November 3, 2010
I’m making a short film for Pembrokeshire Surf Ryders. It’s about their first year of being a club and the reasons behind the club starting up. On Halloween 2010 they held their inaugural open Championship for the ‘Paul Ryder Cup’ This vid is a short taster of the surf on that Sunday. All of the clips are taken from the opening rounds, the surf got better as did the surfing the further the competition progressed, but I’m saving all of the best bits for the main film.
I shot the surfing with my Sony Ex1, Letus Extreme DoF adapter and a 500mm long lens. I was quite happy with the results although some of the shots are a little grainy due to Low light and batteries running down on the Letus!!
Stay tuned for the full film, which will be done, fingers crossed by the end of December.
Posted in Blog |
July 23, 2010
Posted in Blog |
July 19, 2010
My Friend Caroline sent me this link over the weekend for the dance film ‘Amelia’. I have to say it’s simply stunning, the movement of camera, lighting and shadow, location, music, the play with the viewers visual plane and of course the movement. I hope you enjoy it.
Posted in Blog |
July 12, 2010
This video is a combination of footage shot at boulders over the last 18 months. We decided to go for high energy tune to represent the nature of Boulders along with fast editing and good action shots. The video is made up of footage from tape based cameras like the Sony Z1 and A1P and my latest tapeless camera Sony EX1 with my Letus extreme and Nikon primes. The video shows off all of Boulders’ latest signage, shop products and taste treats in their cafe.
Posted in Blog |
June 5, 2010
This week has been a great fact finding week for the Stella and Tiny documentary.
I received another letter from Scotland. A gentleman had read my letter in the paper and knew Stella and Tiny quite well, particularly during the late sixties and early seventies and, amazingly enough, he is actually in one of the films entitled “You in Your Small Corner”. He was also able to pass on the number of a lady called Morag who I spoke to on Thursday evening. Morag is a local resident of Muirhead and had known Stella and Tiny all of her life. She recalls them with great affection. Morag is collating a local history of the area and told me that local residents had wondered where the film “You in Your Small Corner” had gone.
“You in Your Small Corner” is a film following the seasons of Muirhead and Birkhill and shows the area in the late 50′s early 60′s. Talking to Morag and thinking over the coincidences that are unfolding I truly feel this is a good thing to be doing. I’ve also become quite keen that once the story of Stella & Tiny has been told I would like to return the footage to Scotland. What happens between now and then should make a good documentary.
Morag told me some great titbits about Stella and Tiny.
- Stella was an actual St. Trinnean’s pupil. The School was in Edinburgh, founded in 1922 by Miss C Fraser Lee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Trinian’s_School.
- Stella had been in the ARP Police (Air Raid Precautions) during WWII and Tiny was a Police Officer.
- On April 29th 1942 when returning from London, I’m not sure if they were returning from Honeymoon or moving back to Scotland but they were caught in the Baedecker raids on York. Losing all of their possessions during the bombing raid on York train Station. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baedeker.
- Later that year Tiny was sent to Canada as a RAF Navigator/Bomber and returned in 1946. Maybe this is where their love of travel came from.
- Morag also told me that Stella & Tiny to Africa and made a film about that as well (unfortunately I haven’t got that one, so If anyone out there has it please let me know).
- Stella was a great musician and left her Steinway grand piano to a local school when she passed away in 2003, she also did lots of work with the Dundee Rep Theatre. I have included 4 photo’s Morag sent me in an email of Stella on her Steinway.
As you can see this week has been an exciting week, and I’m getting some good information and storys about Stella & Tiny. I am planning on going to Scotland next month to meet up with Morag and the local people to find out more and begin filming. I can’t wait. I was talking today with my friend Marc about how amazing this project is turning out to be. The seed for it all was a box of cine footage purchased off ebay 5 years ago, and now the footage will be returned to it’s home (via my documentary of course).
Posted in Blog | Tagged baedeker raids, documentary, letter from scotland, research, Simon Clode, st trinneans, st trinnians, Stella Young, stella&tiny, Thomas Young, tiny young, wwii |
June 1, 2010
Today I arrived at the office and there was a letter waiting for me. Nothing unusual there you may think, but this was an actual letter; written by hand, by a real person. It’s been quite a while since I have received a handwritten letter. The stamp on the envelope was Scottish, which immediately made me think about my letter to the editor of the Arbroath Herald I’d written last week.
The letter is from a lady called Anita Walker who knew Tiny or Thomas Young and his wife Stella. In the letter she details her fondness for them both and informs me that sadly they have both past away. The letter doesn’t give any indication of children. It also gave me an address they lived at which I looked up on Google Maps street view and got a image of the house.
The letter also contained some new leads for me to follow and today I have tracked down a gentleman called George Dall – a good friend and work colleague of Tiny, I have a contact number and will be phoning him later today.
All the evidence (such as it was) indicated that the couple had passed away, but to have it confirmed is nonetheless quite sad and I will be sure to visit their last resting place when I finally head to Arbroath to find more about them.
Posted in Blog | Tagged arbroath, letter, letter from scotland, research, scotland, Stella Young, stella&tiny, Thomas Young |
