It was the middle of June, I had recently had a blast for a week in Hamburg at the film festival, I had a week left before I was to head off to Edinburgh for their film festival. With piles of work for me to do, I always have a bad habit of adding more work to my palette (I never want to miss an opportunity) which London Recut was indeed. I found out about the competition (funded by both Film London and UK Film Council) on my way to work one morning, whilst reading the Metro. I immediately became excited at the prospect of working with footage which has made up the city I've grown up in and love to this day.That same week on a Friday evening, I got to work, sifting through the footage, searching for a direction. My initial thoughts were to make a film connecting me and London. With footage ranging from 1900 through to the 1970's, being of a first generation here in London, I found this quite difficult to achieve. I started to look through the underground footage, a mode of transportation which has been a huge part of my life, going to school, going to work, travelling within London and began to attempt to construct a film. At this point, I had only images but no links, no subject, no idea. I didn't know what I was making and I wasn't sure I was going to get anywhere.
With time being a constraint, I suddenly clicked on the London at war folder. I didn't know it that evening (it now being sometime after 10pm) at the time but the human spirit seen clearly in the footage, is what inspired me to make the film 'Air.' A few hours later, (2am) half of the film had suddenly disappeared (the online editing program had some faults but essentially it was a good simple program) However, the fact that I had lost half of the work suddenly, was exactly why I was still up editing that night. I decided not to rely on technology, to keep going and finish the film I had in my mind, not thinking about the next day or how much sleep time I had left. I finished and successfully loaded the film online at around 4am (maybe later than that?)
As I jetted off to Edinburgh, I was very pleased to be shortlisted and of course, told by the producer Kerry McLeod towards the end of the festival that the Jury's decision was unaimous in choosing 'Air' as one of the four winners of the competition. As the journey continued with 'Air', meeting with Kerry, putting together the publicity, editing the film at Mosaic studios, looking at all possibilities for where the final version of the film could go and finally the having the screening. Andy Robson was extremely helpful with his archival knowledge, Anton Califano brought alot of ideas to the final edit of the finished film and Kerry kept the project on track, they were all a pleasure to work with. In all, I loved every moment of it.
At the screening, I finally had the chance to meet the other three winners (me being the only guy) and of course, having the pleasure to view all their films.
In my interview about the process of making the film, I was asked what would I say to someone if they were going to fund a project similar to this, I replied that I think it's very important not to ignore archive material, as time moves on, the past disappears and begins to seem less real but with a photo or a moving image, it reasures us that it was there, that it did happen, for happy and sad occasions. Preserving archive material is crucial, allowing others to view it and work with it is very important, as all this material helps us understand the world we live in more today.
Finally...here is where you view and edit archive footage, read about all the winners, as well as watch the films.
http://www.londonrecut.co.uk/
Special thanks to Mosaic Films for this opportunity, it's something I would love to do again.
