Room service: a short experimental film (5mins 30 sec) scripted and directed by Bringas that explores the notion of the hotel room as a virtual space where identities fluctuate

A short experimental film (5mins 30 sec) scripted and directed by Bringas that explores the notion of the hotel room as a virtual space where identities fluctuate. Commissioned as part of Animate! (a competitive scheme supported by the Arts Council of England and Channel Four), Room Service was produced on a £25K budget to both broadcast and theatrical specifications, over a period of 6 months. It is distributed by Lux, was screened on Channel Four (2001) and Television Española (2004 and 2006), and has been touring experimental film festivals since 2002 – Germany (Stuttgart, 2003), France (Amiens, Brest, Créteil), Brazil (Anima Mundi). It features in ‘The Animate! Book: Rethinking Animation’ edited by Benjamin Cook and Gary Thomas, 2006 . ‘Room Service’ won the Best Experimental Film award at Imaginaria International Film Festival, Italy, 2005. The film is structured as a narrative metamorphosis where a chambermaid ‘transforms’ into a guest (who is a prostitute), and the prostitute ‘transforms’ into a chambermaid. Through these parallel transformations, the film questions clichéd definitions of female identity. The film makes use of CGI to create ambivalence of representation rather than illusionism, moving away from surface realism. Extensive research went into technical experimentation with 3D motion tracking software that was then under development. The technology was tested and operated by Bringas, who led a team of 6 digital artists to assist in the various digital processes. The surface of each polygon of the virtual environment was given a moving texture that made the virtual object feel like animated paint. The potential of the technology for detail and emulating photographic accuracy was consciously discarded, apart from incidental mirror surfaces, which render the painterly environment appropriately ambivalent. This mix of 2D and 3D elements helped create a world that could foreground its own artificiality, which was integral to the concept of the film.