This film is a continuous, “real time” tracking shot of a stream bed. The length of the track was ten yards. The camera was suspended in a motorized carriage running on steel cables three feet above the water surface. The camera pointed vertically downwards recording the contours of the stream bed and the flow of water along its course. The sound of the water was recorded synchronously from the moving carriage.
The “drama” in this film comes from the topography of the stream and not from the camera motion or from the editing. Throughout the unedited length of the film the camera tracks along a straight line at an absolutely regular speed. In contrast the stream runs fast and slow, cascading over boulders and swirling turbulently from left to right.
I think of the straight line formed by the tracking device as a metaphor for technology. However, the straight line does not dominate the landscape like a highway or a row of buildings; in this model the straight line is used as a means to articulate the complexity of nature.