Derick Liu
IDC4001H
MTBH

If I were to judge Timescapes as a film, I wouldn’t be able to give it a passing grade. Don’t get me wrong, the information presented in the short is very interesting and eye-opening. The problem is how it was presented. The first, most obvious problem is in regards to the three screens.

It’s a great idea to have three different but related images play out at once, but it seems as if they didn’t take the size of the screening room into consideration. The only way for it to have worked is if everyone was sitting at least ten feet away from the screen. everyone in the front and second row might as well have been sitting in the front seating section of an IMAX theater considering how much our heads had to turn back and forth. The good thing is that it can be easily fixed.

The main issue with the short is its presentation. It seems as if the creators were trying to create a short documentary to explain how New York City has changed and diversified. That would have been great, but the failed to achieve that; viewing Timescapes made me feel like i was back in the classroom with a professor who only knows how to lecture. Rather than being drawn into the story being told by the narrator, it felt like he was talking at me – not to me, but at me. The main reason this was the case, is that the narrator doesn’t seem interested in the information he is presenting. It sounded as though he was just reading off the script in a monotone voice. As such it just felt like I was watching a Power Point lecture that was prerecorded and presented to the class by a professor who didn’t really want to stand up and speak that day.

The final two issues I had with Timescapes are in regards to the intermittent quotes that seemed to appear randomly. Halfway through the viewing, the quotes suddenly started appearing on the two side screens, and a new voice would pop up to read them. The main problem I had with them is, “why were they there?” The majority of the quotes were only vaguely related to the information that was just presented by the narrator; it felt like I was missing a piece of information that would solidify the link between the quote and the narrator’s speaking. Finally, who were the people reading the quotes? Were they important people with extensive knowledge on that specific topic? If they were why not just interview them and put that in the film? The quotes were a minor part, but they raised a lot of questions, for me.

At the end of the day, i can’t say that Timescapes succeeded in being a good and proper film/documentary. However, if I were to judge it as a lecture, it would receive a much better mark. If someone were to go watch Timescapes they had best get it in their heads that it isn’t an interesting documentary but an informative speech on an interesting topic, or else they might just be disappointed.