Desert Palms

Desert Palms is a single-location immersive stereoscopic 180° short film set inside a hospital ER waiting room across the street from a large music festival. The film follows a throng of injured characters as they get increasingly more mad about having to wait to be seen by an extremely slow and overwhelmed ER facility. The film is an existential comedy and a slice of life at its most hilariously downtrodden.

Desert Palms grew out of a desire to explore the capabilities of immersive filmmaking from a multi-story perspective where we rely on volumetric storytelling to capture simultaneous and parallel stories within the same frame. Pulling inspiration from American 1970s auteur Robert Altman, with his use of multi-channel audio to weave together multiple stories within the same shot, I was interested in what a film of Altman’s would look like if you added the element of three dimensional immersive space staged in a kind of neo modernist spin on classical art and frescos of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Instead of expanding the visual universe outward, the story is set in a thoroughly anti-picturesque locale, an emergency room waiting room. We are forced to live in this environment in a single, long take as various slices of life unfold in front of us. We are simply viewers plopped into the middle part (and most frustrated part) of each character’s story. Outside these walls, privilege, class and race can determine one’s path and opportunities in life, but here within the ER, all walks of life are treated equally and with the same urgency and care. Within this one small compact space, we can see an entire cross-section of the human spectrum and we explore this world through the use of layered spatial audio and meticulous staging to create a multi- dimensional and sensory tapestry of humanity, with a bit of humour.

PRODUCTION 1:
World Without End, LLC - John Gerard, Tristan Seniuk, Jono Hill
1401 21st St, Ste R
95811 Sacramento, CA, United States of America
Tel: +1 2063726148
E-mail: team@worldwithoutend.studio
Web: http://worldwithoutend.studio
Social Media: @worldwithoutend.studio - Instagram

PRODUCTION 2:
Produced Productions - John Gerard
701 4th Ave
07712 Asbury Park, NJ, United States of America
Tel: +1 609-462-1836
E-mail: john@producedproductions.com
Web: http://www.producedproductions.com
Social Media: @johnproduced - Instagram, John Gerard - LinkedIn

WORLD SALES:
World Without End, LLC - Tristan Seniuk
1401 21st St, Ste R
95811 Sacramento, CA, United States of America
Tel: +1 206) 372-6148
E-mail: tristan@worldwithoutend.studio
Web: http://worldwithoutend.studio
Social Media: @worldwithoutend.studio - Instagram

PRESS OFFICE:
Tristan Seniuk - World Without End, LLC
Tel: +1 (206) 372-6148
E-mail: tristan@worldwithoutend.studio