The first of two sites for the excellent Michael Winterbottom film. On one level Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story is an adaptation of the 18th Century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: Gent. Take a step back, and on another level it’s about an English film crew shooting an adaptation of the 18th Century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: Gent. Take in account many of the actors play versions of themselves, and the whole thing quickly becomes… well, all postmodern ‘n’ shit.
So my boss had brilliant idea: in addition to a “normal” movie promotional site, we would create an imaginary version of my computer desktop. So you can read my email, check out discarded designs in the trash can, etc. We thought it would be self-explanatory, but worried people have actually been calling & emailing Picturehouse that something has gone wrong with their computers and their emails are on the web. So I guess I must have done my job well! It’s a trick to make a fake yet functional Windows desktop using a Mac, believe me. It utilizes practically every single thing I know about Flash.
But necessary to the joke is a “real” movie site. So Picturehouse gets two sites out of me for the price of one. But that’s all good, because I’ve really entertained myself by translating 21st Century internet-ese into jokey 18th Century language. Shhh… here’s the work in progress.
A subject worthy of a college paper: we’ve taken to calling the first a “fake” movie site, complete with actual scare quote gestures made with our fingers. But here’s the poseur: we’ve also found ourselves doing the same with the “real” site. So, don’t they sort of cancel each other out?
