1434, Multiple exposure photography series by Klaus Capra.

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I THINK I by Jonathan Long

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E215 by Scott Willis

As a filmmaker, I get excited by the process of retrieving materials from the idea of an objective reality, similar to found object art. An absurd reality that does not have a structure. It is the deconstruction of those findings within the films post-production that excites me; new meanings emerge and the world becomes more intriguing.

When editing I get a comfort from the delusion that I am able to make sense of it all by directing narratives. You are able to strip down a physical world and allow an ethereal form to take over. I am told the act of meditation provides similar results and is more cost effective?

As my work process is derived from the idea of retrieving materials and treating film as if it were sculpture. My films have mainly been focused on objects and the people they come into contact with.

E215 began by observing a fridge that was abandoned in a disused quarry pool. I felt that the object floated with a sense of elegance, ignoring that it was decaying and was no longer suitable for its primary function. I realised that the fridge stuck to a daily routine and could be located at specific spots of the pool at certain times. This allowed me to plan shots to showcase its individuality.

I made E215 at art school while I lived with my gran. Did you just snigger at me?
Incorporating audio from a conversation we had, the films visuals then evolved into her psychological landscape. She was unaware I was recording so the audio feels intimate, not forced and very much her.

E215 is an insight into a meditative space where a woman reflects on her physical self change. Overall the film highlights that there is still life and beauty to be obtained from entities often left behind.

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My Process explores the practice of artists and creatives. Read more articles here. 

Interested in writing one? Contact us

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.

Bridging the Gap provides training, mentorship and a first commission to Scottish-based filmmakers. Here’s your opportunity to work closely with the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) and make a 10 minute documentary.

Bridging the Gap is Scotland’s flagship short documentary film scheme for new talent and every year, the initiative provides an £8k budget to get your film made. This year SDI are looking for short films inspired by ‘women’. This is an opportunity for filmmakers of all genders to be part of the conversation and make a visually innovative, character-led story with ‘women’ as a starting point.

For the new season of Bridging the Gap, the SDI team will hit the road this month, hosting workshops and screenings across Scotland to help filmmakers prepare their submissions. The workshops will explain the aims of the scheme, provide tips on how to improve your chances of selection and offer you a chance to pitch your short documentary idea informally and receive feedback. They are free and open to filmmakers at any level. But places are limited so make sure to RSVP in advance.

DUMFRIES
7 September (4-6pm) | Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre
This workshop will be followed by a screening of Bridging the Gap: Resilience shorts from 6-7pm
Workshop & screening organised in collaboration with the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre.

INVERNESS
8 September (4-6pm) | Eden Court Cinema
This workshop will be followed by a screening of our most recent Bridging the Gap: Resilience shorts at 6pm and by a Q&A with filmmaker Theresa Moerman Ib (The Third Dad).
Workshop & screening organised in collaboration with Screen Hi & Eden Court Cinema.

To attend either the Dumfries or Inverness workshop, please RSVP to rebecca@scottishdocinstitute.com with your name, postcode and a brief summary about yourself.

EDINBURGH
9 September (5:30-7:30pm) | ECA – Evolution House boardroom
For this workshop, and to echo this year’s Bridging the Gap theme of ‘Women’, we have invited Engender, an organisation that has worked in Scotland for 20 years to advance equality between women and men, to come and introduce their work.

GLASGOW
10 September (5-7pm) | GMAC
Workshop organised in collaboration with GMAC.

To attend either the Edinburgh or Glasgow workshop, please RSVP to flore@scottishdocinstitute.com with your name, postcode and a brief summary about yourself.

If you have any question please email flore@scottishdocinstitute.com and we are looking forward to meeting you!

See full application guidelines online here.

Deadline: 4 October

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

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

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PART TWO
The Human element – People behind (and in) the photographs and stories

THE EVICTED – Margaret Jaconelli, Dalmarnock Resident

Margaret walks along Ardenlea St in April 2008

As I venture round the empty landscapes of Dalmarnock photographing the empty tenements of Ardenlea St, I failed to see the net curtains indicating signs of life.  A woman’s voice calls me from a window, asking me what I am talking pictures of. It takes me a while to pinpoint her location as I’m faced with what I thought was a desolate, empty ruin. This was my first meeting with Margaret Jaconelli.

She has been living in Ardenlea St alone for over 5 years. All the other tenants were rehoused, as the buildings were to be demolished at some point. She held on stubbornly as she was one of the few who purchased her home back in the late 1970s.

Come the announcement of the Commonwealth Games coming to Dalmarnock and the plans to demolish Ardenlea St and much of the rest of the area are top priority. Margaret was offered a ‘market value’ of her 2 bedroom flat of £29,000 and asked to leave.  Knowing fine well she could never afford a new property with that settlement she refused and the long battle to evict her began.

It ended in March 2011 when she was served a compulsory purchase order and days later she and her family were evicted at 5am by sheriff officers and over 100 police who cut off and surrounded her home. Margaret continues her fight and has taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

You can view the short film documenting her story below:

THE POLITICIAN – George Redmond, East End Councilor

George Redmond stands on the corner of Ardenlea St

On Dalmarnock Gala day in 2008 I was introduced to George Redmond and joined him on a tour of the ruins of Dalmarnock. George used to live on Ardenlea St as a child, he shows me the empty plot of derelict land in between two destroyed tenement flats where once his home stood. He’s very keen to emphasise his role in facilitating Glasgow getting the Games and talks of the transformation of the area for the better.

George Redmond and Margaret have a confrontation.

As we end the tour we bump into Margaret, who happens to be one of George’s constituents. He tells Margaret that he is still trying to work something out for her, but in reality the Commonwealth Games will be for the greater good of the area and someone has to ‘take it on the chin.’

Roll on 5 years and Dalmarnocks landscape has been transformed and George Redmond has his eyes on the grand prize as leader of Glasgow City Council.

THE YOUNG TEAM – Dalmarnock, 2008

Dalmarnock Youth – 2008.

John and friends don’t seem too bothered initially when asked about what they think of the Commonwealth Games and what it means for Dalmarnock. But when I push a bit further and ask about job prospects and their future, he tunes in a bit more. He’s keen to be offered an apprenticeship to be a joiner or electrician. The local press and propaganda machine is hard at work explaining how many apprenticeships are to be made available for the East End youth.

But no one seems to offer them anything more than apprenticeships. When I chat to the local youth leader, he’s dismayed that no-one seems to be talking of or offering the local youth management trainee schemes, or telling them that they can aspire beyond that of an apprentice.  It’s as if they are only expected / allowed to reach a certain limit.  After 30 years of decline and poverty, social inclusion, any assistance or promise of jobs and new builds will always be gratefully accepted by the community.

THE UNKNOWN PAINTER (AND DECORATOR) – Sighthill, 2009

Davey’s Bedroom

Prior to demolition, all the flats in Fountainwell court at Sighthill go through a process of soft stripping, when all furniture and the window frames, plumbing and pipes are removed. All that is left prior to the actual blowdown is an empty wallpapered shell of a former home.

As I walk round the empty flats, some walls are painted bright colours, reds, greens and blues (sometimes dependant on their sectarian stance) perhaps to escape monotone grey concrete and concourse that surrounded them.  On the 14th floor of Fountainwell Court was the home of ‘Davey’ – the painter and decorator who had decorated his entire flat, walls and ceilings with everything and anything from supermarket flyers, newspapers, frozen burger boxes and margarine tubs.

My guide from the Demolition company is locally from Sighthill and knows all about Davey, he says he knows what boozer he drinks in so I could meet him, but he warns me “he’s a bit mental though, but a great painter and decorator.” Wandering through his former empty home looking at the meticulous way he has covered every inch of it, I understand both points.

I decide not to go looking for Davey and think that the pictures are better off on their own to document and give a somewhat unique insight into high rise living (and individuality).

Davey’s Hallway

You can view a short film on Sighthill below:

Written by Chris Leslie

Chris is looking to get the project exhibited / published. If you’re interested please email him at chris@chrisleslie.co.uk.

More: Website | Chris Leslie | Vimeo | Twitter

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Take a look at Part One of Chris Leslie’s Glasgow Renaissance here & Part Three here.

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PART ONE
Project origins – The Balkans

“But this is no time to dredge up vague premonitions. Savage, bestial city destroyers with no conscience are hard at work gutting, sacking, murdering the population, burning archives and libraries, demolishing museums and houses of worship.”
- Bohdan Bogdanovic, Serbian Architect, 1994

Comparing Bosnia to Glasgow is probably going to confuse and possibly upset some people, especially Glaswegians. But the inspiration for my project – The Glasgow Renaissance, with its doomed high rise flats, empty homes and desolation take me back 18 years to 1996; to the ethnically cleansed and destroyed towns of Croatia, and the jaw dropping citywide destruction of Sarajevo.

The connection between the two places is of course, far-fetched. People in Bosnia and Croatia had their homes destroyed, or had to flee them for very different reasons than the Glaswegians I have documented, and it is impossible to downplay or be-little the savagery that swept across the region. After the war, much of Bosnia’s landscape was ruined and empty and that’s when my journey began – and the comparisons began to emerge. Placing photographs of destroyed, empty landscapes of Glasgow side by side with those from Bosnia, with no captions and you may find it difficult to choose which is which.

Pakrac, Croatia – photo by Pete Pawinski

Pakrac Croatia, 1996. I spent 5 months here, working on a volunteer social reconstruction project in this destroyed and divided town.  Pakrac was 80-85% destroyed during the war and was in many ways, the middle of nowhere. In my time off I cycled around the ruins of the ethnically cleansed and destroyed homes. Sometimes quite stupidly (the area was littered with landmines) I ventured into abandoned buildings and homes.

Left behind were photographs, clothes, pictures on walls. As the homes were emptied most of the buildings were set on fire, so there wasn’t much to photograph but occasionally you would find the odd solitary shoe lying amongst the carnage and you only hoped that its owner had escaped and survived.

12 years later whilst out running I first discovered the Oatlands estate in Glasgow. Abandoned and partially boarded up, the flats had been emptied years before, but they remained littered with personal belongings such as letters, photographs, clothes and toys. It felt like people had fled in a hurry, unsure of where they were going, or their final destination.

Walking around what was left of the Oatlands I was taken back to my days in Pakrac. My wife freaked out claiming it could be dangerous, with security fences, rotten collapsed floorboards, and leaking gas meters – and sometimes it could be. But this time there were no landmines to worry about…

I moved back to Glasgow in late 2004 after 5 years in a sleepy Wiltshire town of thatched cottages, no crime, no litter and not even a sniff of dog s**t on the street, the polar opposite to the streets of Bridgeton. I remember driving past Ardenlea / Summerfield St in Dalmarnock on a cold misty winters evening at 4 in the afternoon and being transported back to the first time I drove into Sarajevo in 1996.

The Whitevale Flats have the most striking physical resemblance to the UNIS towers in Sarajevo. The UNIS towers were clear targets for the Serb artillery and a symbol of Sarajevo’s financial sector. Partially stripped back of their glass and facade the buildings resembled the brutalist concrete structure of the Whitevale flats, almost as if the latter are half constructed buildings, just awaiting their shinny coat of a glass and steel facade. (Maybe even putting cladding and glass on the Whitevale flats could be an option rather than wholesale demolition.)

The regeneration of Glasgow and the destroyed landscapes left by the process are temporary, these structures that will only exist for a limited time. Just like in Bosnia, they will be rebuilt in time.

In Bosnia the hope is that war will not return to create more havoc and destruction. In Glasgow we can only hope that in 30 years time the new homes and communities we are building now do not suffer the same fate of ‘knock em down, build em up again’.

Written by Chris Leslie

Chris is looking to get the project exhibited / published. If you’re interested please email him at chris@chrisleslie.co.uk.

More: Website | Chris Leslie | Vimeo | Twitter

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Take a look at Part Two of Chris Leslie’s Glasgow Renaissance here & Part Three here.

Bread Collective is a creative collective based in East London, made up of illustrators, graphic designers, art directors, set designers, photographers and filmmakers. We have four core members: Luke James, Owen Phillips, Victoria Walmsley and Jo Lee, regularly collaborating with a wider network of creatives.

The Walls Have Ears Murals

The Walls Have Ears Murals

Having worked with each other in the past, we began as a group of friends discussing how we could stretch ourselves creatively and work on more ambitious projects by combining our different skills. We chose the name Bread, as we liked the idea ‘to break bread’, meaning the idea of a friendly social interaction where something is shared.

Golden Moments Art Direction

Bread was officially established in 2012 after we were awarded funding by the London Legacy Development Corporation for a community project to improve the area where we all live in Hackney Wick, just outside the Olympic park. The project was enthusiastically received by local residents and attracted media attention by the Guardian, the BBC and a list of top design magazines and blogs, such as Creative Review.

Carhartt Installation

As the year has progressed, we have been extremely lucky to work with a variety of great clients, including: Carhartt, Maharishi, Monkstone Knitwear, Samsung, Beck’s, Lovebox Festival and Cnwd.

Monkstone AW12 Video Lookbook

Where possible, we strive to work on worthy projects that we believe in, and we’ve enjoyed running workshops with the public. This has led us to work on inspirational projects such as the Do Lectures, and Kaleidoscope Festival which launches at the Barbican in November.

Monkstone AW12 Video Lookbook

We’re always keen to hear from people who would like to collaborate with or commission us, so please feel free to give us a shout at:
Website | Blog | Vimeo | Facebook | Twitter

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See more arts collectives we’ve featured on the site. Think we should feature your collective? Get in touch.

Grotta Zine is a brand new art-zine, a 36-page bi-weekly magazine featuring exciting artists from Iceland. Grotta is edited, published and produced by Frosti Gnarr Studio, a newly formed creative design-studio at Grótta, Iceland. Grotta Zine is as said published twice a month, each time featuring only one artist and his offerings to the issue. Emphasis is put on interdisciplinary artists that we at the studio feel need to be seen. This handmade art zine is photocopied at our studio, with the cover sheet hand sprayed for a unique artist signature. Only 500 copies will be made of each issue.

Frosti Gnarr Studio Staff

The first artist featured was Sigurður Angantýsson Hólm, an introverted artist obsessed with the combination of symbolism and nature. Before the release Sigurður spent three weeks in the studio library, drawing his brains out, choosing and developing the artwork for his issue. This is something we implemented from the start, having the artist over at the studio for at least a week to work and develop some kind of ideology, style or concept. The profit of each issue is shared fairly to everyone involved.

Artist Sigurður Angantýsson Hólm

Inside Grotta Zine Issue 1

The second artist we chose to feature is Hellcat, a photographer that documents the dark sides of the Reykjavík nightlife. Extremely graphic at times, these moments tell a story, not only of the subject but also of the photographer. Famed for the sincerity of his images, Hellcat shoots with analog film cameras from the corners of nightclubs, afterparties and other generally shady circumstances. Issue #2 of Grotta Zine glimpses into Hellcats darkroom and his life right now.

Grotta Zine Issue 2

Frosti Gnarr Studio is the brainchild of Frosti Gnarr, a graphic/editorial designer that recently made his return to Iceland after a few years study in the Netherlands, where he got his MA in Editorial Design at the HKU in Utrecht. Previously he got his BA from the Iceland Academy of the Arts.

Inside Grotta Zine Issue 2

In the beginning, the studio bought a copier. That’s it. They found an excellent 15 year old Konica-Minolta, about 70 km away in the next town to Reykjavík. A few days later, Grotta Zine was born, and they were already making tests to see how they could play around with this printing technique. It really sparked a great interest in this medium.

In the next months Grotta have lined up collaborations with a lot of great artists from different fields such as photographers, painters, musicians and filmmakers to create versatile and unique issues of Grotta.

Find out more about Grotta Zine:
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Find out more about Frosti Gnarr Studio:
Website | Facebook

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Find more zines we’ve featured here.