On the Video page I have added a new film - Dreamland: about the funfair that exists every year for 2 days in the middle of Oxford. It has a lot in common with 'Market' in that I wanted to film not just the public face, but also the 'behind the scenes' to bring to life the people who make the fair happen and to put on film, a world that you don't normally see, same as 'Market'.
I think it is part of the 'juice' of film-making for me, to go out and discover what is behind what you see everyday, bring it to life and set that as part of the journey of the film, as much as the finished article. The music used in the film is 2000 Light Years from Home (The Rolling Stones)
Street fairs are endlessly fascinating places, eruptions of misrule in the midst of normality, where everyone lets their hair down for a while, has fun, gets scared, excited, thrilled, eats endless quantities of bad food and lest we forget, is where the earliest moving images where displayed to an excited public.
As the home of the bizarre and the surreal, fairs where often the places people came to see the latest novelty films of boxing Kangaroo's, exotic Kings and Queens of far off lands, and the latest celebrity dancers and actresses, performing short pieces for the camera. There is a fascinating archive held at the University of Sheffield which chronicles the history of St Giles and many other Fairs: National Fairground Archive - look out for the photograph from the early years of the 20th Century - showing the entrance to the 'Acme of Living Pictures', displayed by the 'Wardoculargraph' no less.
The idea of a film as a fairground attraction has never left us. It is only a small leap from the sensation films of the Victorian Era to the present day kinetic (often 3d) thrill rides we have today, films such as Transformers, Avatar and Clash of the Titans. Speed, sensation, the rush of colour and light contained in the 'Tentpole' studio films (those films destined to act as money-making centres around which the profits of a major studio output relies - again note the fairground allusion) are just the latest offspring of those early films displayed side by side with the roundabouts and the ferris wheels which our distant ancestors strolled past in their sunday best.
Ironic that those early films sat cheek by jowl with emporia selling all kinds of popcorn and candyfloss, just as today those multi-screen venues exist to sell confectionery, with a film thrown in as a bonus.
Enjoy Dreamland.
