Open4 is built from the transitional footage in archival gay adult media from the 1980s to the mid 00s. That range is the VHS era, and tape is what made this material privately accessible before internet distribution. What survives from it are shots of environments, empty rooms, or shots of objects. These are the places the era happened in, recorded incidentally, usually as transitions or setting-establishing shots. In the film, these shots are looped and prolonged, discarding shots with people in it. This transforms the footage into ambient, liminal environments instead of being a film to focus on. It holds the silences, anticipations, disappearances, and longing of queer life and queer temporality.