of the film
and its viewing, gradually implying that it is the audience with whom he is conversing. Disruptions
of conventional editing techniques reinforce this implication, and ultimately pose questions about
the accepted notions of temporal and spatial continuity.

"Between"
This film attempts to unite the process of filming and viewing. The filming location and viewing
location are similar: a viewing theatre. The initial camera image and the principle viewing are
identical: a rectangular patch of light. The camera then moves through the theatre space, re-filming
the projected beam and its reflection, whilst the viewer – stationary – becomes aware of the
physical space of the theatre as defined by the beam of light. Successive generations of printing of
this basic image leads to disintegration and a re-flattening of the initial sense of deep space.

"Edge"
A "western! in which the classic situation of an impending gunfight is transformed from that
conventional confrontation into a confrontation with audience expectation as camera action begins
to predominate. The frustration of expectation redirects audience attention to the fundamental
significance of composition.

"This Surface"
This film purposefully utilizes a traditionally seductive theatrical image at the outset which is
subsequently redefined in the concrete terms of projection and screen. A man is seen dancing up
and down in a pub with a pint of beer on his head. This is followed by a series of long traveling
shots along Brighton seafront and a fixed shot of a waxworks tableau. The imagery and illusion of
spatial depth are thus challenged in alternative terms which identify the events as a series of
projected images on the physical surface of the screen.

"View"
This single-take film, using a fixed camera, explores a shift in perception from the screen surface
as a physical area to the illusion of three dimensions in a filmed image. A partial view of a room is
slowly revealed, and hints of colour are introduced eventually transforming the 'flatness' of the
initial monochrome view into the more illusory image of the actual space recorded.