Multiple SIDosis

Former vaudevillian and amateur filmmaker Sid Laverents wrote, directed and starred in Multiple SIDosis, a short film from 1970 that features a dozen Split Screens of him playing a variety of musical instruments simultaneously. Each of Laverents's musicians displays a different character with its own costume and hairstyle as they unite to perform the song "Nola," a novelty ragtime number popularized in the 1920s. Coupling his own ingratiating persona, painstaking in-camera multiple exposures and complex overdubbing, Laverents created a film that may be amateur but not amateurish.

Multiple SIDosis was added to the National Film Registry in 2000.

Tropes used in Multiple SIDosis include:
  • Film within a Film: There is another short film entitled "Multiple Sidosis" completely embedded within the larger film, which is made in the course of the outer film.
  • Hollywood Giftwrap: Averted. The gifts under the tree all appear to be conventionally wrapped, and Sid tears the wrapping off his biggest gift.
  • Music Video
  • Name's the Same: That "SNL" at the beginning isn't for Saturday Night Live.
  • Other Common Music Video Concepts: Even though he lacks an actual studio, this is very much an "In The Studio" video.
  • Overcrank: The audio version is done to create pair of Alvin and the Chipmunks-style backing vocals at one point.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Sid frequently changes his "look" when there are multiple similar instances of him on the screen, by combing his hair differently, wearing glasses, or putting on a hat. (Or Mickey Mouse ears and whiskers.)
  • Performance Video
  • Self-Backing Instrumentalist and Vocalist: Sid plays all the instruments and sings all the vocal parts.
  • Short Film: Including the credits at the start, it's less than nine and a half minutes long.
  • Split Screen: Up to a dozen separate images at one time appear on the screen; the method involved appears very simple and crude, being basically multiple exposures with masks around each individual shot.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: Everything about this short film practically screams "1970".


This page needs more trope entries. You can help this wiki by adding more entries or expanding current ones.

    This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.