Ok, I know I’ve been banging on about this for weeks now but, seriously guys….I’m in a film!!!!!!!! How cool is that?
Those of you who’ve been following my work for a while will already know that in November I applied for a competition run by Stolichnaya Vodka. They were looking for four original and creative people from around the UK to star in “Twenty Four: Four” a short film on creativity, directed by a BAFTA award winning filmmaker. I knew that it would be a great thing to be involved in but I was pretty nervous applying. So I procrastinated……and procrastinated………and procrastinated. Then I forgot about it. Luckily for me the deadline was extended a few days and, after shooting my (extremely grainy) audition video on my Nikon at 2am in my bedroom, I just squeaked in before the deadline.
And I won!!!
BAFTA winner and all around nice guy, Martin Smith, came to Yorkshire to film me shooting a new self portrait, “Raven’s Song.” This is a partner piece to “Like Ghosts from an Enchanter Fleeing.” Both of the images take as their starting point the local legend of Oswy, the son of one of the Saxon Kings of Northumberland. The King’s soothsayers predicted that Oswy would die by drowning on his second birthday. So, in order to protect her son, the Queen brought the child to the highest local peak, Roseberry Topping (shown in my image “The Color Blue”) where there would be no streams or lakes. But fate would not be cheated and, as the Queen slept on a hot summer’s day, the child fell into a hillside spring and drowned. The Queen was heartbroken and died soon afterwards and the two were buried nearby in a place that came to be known as Oswy-near-his-mother-lay (modern day Osmotherley)
I found this a fascinating story. I was reminded of the quote from EM Forster “’The king died and then the queen died'” is a story. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot” and wondered if my images could use a little more “plot.” So I decided to work on some images that tell the Queen’s story after the death of her child.
“Like Ghosts from an Enchanter Fleeing” represents the distorted passing of time after a trauma when events seem slowed down and sped up all the same time. Some things in the picture are moving and some are still. Some are frozen and some are being swept along.
“Raven’s Song” is a picture about the allure of necromancy, the desire to communicate with the spirits of our lost ones and this is the image I shot during filming. I had at least three attempts at shooting the image and was really struggling with getting the right mood and atmosphere. The first day we tried to shoot, we were scuppered by bright blue skies.
Thankfully, on our next attempt, the clouds rolled in and I got the muted yet bright skies I was looking for. We had some challenges with some dirty looking snow still hanging around but I was able to remove it in the editing process.
In order for Martin to get the footage he wanted and for me to get my shots it took what felt like an eternity (but was probably just two or three hours) standing on that rock shivering and then “Raven’s Song” took a further six hours of editing in Photoshop. I’m really pleased with the finished image and am currently working on getting the prints to look just right.
Participating in the film was one of the most interesting and exciting experiences of my career so far and I can’t wait to see the finished film when it is screened on April 27th, in a private event during the London Sundance Film Festival. I consider myself extremely fortunate to be able to spend so much of my time wandering on the moors and attempting to capture some of its magic and I was really honoured to be able to bring Martin and his crew to some of my favourite locations. I’m very excited to see Yorkshire looking at her finest. The trailer for the film is here.
Next stop for me is the big screen at the 02 and the terror of sitting on a panel to answer questions about my work and the filming. If you’d like to attend the premiere and see the film first, Stoli have currently got 25 pairs of tickets up for grabs on their Facebook page. You can enter up until April 16th and you can also read about the other three stars of the film, all of whom have fascinating stories to tell.
***UPDATED – Click here to see the full film of Twenty Four: Four on the videos section of my website