Cinema is implicitly architectural. Scenes play out in space and these narrative zones are constructed sets or locations that have been carefully extracted from everyday life, temporarily ported over into fiction. Films like Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), problematize the uneasy relationship between edifice and gaze by foregrounding architecture; instead of serving as a backdrop it becomes a protagonist, or at least a facilitator of narrative. In 1983 Roger Ebert described viewing Rear Window as "not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors" and there is an entire lineage of voyeurism and architecture obsessed films. One such project that sits outside conventional storytelling is HBO Voyeur, a 2007 branding initiative by HBO.

Pictured above is the short film at the heart of HBO Voyeur. Directed by Jake Scott, the film uses an apartment building as a vehicle to tell eight intertwined stories. Providing an impossible view into the building, the film mimics the logic of an architectural cross section to cut away the exterior facade and offer a view of pure event - one that is unobstructed by bricks and mortar. The film extends the logic of Rear Window or even some the brilliant CGI faux-camerawork of David Fincher's Panic Room (2002) and reads the structural system of a building as a device for framing stories. It is hard to not get drawn into the interlinked lives within this building - as they play out across hallways, up and down the central stairwell and even through floor plates.

In 2007 Dexigner did a brief feature on HBO Voyeur in which executive producer Michael Pardee discussed the making of the film:

This project required creating a cross-section of an apartment building which consisted of four floors and contained eight apartments. Each apartment included two rooms, each floor consisted of two apartments and one hallway down the middle. Instead of undertaking the seemingly impossible task of shooting all four floors at the same time, one floor was re-dressed four times, then the shots were stacked on top of one another in post. Integral to the success of the production was a counter on set that enabled certain "cues" to be performed. For example, when one character is cued to run up the stairs from one level to the next, he disappears at the top of the stairs at the 42nd second mark on the level one set, then he appears at the bottom of the stairs at the 43rd second mark on the level two set. This kind of synchronicity created the fluid movement that was required. The performance on each set was well timed and choreographed, but there was still a need to slip and retime each apartment to hit key sync points accurately to the frame.

So the entire enterprise is about time code syncronization - this is four short films, not just one.

[photo: Ivan Corsa]

To discuss HBO Voyeur just as a film project is a bit misleading. The film was part of a broader marketing campaign that included the distribution of print material and a related series of projection-parties in New York City, an interactive website and social media cross-promotion. The entire initiative was undertaken to reinforce HBO's brand as "the world's preeminent storytellers" and the campaign was awarded the Cannes Lions Promo Grand Prix in 2008. If you're interested in more information about HBO Voyeur be sure to check out the wikipedia entry on the project. I also found this brief video that documents the entire marketing campaign. [via Francis Theberge]