Manganese mine, Brendon Hills.
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the film page
This page outlines some of our work in TV and video. Some of the films are now available to view as mpegs and wmv files. Click on relevant links below. I'm still experimenting with encoding so please bear with me until everything is fully sorted out. Viewing should be ok on most standard PC free video viewers such as Quicktime or Windows Media Player. Helps to have a broadband connection. I have encountered some mysterious sound problems - lack of voice over - on some PCs. Media player seems to work best so download free windows media player
The Crystal Grail.
This film focuses on our investigations into prion diseases in Queniborough, near Leicester and in East Anglia, mostly shot in the late Summer of 2004. We were looking at 2 aspects of the environment - old munnitions and sound and how these factors could be causes or promoters of metallic microcrystal proliferation in these diseases.
Music is Piperspool and Druid's circle by John Surman from Selected Recordings on ECM records and the Cavendish Editor's Construction kit. watch video
Orune, Sardinia.
Educating Rida
This film was made several years ago in 1998
and please bear in mind that Marks research has evolved somewhat
since then.
I made a film of our trip to Iceland to study Rida (scrapie)
which we called ‘Educating Rida’. Its existed in
several versions. A short version is to be broadcast on Meridian
TV’s Freescreen which goes out at 05.00. Dates not yet
known. I contributed Icelandic footage to a film made by
‘Available light’ of Bristol called ‘The Farmer
who wouldn’t give up’ which was shown in 1999 on
Westward TV. Carlton entered this in some competitions in the
States where it got first prize in the Texas Festival (
Environmental category) and 2nd prize in another
competition – I don’t know where!
Watch the video - 10mins
duration
Music is from the CD Wayfarer by the Jan Garbarek group,
available from ECM
records and
Gordon Jacob's 'Trombone concerto' on the CD Trombone concertos
. Christian Lindberg / Warwick Tyrrell. ABC Classics 8.770009
The Gods of Magma and Tecton move slowly,
deep in the structure their plates grind
like the faces of a worn out clutch.
Summer's journey is too short :
a millimetre up or down is enough,
while volcanic fields creep towards
the half - lit obsidian Autumn.
The belly distends, plumes blow off
their metallic condiments to season
the sheep's pumice pasture.
A glottal roar vibrates from Iceland's diaphragm :
Tecton is choking on acid reflux;
the tongues of Magma swathe the sky
with sulphur clouds,
hot breathe as rich as winter broth.
Indigestion settling under a lunar carapace.
Freescreen are showing 3 more of my films over the next few months. These aren’t directly related to my TSE work but reflect my interest in landscape and the visual image.They are very personal films that combine strong visual imagery, music and my poetry.
Colony : watch the film.This film is set in the Eastern part of the Isle of
Sheppey known as the Isle of Harty surrounded by the estuaries of
the Swale and the I was attracted by the different colonies that
spring up in this marginalised type of territory – the
populations of black headed gulls, Oyster Catchers and little
Terns in particular, (Sheppey has the largest variety of wading
birds in the country) and the 2 holiday communities - the shanty
type homes and the more exclusive private village of whitewashed
houses of Shellness.
Music - by the Paula Gardner quartet from the CD Tales of
inclination on SAIN (scdc 2103)
At the end of the Isle,
after towns and villages had settled into districts,
the road ended, not suddenly,
but gave way to tracks
and a left over domain
where colonies began.
Shellness is whitewash clean,
Sunday quiet beyond feet on crushed shells.
Weekend lives are honed here
in the ramshackle way of cabins,
stranded on flats.
Windswept.A sail moves round the Ness
regular as a timepiece,
billowing and ticking into the afternoon.
I set my course for the Chimney at Grain
so far away across the reaching grasses
empty of houses.
But the gulls belong here,
on their flight paths of ack ack,
in a trance of abuse,
bonded to a sense of home.
Marsh : Marsh is a short portrait of a bleak and stark part of the Essex peninsular of Dengie that is surrounded by the North sea and the River Blackwater. Noteworthy are the nuclear power station at Bradwell-on-sea, which ceased electricity generation in 2002 and the small isolated chapel of pilgrimage, St Peter on-the-wall, which is a real gem and is open to visitors all year with services in July/August .
I'm equally interested in the lonely outpost farms, the flat unremitting fields and Dengie marsh that occupy the hinterland of the North sea. watch video wmv format
Seaboard : This is also Eastern but situated on the Suffolk seaboard around the nuclear power stations of Sizewell viewed from Aldeburgh, Walberswick and Orford. I’m interested in the way certain buildings dominate landscapes, demand attention and how their symbolism allows them to insidiously permeate the psyche. The dome of Sizewell B is ever present in the flat marshy and estuarine landscape, as is the power station at Orford. The haunting presence of the derelict, now listed, Ministry of defense buildings 'pagodas' seen as distant silhouettes can also be felt in Orford. watch video wmv format .Music is Pan by Jan Garbarek from the CD Rites. ECM records
The churches of Blythburgh, known as the Cathedral of the Marshes, and the atmospheric part ruin of Covehithe offer an antidote to the awesome menace of Sizewell.
A view from Brighton : 
This is mainly set on the beach at Brighton.
I’m interested in coming at things from a different
perspective and have concentrated more on visual aspects of the
beach - unusual spaces like that under the pier with strong
shadow; the colours and textures of sails, clothing, boats etc.
and an oblique look at how people fit into all this. video
Music: Romance for Harmonica and Orchestra by Vaughan
Williams from the CD
Mount Etna
The Strange Fruit of the Aspromonte (25mins) is about our 4 day visit in Autumn 2000 to study the recent outbreaks of Scrapie in Sicily and the CJD cluster in a village in Calabria. This is the poem I wrote for the film.
My Village is South.
Every day the sun enters the V
of the pine bearded valley
that points to the river.
Hill colours slip
transparent through the afternoon,
and beyond the sea -
speckled with light, blinking.
My house is empty on Avalanche road.
The figadillos will bloom here long after we're gone, deployed on the scree like a defiant army:
On my last day I'll eat the spiked fruit for courage.
They're moving us to another village
with neat grided streets -
Here are vanishing points
coiled between the rows of new houses ,
as necessary as East and West
across this barren hillside.
Above the smoke glazed coast
the copper sun and blooded moon
play snooker with the electrons of earth and air.
Aimed out of South, they bounce
on their inevitable rogue trajectories,
through the orchards of Aspromonte,
into the vanishing world of perception.
Other Broadcast Films (4 shorts for Freescreen)
Whose Hoo? watch the
video.This is set in the wilderness of
the Hoo peninsular in North Kent around Cliffe, Grain and
Cooling. Dickens lived close by in Gadshill, Higham and the Hoo
marshes were the inspiration for some of his work. The opening of
Great Expectations describes the dark and wild marshes with the
Thames beyond - remember the atmospheric opening of David Lean's
B and W film version. I've been walking there for a few years and
find the place has a powerful bleak quality: it's a domain of
power stations, gravel pits, ditches, cabbage fields, isolated
and run down farms and shacks pushing up out of the marshes.The
Thames wraps around the whole mass. I found a constant supply of
strong images in this community on the edge.
Music - from the CD Rites by Jan
Garbarek on ECM
records
Green Road : watch the
video.This was shot after a period of
very heavy rain in September 98.at the western extremity of the
South Downs near Buriton. Green roads are old farming roads that
have left their imprint on the landscape in various ways, mainly
surviving today as footpaths and bridleways, often enclosed by
tunnels of trees and hedgerows.They have a dark bedraggled
quality about them which I like.
Music - by the Paula Gardner quartet from the CD Tales of
inclination on SAIN (scdc 2103)
Church Going : watch
the video. Churches always draw me in
and this one at Folkington, near Eastbourne is a real gem.They
contain so many layers of meaning which just wash over you when
you spend time there. Church going to me means engaging with a
world beyond brought on by the aura of the building and it's
surroundings: history, memory, imagination, science and death
always seem to come up.The film and poem grew out of trying to
make connections to the lives that lie beyond the names in the
visitor's book, grave stones and the Roll of Honour. I feel I
must do this to try to give some significance to those who died
in a foreign field.
Music: Oboe concerto - Vaughan Williams from the CD The
world of British Classics IV on Decca . Academy of St
Martin-in-the-Fields/Marriner/Nicklin
In Folkington church there's a chill,
cold as the library museum down the Walworth Road.
In damp corners that hold back the earth
cool skins of whitewash are crinkling over stone,
becoming fungus, becoming primitive life
in all it's eternal stillness.
Last Saturday's flowers stand in glass vases
against the leaded panes.
On a pew below you can read the grain like a palm
and history gathers in patination
at the light's end,
at these shifting fingerprints.
Here we connect with names -
and then beyond you try to form their lives
out of clues in a visitor's book
or the lichen skeined memorial stones.
You stretch the image further
until an absent family dissolves in the church dark,
standing before the role of honour,
those boys, poached from downland farms
High Tatra Mountains.
The Cart. watch the
video. This is set in the Orava region
of the High Tatra mountains in the North of Slovakia. Its part of
a much longer film I made called 'Altered state' about our
research trip to Slovakia in Autumn 1999 to study the CJD
clusters in the poor mountain communities. It was a stunning trip
and we made a lot of headway in solving the CJD riddle.The
landscape is tough but very beautiful. The communities are
resilient and largely self sufficient with a buoyant and
humourous spirit about them which is probably born out of long
oppression. We were lucky to catch this episode of a family
gathering hay as we were driving south. It was like stepping into
a Corot landscape from the 19th century.
Music - Tess from CD Journey's End by Miroslav
Vitous group on ECM
records
VIDEO NOTES
I've been taking photographs since I was about 11 and only took up video a few years ago but became instantly hooked. I was bowled over by the potential power to combine image, music, poetry, voice over and sound. The video camera was a powerful tool to record events as well as having the capacity to create artistic statements - to move people and to raise important issues. This has been especially true since the invention of the mini digital format which enables good quality images to be produced on small cheap machines and offers great scope for manipulation and editing of the image on a computer.
(This next section carries an Anorak warning) I started off with a Panasonic DX 100 DV camcorder which is small and has good resolution, colour repro. and sound. Its let down by the lens with only 12x optical zoom. I use a tripod as much as possible - a heavy old uni loc with a light Manfrotto head. I've now added a Canon XL1 that supports interchangeable lenses. It's excellent in shoulder mount position with it's good optical stabilizer. The 16x lens is good although there are some problems with auto zoom/focus sync. I've just had an adaptor made up which enables me to use SLR lenses from my Minolta MD cameras.The focal length of the lenses is increased by 7.2x which makes it a telephoto/macro tool only - my 500mm mirror lens becomes a 3600mm lens, which also turns in excellent macro work.
On the editing side I'm using Adobe Premiere 5.1 and Canopus DV Raptor capture card on my computer. I do a certain amount of image manipulation but only when it is appropriate to the subject -Most of what I want to do can be achieved with Brightness, contrast, solarisation and posterisation- simple cross dissolves and straight cuts.
I've got Sound Forge 4.5 which is an advanced sound editing prog. which I need to master - anyone know of a basic tutor book on this please let me know as Premiere is limited. I'm using a Sennheiser K3 mic (as well as the on board mic.) The max volume is rather low through the XLR adaptor (Impedance?) so I'm reverting to a 3.5 jack connection from the mic.
Influences
My influences are various. In stills I grew up with 'the decisive moment', photojournalism, the values of composition and the darkroom. Consequently I have a strong liking for photographers like Bill Brandt, Cartier Bresson and Sebastiao Salgado. In film my influences are quite wide: Nick Roeg, especially in 'Far from the madding crowd' as cameraman and 'Performance', as co director with Donald Cammill.
You don't have to endorse everything Derek Jarman was about to admire this great, naturally inventive visual artist. Most of his film output is extraordinarily original with a great feel for the different qualities of the medium he was using - Video, super 8, 16 or 35mm. War Requiem is a favourite - only it never seems to get shown anywhere.
I like the territory of John Betjeman and his voice over work was especially good in those TV films of England and the English. However they do look a bit dated now and I would prefer something darker and with more edge. The late lamented BBC Arena was also an inspiration in it's quirky treatments of marginalised territory.
Nigel Purdey : February 2001
© Nigel Purdey.January 2001
