Grid Play, 2015, Projected Stop Motion Film, Laser Cut Wood, Perspex, Screenprints

Grid Play installation by Rachel Hendry.

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Formerly The Scottish Screen Archive, the resource has a vast range of footage from documentaries to home videos. Using the search tool you can explore films made for public information, industry, and entertainment.

If conducting research you can call up particular films or use a keyword filter, and browse information on specific filmmakers and film productions. Alternatively, simply browse through genres, subject, place and decade to while away the hours!

Register free online to access the archive and even create a ‘My films’ list, request a copy of films or buy DVD compilations.

Whether the landscapes and architecture is familiar to you or not, this is something that everyone can appreciate having right at their fingertips.

Explore the NLS Moving Image Archive here.

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Award-winning broadcaster and director David Street (pictured above) made programmes for all the main UK’s TV channels before he turned to feature documentaries. Here he describes his career progression.

Getting the work habit

I was brought up in a small village in the peak District of Derbyshire. My family had a building firm so I spent most of school holidays working for the firm.

I had a variety of other weekend and holiday jobs during my teens, like paper rounds, Christmas postie, working in a textile factory, serving in a post office, but always it came back to working for the builders. By the time I left college as a qualified Art and Drama teacher at 21, I was running building sites, responsible for 50 or more men, often two or three times my age building a 100 plus homes at any one location. I was working 12 hour days often 7 days a week. After 18 months, a disagreement with one of my uncles, who was running the business, ended in me walking out.

Striking it Lucky

It was a two and a half mile walk to the next village where I lived, time to pull my thoughts together. I bought a Manchester Evening News and in the classified jobs section someone had written an advert just for me – or at least that’s what I felt.  They wanted some one between the ages of 21 and 25 – I was just 23, with an interest in Drama and Art – my qualification, who enjoyed watching TV – one of the reasons I’d been made to go to work as a youngster was because I was getting “square eyes” from watching too much TV. It couldn’t have been better.

I applied and after 2 interviews I was offered a job as a trainee assistant film librarian at Granada TV in Manchester – working 40 hours a week for 3 times the wages I’d received in the family firm. When I was told later that over 350 people had applied for the job I couldn’t believe my luck. I was given a great piece of advice on my first day, I was wide eyed and star struck being amongst the cast of Coronation Street, my boss Keith Thompson, just leaned over and whispered in my ear “they go to the toilet, just like you and me” bingo.

“Square eyes” was now getting paid to do what he loved doing, watching TV, or to be more precise, watching and logging TV films and clips – it was a fabulous time to be at Granada. The Bernsteins still owned the company but let Denis Foreman and David Plowright run it. I was watching material shot by the Mikes’ Apted and Newell, Johnathan Powell, Roland Joffe and the brilliant Leslie Woodhead, I was learning by osmosis, listening, watching soaking it all up. After a couple of years I made the move into the cutting rooms, as an assistant film editor working with such brilliant editors as the late Kelvin Hendrie on World in Action, Stan Challis and Tony Ham on drama’s like Country Matter’s or doing inserts for Coronation Street.

It was a different world. We had to be in before the editor, make sure the Acmade or Steenbeck was running smoothly, all chinagraphs sharpened, clean selvits to hand, no dust or single frame trims lying around and get teas and coffees before they were even asked for. Many would now see this as the bad old days, but for me the privilege of being in edits with brilliant programme makers such as Brian Moser, Gus Macdonald, Ray Fitzwalter, Brian Blake, a very young Steve Morrison and the inimitable Leslie Woodhead was a privilege. I was watching how they worked, how they thought, what they liked and what they thought was crap. It was a brilliant education. So brilliant, I feel sad that people coming in to the industry now don’t appear to have the opportunity to do this.

Setting up on my own

While working at Granada I met the fantastic animators Mark Hall and Brian Cosgrove, they were going to set up Cosgrove Hall in an old tobacco warehouse in Chorlton-cum-Hardy – I took a couple of room’s there, bought a couple of Steenbecks and set up David Street Editing Ltd with a contract to cut all Mark and Brian’s work.

Working with brilliantly talented animators and their proteges such as Chris Taylor, Jackie Cockell and Barry Purvis gave me a fabulous insight into the precision and accuracy of animated film making. During this period I started editing TV commercials. I found the discipline of telling a 30 second story fascinating and wanted to do it myself.

Buying the T shirt

This was my move in to Directing and Producing. It was a time when you had to have a showreel – no one would give you the chance to do it if you couldn’t prove you could do it – sort of Catch 22. Saving short ends from various commercial shoots, I eventually built up enough stock to shoot three commercials and with help from camera hire companies and labs I had a showreel. That was me a director – I could wear the T shirt.

Decades later after countless TV commercials and programmes I reverted to the same basic principles to prove I could make a feature documentary. Fortunately now the equipment is so much cheaper, shooting digitally and the computerisation of edit systems means you don’t need labs to process the film you can virtually do it all on your laptop, so that is how BATTLE MOUNTAIN Graeme Obree’s Story started. To get it finished though required a virtual army of brilliant people who all brought their own particular talents and skills to it.

Many more than five jobs later the basic principles I learnt in those early jobs on building sites, in shops and factories are still important. Turn up on time, be enthusiastic, work hard and never stop learning.

Read more about BATTLE MOUNTAIN in David’s My Process article Central Station here.

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We’ve asked professionals in creative industries what jobs they have had in the past to get their foot through the door (or at least pay the rent). For more in the “My First 5 Jobs” series look here.

Bridge 103A by Matthew Pell.

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It contains classic and contemporary, hand-picked from our festivals, cultural programme and the BFI National Archive. The site works on desktops, android and apple devices with a downloadable app from iTunes.

You can choose from thousands of beautifully preserved films, documenting 120 years of Britain on Film all searchable on an interactive map. If you only have 5 minutes, why not watch footage from BFI’s Film Festival such as Director Peter Strickland and editor Nick Fenton’s Q&A on Björk: Biophilia Live, 2014. Alternatively if you’ve got a bit more time, try a more recent feature such as Appropriate Behaviour, 2015 by Director and star Desiree Akhavan which is a comedy about a bisexual Iranian-American woman.

With so many films to choose from, the BFI have helpfully created a Collections sub-menu which helps direct you to your perfect playlist. They include exclusive features about the films or the people who made them. Collections include Hitchock where you can view classics like The Birds or Psycho for £2.98 or watch Martin Scorsese discuss Vertigo for free.

Explore the BFI Player here but we warn you – you may just lose a few hours.

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Award-winning broadcaster and director David Street (pictured above) made programmes for all the main UK’s TV channels before he turned to feature documentaries. A lover of life in all its complexities, he’s on a constant quest to find out why we do what we do and why we are who we are. The 40 year Film & TV veteran has just premiered Battle Mountain at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Here he explains just what went into creating this epic documentary where he followed “The Flying Scotsman” (Graeme Obree) for two years as he prepared for the human-powered vehicle land speed record attempt in Nevada.

two .. tick.. name .. check.. thank you note.. done. one .. tick name.. check and on it went, 76 tickets and thank you notes put into addressed envelopes on the morning of 24 June 2015.

If I’d known three and a half years earlier I would be doing this on the morning of the world premiere of my film Battle Mountain: Graeme Obree’s Story, would I ever have started filming?

The project started as a simple taster tape but when the production company couldn’t sell it to a broadcaster, I felt it was a a story too good not to be told.

I decided to go along with this Ayrshire cyclist who had broken world records and twice been a world champion in the 1990s as he set out two decades later to try and break another world record. Even if it didn’t work, I told myself, it would be a fun ride.

Over the years I’d gone from being a film editor to a producer, director and then as the industry changed found myself as a self-shooting director/producer, along the way I’d built up my own camera and sound kit so I had the freedom to jump in the car and go down to Graeme’s tiny 1st floor flat in Saltcoats and shoot whenever he felt like building.

This man who rose to fame by breaking world records on “Old Faithful” – a bike he built himself with bits from a washing machine, was now going to build a new machine to try and break the Human Powered Land Speed record. He no longer had a bike shop so he was going to build it in his kitchen.

When I got there an engineer’s vice had been bolted onto the dining table, the washing machine was still in one piece, but with a cooker and fridge freezer as well as sink and kitchen units there wasn’t room to swing a cat, so getting in there to film was going to be fun. Thankfully I’m used to working on my own, doing sound as well as camera, it proved a really useful skill in such cramped conditions, especially when Graeme’s family turned up. The room had a big window which was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that there was plenty of natural light, no bad thing when there was hardly room for me and the camera, so definitely no space for lighting stands. Graeme’s natural working position when he was building “The Beastie” was with his back to the window, so without lighting to balance the outside, getting a big wide of him meant he was either in silhouette or the background was grotesquely burnt out.

Part of the deal I made with Graeme when I was negotiating the access, was that I would never ask him to do anything specifically for the camera, nor would I ask him to repeat anything. He didn’t want a filmmaker stopping him in the middle of his thought pattern and creative flow. His building method is incredibly tactile and in a sense evolutionary. While the agreement worked for Graeme it meant I had a challenge on my hands every time I went to film. I started by asking him to talk me through what he was planning on doing so I would have some idea of where I could be to get the best shots to tell the story. However, after the first couple of minutes I realised this wasn’t going to work. As with many geniuses, his brain is always working and trying to find new and better ways of doing things, so even if he said he’d be doing x and y, 30 seconds later he’d be doing ax and cz. From then on I was trying to cut it in my head whilst filming and making sure the sound was right. I didn’t want to miss any of Graeme’s pearls of wisdom, so the sound had to be continuous. My thinking was that in any given period I would get non-sync action of Graeme brazing, sawing, filing  and making tea – he made a lot of tea – to help the editor get round some of the problems, mostly it worked.

I was shooting on a Canon XF305 with a radio mic and a top mic, occasionally I would use 2 radio mics. Most of the time I was using a Manfrotto monopod, it meant I could scoot round Graeme and his kitchen while still being able to use the long end of the lens to get in for covering close-ups. There was hardly room to put a tripod up, but even if there had been, Graeme is so fast on his feet when he’s creating, that within seconds that shot wouldn’t work, the monopod is a boon for flexibility and I wouldn’t be without one.

To balance the developing sense of claustrophobia the film was acquiring by filming in the small kitchen, I wanted to film Graeme out training on his bike, ideally riding round the beautiful Ayrshire countryside. I still find it staggering that some of the locations where we shot are less than 30 minutes from the centre of Glasgow. At this point the film was still self-funded so I couldn’t afford to bring in a cameraman or a driver. I had to do it myself. Two years working on Top Gear and watching how some of the top DoP’s rigged cars for filming car-to-car and cars-on-the-move helped me get round these problems, that and the fact the roads were incredibly quiet. It’s one of those things though that you really shouldn’t try at home. One problem that did surprise me was how fast Graeme could go downhill and how well he could corner. I quickly realised I had to pull over and let him go ahead on the big downhills as he could go faster round the corners on two wheels than I was prepared to go in a four wheel Qashqai.

This is just a small part and some of the experiences that I enjoyed as I spent nearly two years filming a Scottish icon and another 18 months getting it to the stage where I was putting tickets in envelopes. And NO I wouldn’t have started if I’d known what it entailed but I am so glad I did and I know that I can’t wait for the next opportunity to come along. It’s been a blast.

A kickstarter project helped get David the initial funding he needed to bring this project to life with additional funding from Creative Scotland’s Film Fund.

Sign up for updates on when David’s documentary will be screened near you on www.gobattlemountain.com.

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Clyde Reflections is a 33-minute film and audio-visual installation based around interviews with seven people that explore their perceptions of the marine environment in the Firth of Clyde. It has been selected to run at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), from 29 May to 5 July, as part of the gallery’s Moving Image Season. The project was devised by Glasgow-based artist filmmaker Stephen Hurrel and social ecologist Ruth Brennan, a research associate at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS). They got in touch to tell us a bit more about their creative work process.

Stephen Hurrel & Ruth Brennan at GoMA, photo by Katie Bruce

Clyde Reflections grew out of ideas and working methods employed within recent marine-based film, digital media and social science projects that Hurrel and Brennan have undertaken, both as a collaborative art-science team, since 2011, and independently. Clyde Reflections was commissioned by Imaging Natural Scotland/Creative Scotland and is currently installed in the grand, main space of GoMA as part of their Moving Image Season.

Still from Clyde Reflections (featuring underwater footage by Howard Wood) by Hurrel and Brennan

Hurrel and Brennan’s collaborative activity began after meeting on a Cape Farewell (art-science) expedition, which involved sailing to several islands in the Outer Hebrides to explore ideas around sustainability. Following that trip Hurrel was offered a Cape Farewell commission to produce a short film on the island of Barra. He had also become aware that the research methods that Brennan was using as a social ecologist on Barra were similar to approaches that he, and other artists involved in socially-engaged art practice, had used.

So it seemed a good opportunity to explore possible crossovers within the same environment. Brennan’s doctoral research aimed to gain insights into the roots of a conflict over the creation of two marine protected areas off the coast of Barra through exploring the cultural, social and historical context of the local community. She used this cultural groundwork to shed light on how, in Barra, people and place function together within, and as, an ecosystem.

Stephen & Ruth, Barra outdoors studio by Stephen Hurrel

It became evident that there were meeting points in terms of working methods and areas of interest, and that the sharing of information, ideas and skills would be beneficial. One such interest lay in exploring different people’s perceptions of the same landscape as a way to reveal hidden relationships within natural and man-made environments.

The first art-science collaboration (that also involved social ecologist Iain MacKinnon) resulted in the publication Dùthchas na Mara/Belonging to the Sea*. Following this, Hurrel and Brennan developed a proposal that expanded on the research for the publication, and that engaged further with the people of Barra. That year-long project resulted in the online cultural map of the sea Sgeulachdan na Mara/Sea Stories: Barra.*

Barra Map by Stephen Hurrel

By 2013, Hurrel and Brennan had worked on a combination of independent and collaborative marine-based projects, and had a good foundation on which to develop a new project.

Work in Progress: text edit on wall and video edit by Stephen Hurrel

With Clyde Reflections, their initial idea was to engage in an exploratory process to reveal the complexity of an area of sea that is not normally evident when looked at by an outsider. By engaging with people who connect deeply with their environment, they wanted to create a multi-perspective representation of a particular marine area that would challenge a simplistic representation of a familiar environment. They believed this could provide a creative example of how ‘landscape’ is not a fixed entity, or separate from people, but is dynamic in terms of its socio-ecological properties as well as how it can be perceived. They were more interested in revealing a multi-layered reading of place than presenting a negative perspective and in creating an immersive experience that takes the viewer on a journey by creating a specific mood and pace.

Ruth said: “The aim of the film is not to deliver a specific message, but rather to provoke thought and reflection. How are people’s perceptions of the Clyde formed and how can the same body of water be perceived so differently by so many people?

“We also want people to consider and contemplate the bigger picture: How can we live sustainably? How do we deal with climate change? What is our relationship to the sea?”

Still from Clyde Reflections by Stephen Hurrel

Hurrel and Brennan’s grounded as well as creative approach is recognised as an important contribution to research being undertaken within the wider policy environment. They are currently collaborating as an art-science partnership alongside a multidisciplinary research team developing new marine spatial planning approaches in Sweden. This allows them to continue to explore complexities of relationships between nature and culture, and to devise new ways of employing visual, audio and digital art within a scientific context.

* www.mappingthesea.net – to download a PDF copy of the publication (Dùthchas na Mara/Belonging to the Sea) and to access the online cultural map of the sea (Sgeulachdan na Mara/Sea Stories: Barra)

There will be a free seminar tomorrow afternoon 13 June at GoMA with artist Stephen Hurrel, social ecologist Ruth Brennan, Prof Andrew Patrizio (Professor of Scottish Visual Culture, University of Edinburgh), Prof Sian Sullivan (Professor of Environment & Culture, Bath Spa University) and Chris Fremantle (independent researcher and producer, writer and initiator of ecoartscotland). For more information, visit here.

Clyde Reflections continues at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art until 5 July.

Hurrel and Brennan would like to thank their interviewees for their generous participation:
Howard McCrindle (retired fisherman) | Prof Paul Tett (Reader in Coastal Systems and Biological Ocenaographer) | Ven. Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche (Abbot of Kagyu Samye Ling and Executive Director of the Holy Isle Project) | Dr Fiona Hanna (Former Acting Director and Senior Lecturer at University Marine Biology Station Millport. Honorary Lecturer at University of Glasgow) | Howard Wood (Diver and Chair of Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)) | Andrew Binnie (Executive Director, Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)) | Adam Rose (Holy Isle Project Volunteer)

More: Stephen Hurrel | Ruth Brennan | Clyde Reflections

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My name is Bryan M. Ferguson and I’m a filmmaker and photographer from Glasgow, Scotland. I am currently based between Glasgow and Florida. I taught myself how to make films by experimenting with visuals through an array of different cameras from a young age.

I spent the first 10 years of my life without a camera. But when I finally got my hands on one I began to construct my ideas by making films. My first camera would only shoot in black and white and could only work if a big yellow cable was plugged into the back of a VCR loaded with a blank VHS cassette tape. Unfortunately the cable was a restraint and I was stuck having to shoot a lot of interiors and dress my bedroom to look like it was outside but even with its drawbacks I was hooked, I had never been so focused. As I reached my mid-teens I had upgraded to a Hi8 camcorder and this is when I developed most of the optical and visual gags that I use today. I would experiment with compositions, transitions and narratives. At this time I never had access to any editing equipment and so I would need to edit the films in camera. I would do this by having the subject freeze, cutting the camera, repositioning the set up and hitting record. This would make for some unusual glitchy cuts and odd noises in the final product, of which I found quite strange and vivifying. These are devices I still incorporate in my work today.

Dr. Monster

Heterodoxy

Pink Tumour

When I was 18, I made my first serious short film with an HD camcorder. It was chosen to be screened at the Edinburgh Filmhouse and for the British Council in Edinburgh followed by a Q&A. Now 28, 10 years on from then, I have continued to evolve and shape my work. I’m still learning but I’m at a point now where I feel confident in my work and have a particular way of executing my ideas. I rarely work with a crew, I take on many roles behind the camera, from writing, lighting, shooting, cutting and even developing the sound design.

I was 22 when I started to finally shoot with a DSLR camera, I would often use it to shoot photographs in-between making films. Photography wasn’t something I was too interested in to begin with. My passion lay with film. But I found the luxury of working on a single frame addictive. I used to work alone during the vampire shift in an old hotel and I would shoot self portraits in the vacant rooms until dawn. Photography was a hobby that became a study and which for me has now developed into a medium that I enjoy working with.

I feel falling into photography in-between making my films has really benefited my filmmaking. I don’t feel I fully understood the power of composition in an image until I started getting involved in shooting photographs. Having the time to put all my thoughts and energy into one single frame really satisfies my perfectionism and has helped me to be more engaged and meticulous with shaping how I want my films to look.

Wrong Uvula

Irregular Spook

A typical day for me is as anticlimactic as anyone else’s. I wake up, drown my innards in coffee and over analyse how awful my day will be. Though recently I’ve been spending most of my days and nights hunched over and illuminated ghoulishly at my computer editing my new project. I don’t have an office or studio. I find shooting at found locations much more invigorating and less restrictive. Strange surroundings inspire and allow me to develop the ideas I already have and really add flesh to the bones.

Presently I’m almost through with post-production on my new film, “CAUSTIC GULP”. The film was shot in Florida at the start of the year. It tells the story of a mysterious chemical reacting with the chlorine of a hotel swimming pool. This causes the birth of an irregular cult. I feel the project has really allowed me to unspool my fascination with the eccentricities of human behaviour. I developed the film for an audience to study the irregular behaviours of strangers in an unusual situation. I think we’re a generation of perverts and I find it thrilling to watch an audience of regular people transforming into a crowd of peeping toms. The film was constructed to keep its viewer at a distance but to quickly engage them while slowly leading them into the film’s darkly comic but disconcerting situation.

You might’ve caught another one of my films, “THE MISBEHAVIOUR OF POLLY PAPER CUT”, at the opening night of Hidden Door in Edinburgh on 22 May. The film just recently opened for David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET at “Painting in Perpetual Motion” to coincide with his recent exhibition at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The film tells the story of a hispanic girl trapped in delusions of grandeur and submerging herself into a world of comics and candy coloured nihilism.

For more information on the Hidden Door event go here.

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Artist profiles delve into the psyche of the artist talking about daily life, inspiration & art. Read more profiles here. 

Interested in writing one? Contact us

Where Am I at Home? by Glasgow School of Art doctoral research Polina Zioga.

Read Poline Zioga & Inês Coelho’s review of Catherine Street’s recent exhibition at The Glasgow School of Art on Central Station here.

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The Last Days of Art School came about in quite chaotic circumstances. With just over a week to go before the final degree submission deadline my tutor suggested that it might be a good idea for me to produce another piece of work for my submission portfolio. At first I thought he wasn’t serious; but he was.

My major project was photographic, so I thought a contrast to that would be good. I had dabbled in film on and off over my degree and it was actually his preference that I make a film. In a week! Normally I ponder, deliberate and procrastinate quite a bit, but there was no time so a film it was, and a film about what was going on all around me was the obvious/only choice. I did briefly worry that it might not be that interesting, but little was I to know about the events that were about to strike the Art School.

Looking back I think the time pressure really helped, as I couldn’t afford to worry too much about what I was doing, I just had to go and do it. The structure of the film – the fact that there is no synced sound i.e. that what is being said does not match what you see, is the direct result of the technical restraints I encountered. It was just impossible for one person to film and record usable sound at the same time. I’d go in the morning and shoot for a couple of hours, record sound for an hour, edit for a couple, then shoot for a couple more in the afternoon, more sound and then edit again into the night. As I would be shooting right up until hand-in day, there was no time to edit after all the shooting was complete – I had to edit as I went. So the structure of the film developed as it went, one day at a time. Once one day was done that was it. There was no going back. And no knowing what would come next.

As well as this there was the ordering of frames for the degree show, the finishing of the making of my photobook (my main project), the incessant palaver of trying to book time on the digital photo printers, all to be done. I’d managed to get the bulk of the book done and kicked the frames off before the film started, so that was a massive help. Luckily, and I mean that sincerely, I hit no major snags in any of this which meant I was able to get those things underway as planned and complete the film on time. Not everyone had such a relatively smooth ride.

The other benefit of this was that I couldn’t really worry about the show and what was coming. There was no time. And then once we hit the deadline it’s all out of your hands and you can’t worry anymore. Then it’s the fun bit – putting up the work and stepping back and letting it exist for others to see. Apart from the actual putting up of the work which inevitably ends up with 50 people chasing one screwdriver round a gallery space. After that though, step back and relax.

For anyone about to go through this experience, I would offer some words of advice which may or may not help. It sounds obvious but the first thing is to plan what you need to do in advance. Write all the steps down and don’t underplay anything. Think realistically about how long things are going to take. One mistake we made early on is to think, ‘oh, I need to print X number of A3 prints, that should only take a morning’. It may well only take a morning under normal circumstances, but if you have 20 people trying to do the same thing on one printer, it could well end up taking the best part of a week. So plan early, talk to the other people who are likely to be in that queue with you (you quickly find out who they are) and negotiate and plan with them. And most importantly, figure out how long something will realistically take, and then double it. This is especially true of anything involving technology. Computers love to through up errors, printers love to throw a strop and refuse to print and exporting a film from an edit is never incident free. The second thing I would suggest is make sure you have access to your own spirit level, drill and screws – this will make the hang a lot less stressful.

To read more from Cliff and see some of his photography, check out his Life After Art School feature on Central Station.

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