Films

I love film, and am beginning to learn how to make films.  It’s fun!

Here are a few films that I have made.

Lower down are some older films made by other more competent film-makers that feature some of my artwork:

 

Riverside Mural for Larkrise Primary School

A mural I painted from June to December 2015 with the very talented and patient Ali Monk.  A team of us (including Doug, Bob, Tom, Ed and Kes) installed the seven panels into the main hall at my local school, the Larkrise Primary School in East Oxford.  We are very grateful to the “Friends of Larkrise” for making this mural possible.  A special thanks to Mr. Ed finch for coordinating the design, planning and installation.

Road-licker – small addition to Bamboo Bike Trailer

I added a tongue to the Green Man illustration on the side of my bamboo bike trailer.  It’s a simple piece of cardboard wrapped in weatherproof red gaffer tape, then painted with wrinkles, lumps, droplets of moisture and shadows.  It’s stuck to the spokes with a bit of gaffer tape.  I hope it makes people laugh.  The green man is licking the road, maybe as an act of devotion to his Mother Earth.  I also made a whole page explaining how (and why) I made the bamboo bike trailer, here.

 

Windmill Tripod at Tandem Festival 2014

We made a giant toy windmill and took it to Tandem Festival. Here is a short 3min video of us building it, climbing all over it, and taking photos from the top of it, plus a few photos of some of the many great events and people at the festival. Tandem Festival ran from 19 – 21 June 2014 at Hill End Farm, near Oxford. The festival was run by volunteers and combined (mostly) acoustic music, sustainability, art, crafts, bikes and bike-trailers, veggie food and a lot of fun!  See: tandemfestival.com   This windmill was made out of three scaff poles, some old scrap sheets and a bike wheel, plus a variety of clever attachments – we need more attachment in the world!

 

Chunk of Cheddar Cheese

Another animated white-screen video, filmed and edited by the tireless Zoe Broughton, illustrating a beautiful song by the very talented Peggy Seeger.   If you like this one, see another collaboration with Zoe and Peggy “It’s Pete!” lower down on this page, celebrating the life of Pete Seeger.

 

Unsustainable

A short music video that is a parody of “Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole.  This short video strings together a series of photos (from the Creative Commons) to summarise humanity’s impacts on the eco-system.  With a few jokes, we try not to be too morbid, but we do cover many of the planet’s most serious problems, from deforestation, pollution, and intensive agriculture through to war, nuclear weapons and over-consumption.  No animals were harmed in the making of this film, though the vocalists were mildly humiliated.  No professional movie software or film-making skills were used to make this film – can’t you tell!  I used the excellent open-source Audacity to record the soundtrack and the boring but effective Moviemaker to stitch together the photos and captions.  If you like this video feel free to share it.

It’s Pete

A short 2013 music-video film made by Zoe Broughton to accompany a song “It’s Pete” written and performed by Peggy Seeger.  The song celebrates the life of Pete Seeger, Peggy’s brother, who just turned 94. He’s still performing!  It’s a fun and catchy song and the film was a joy to work on.  The film features many stunning photos going back to the 1940s, and also includes a few speeded-up films of my hand drawing some fun cartoons. I am thrilled to be working on a few more films with Peggy Seeger.  The next one (that will be finished soon) features four greedy mice!  Here is a still from the film’s closing sequence:

Barracks Lane Compost Toilet Forest

This is the first film I made on my own.  A short stop-motion film of me painting a mural – a scene including a forest, waterfall and lake – onto the side of the compost toilet at Barracks Lane Community Garden, in East Oxford, UK in June 2013.   I used two strong rubber bands to attach an old but ‘smart’ MP3 player onto the handle-bars of my bicycle.  The player has a simple camera and I used the free android app, Tina’s Time Lapse, to take a still photo every 2 minutes.   These were later stuck together in sequence and are each shown for only half a second in this simple film. The music is “Baby Elephant Walk” by Henri Mancini.  Here is the mural overlooking the sand-pit play area at BLCG:

Save Temple Cowley Pools

This powerful but fun little film was made by Philip Hind in 2012 to accompany a great song written by Peggy Seeger with Jane Alexander.  The film features many great clips of Oxford’s ongoing campaign to Save Temple Cowley Pools, and also a few animated cartoons of mine.

Think Blue, Drink Blue

A 2011 film made by Zoe Broughton, for a film-making competition organised by Greenpeace, in response to a major green-washing publicity campaign by the car manufacturer VW.  Our film is a spoof of the VW TV advert, available on YouTube here.  Our film tries to show how VW have only switched 6% of their output to “green”, while they continue to lobby the European Parliament away from climate solutions. If VW continue to “think blue” then we’ll end up with rising sea levels – “drink blue”.  Many great films were made for this competition (we didn’t win) and can be seen here.

The Great British Refurb

A 2011 animated film made by Pete Speller for the WWF and Grand Designs.  Pete now works for Greenpeace UK, and has made many great little films over the years.  He and Zoe Broughton made the documentary “Taking on Tarmageddon” for People & Planet, exposing the evils of the Canadian Tar Sands, and following some of the many international protests against it.

Planes vs Trains

A silly little web-film produced by the Campaign for Better Transport (formerly Transport 2000) which features two props made by me.  The train and plane are made of papier-mache and card, supported by a ‘skeleton’ or bamboo poles.  The film summarises the unfair fight between planes and trains in UK politics.

Telescope prop for Stop Aids Campaign

This VERY short video is just a little glimpse of a fun prop I made back in 2005 for the Stop Aids Campaign.  The video is of two friends testing that the prop does indeed collapse and extend like a real telescope.