Doc Alliance: My Street Films

Almost a year has passed since the installation of the illustrations around Edinburgh, most of them have been taken down and the remaining one sits with a local weather beaten face.
This week my film Our Nations Sons has been included as a part of  the event of the week over at Doc Alliance. The event is a stream of  10 films which made up the My Street Films Programme at Open City Doc Film Festival 2012.
The website describes the event as;

Mystreet is an online, user-generated film channel created by Open City Docs, inviting people from across the globe to tell their story through film. MyStreet stories are where you are, who you are and how you live… your place on the map. Anyone can upload their film from anywhere in the world.

 

My film can be viewed at the Doc Alliance at the link below;

Our Nations Sons 

However I would recommend their stream of  Jorgen Leth’s The Perfect Human which can be watched for only 50 pence!

Holland Doc24

http://www.hollanddoc.nl/projecten/makers-van-morgen/nieuws/breaking-ground-6-oktober.html

My short film A Place Just On The Map will be broadcasted on Holland Doc 24 on the 3rd October and will be screened at Two Short Nights film festival (29th Nov).

Scottish Wildlife Trust

Recently I created short films for Scottish Wildlife Trusts viral campaign to raise awareness and save the red squirrel!  This gave me the opportunity to work with its Ambassadors, Simon King, Stephen Jardine and Mark Beaumont to create short clips for internet distrubution. All filming was recorded at SWT’s members day, where its members were encouraged to get involved.  The day was insightful about the hard work that the trust does and its speakers also brought plenty of life to the event.

Below are my films to promote the campaign.
To find out more and to help save the red squirrel by joining the Scottish Wildlife Trust, visit:
scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/news/the-last-red-squirrel-in-scotland/

Scottish Wildlife Trust
Highlights from the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s 2012 National Members’ Day, held in Edinburgh.

The day held in Edinburgh in September 2012, saw wildlife filmmaker Simon King together with a number of special guests, inspire a bumper crowd of 300 members about the wonders of Scotland’s wildlife. Stephen Jardine interviewed Simon King and chaired the People’s Postcode Lottery Question Time panel, where experts and enthusiasts including Simon King, adventurer Mark Beaumont and the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Jonny Hughes discussed contentious issues raised by the audience, including wind farms, culling badgers, careers in conservation and the reintroduction of the European lynx.

Stephen Jardine
Stephen Jardine, broadcaster and Scottish Wildlife Trust Ambassador, has pledged his support to Red Squirrel Week. The UK’s only native squirrel is under threat from the grey squirrel, imported from America, as well as the deadly squirrel pox virus.

Mark Beaumont
Mark Beaumont, international adventurer and Scottish Wildlife Trust Ambassador, has pledged his support to Red Squirrel Week. The UK’s only native squirrel is under threat from the grey squirrel, imported from America, as well as the deadly squirrel pox virus.

Simon King, OBE
Simon King OBE, wildlife film-maker and President of The Wildlife Trusts has pledged his support to Red Squirrel Week. The UK’s only native squirrel is under threat from the grey squirrel, imported from America, as well as the deadly squirrel pox virus.

A Place Just On The Map [Teaser]

On a wild lonely shore on the far north of Scotland stands ‘Dounreay’. Operating since the 1950′s as a nuclear research experiment, the plant is now defunct and in the process of being decommissioned. Disposing of nuclear waste located in underground vaults has created anxiety for Dounreay’s neighbours, a traditional Scottish crofting family. A Place Just On The Map focuses on Deirdre, the mother of the family, who has worked on the croft for all her life and gives an insight into how the expansion of the site has put stress on herself and her livestock. I was also interested in how the development of the nuclear waste pits would affect the family tradition of crofting, possibly influencing the next generation to not continue working on the family croft.

I filmed the family for three days after hearing about them through the organisation, Planning Democracy.   Filming took place during the hectic lambing season since then I have been editing. Tonight BBC Scotland has a short segment on the construction of the vaults, which included a brief interview with Deirdre.  I thought the segment gave Deirdre a small amount of time to put across her views on the development and how it has  affected the near by community, but at least it made us aware of her side of the story. During my time up north I learnt that the Buldoo community are not nagging anti-nuclear campaigners but are residents who were not expecting to live next door to Scotland’s largest construction site.  Its understandable that this would create stress to anyone never mind the strain it has on their pregnant sheep.

A Place Just On The Map which is currently not available to view on the internet will be screened in the near future.
If anyone is interested in viewing the film please contact.

Open City Docs Film Festival

My Street Films Competition asks film makers to give us an insight into their area. The films can be selected through a large worldwide map where thumbnails sprout across it. Quite an interesting design that gives us the ability to spy on where the majority of film makers live. The competition is open to anyone of all ability. This allows an honest insight into the country – rather than a constant feed of Hovis Adverts.

Out of all the submissions world wide there has been ten selected to be screened at Open City Doc Fest in London - I’m very grateful that one of them is my own. Documentary film maker Marc Issacs is one of the members on the jury board. He is a good choice for the competition as his films also have a large emphases of the importance of space. Weither that is the confinement of a train carriage or The Lift.  The locations used are on public grounds where his subjects are caught during their routine. This gives the viewer a taste of how multi-cultured Britain is without ever changing location. His work is stripped back and not  sugar coated with technical jazz hands to distract. (Something i feel my entry is guilty of).  His film Travellers even has a shot of my home town Costa Del Fife aka Inverkeithing as it passes the ship breakers yard  - definitely not a set from a hovis advert.

My Street Films will be screened at Open City Docs Fest 21-24 June.

As a part of the ECA degree show, the process of the film was covered in a small handout made by Joe Caslin.

Our Nation’s Sons

Huge Artwork Of Teenage Hoody Appears In Edinburgh Street

What really went on there?
We only have this excerpt.

The film above was made by myself to document Joe Caslin’s project ‘Our Nation’s Sons’. The project was built from a collaboration between St Thomas Of Aquin’s High School and Edinburgh College of Art.

The project began on Saturday 14th April with the pasting of a 40ft drawing to the gable wall of No. 20 Cowgate, Edinburgh. Over the course of the next two weeks, five other large-scale drawings have appeared in Edinburgh city centre. The aim of the project is use these portraits drawings of young men as a tool to provoke and question current social and media representations of this generation. The drawings once installed will generate spaces throughout the city charged for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter. The project is funded by the City Centre Neighbourhood Partnership, Edinburgh.

The project was mentioned on BBC News which I unfortunately missed due to filming up in the Highlands. However here is a link to a short article from their website.

More about the project can be found over at Joe Caslins gaff! I was only there for one day documenting the pasting of the illustration seen in the film. All the guys and girls behind it were all great laugh and you should pop over to the degree show.

23 Stephens Drive

I should really use this film as an introduction to show you who I am. Although it doesn’t represent me in the best light. I thought i would start a blog to document my work during my final years at art college. Im currently studying film at Edinburgh College of Art.

Some of my past films can be seen on vimeo.

’23 Stephens Drive’ is a short documentary about myself. I found 20 Hi-8 tapes that I obsessively filmed and re-filmed over as a child. I believe it shows how mischievous I was while growing up and that I’m still a mamas boy at 21 years old.