Category: Landscape

Film Music and Sound, Folk Horror, Landscape, Literature, Television

The Aural Aesthetics of Ghosts in BBC Ghost Stories – Part 3 (William Ager).

Part 1. Part 2. A “Disembodied Voice” of some form is a clear norm for representing a creature that, by its very definition, is now bodiless.  This means that, as an aural technique, it is used frequently throughout many other ghost stories as well.  In Lawrence Gordon Clark’s films, the aural trait occurs several times with different and varying effects, though never with the layered … Continue reading The Aural Aesthetics of Ghosts in BBC Ghost Stories – Part 3 (William Ager).

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Film, Folk Horror, Landscape

The Folk Horror Chain

The Folk Horror Chain The following is a rough transcript of a paper delivered at the A Fiend in the Furrows conference, held at Queens University, Belfast on the 20th of September, 2014. Introduction Folk horror is a strange form of media. There’s an unusual craving for defining and canonising in spite of being a sub-genre which seems inherently intuitive. This unusual combination of shared thematic … Continue reading The Folk Horror Chain

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Film, Landscape

A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness (2013) – Ben Rivers + Ben Russell.

Doused in a natural ethnography based upon the landscape, A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness (2013) is a strangely hypnotic mixture of fact and fiction by filmmakers, Ben Rivers and Ben Russell.  Both have come from making shorter works and the episodic sense of place and the perspectives of time are all questioned through visual sociology and a natural embarkation of documentary film. There’s … Continue reading A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness (2013) – Ben Rivers + Ben Russell.

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Film, Folk Horror, Landscape, Short Film

Trailer – The Coastal Path.

Here’s a trailer for my next short film called The Coastal Path.  It’s a ghost story and filmed on both digital and super 8 film.  I’ll be going into detail about the film when it is eventually available to watch online (i.e. when it’s finished) but for now, I wanted a trailer just to sum up the work so far.  It has taken a lot … Continue reading Trailer – The Coastal Path.

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Film, Landscape, Psychogeography, Short Film

Short Film – Artefacts (Super 8 film).

Synopsis.  Artefacts (2014) is a short video piece shot on super 8 film.  It captures the rural vistas around The Wirral which show hints of civilisation but fail to show the true presence of humanity.  These rural areas are littered with man-made objects but the natural wilderness has won through, creating a sense of the uncanny and eerie in places almost haunted by their emptiness … Continue reading Short Film – Artefacts (Super 8 film).

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Film, Folk Horror, Landscape, Television

Films On The Strange British Coastline.

While many British films take full advantage of the rural potential that “this spectered isle” can provide, there seems to be another sub-sect to this branch film, often finding its way into British horror cinema.  Of course, this isn’t as clear cut as simply analysing films under the guise of “Rural Horror” or “Folk Horror” but there is a small batch of British horror films … Continue reading Films On The Strange British Coastline.

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Film, Landscape, Literature

Patience (Grant Gee) and The Rings of Saturn (W.G. Sebald) – Capturing Perception

There are a number of reception possibilities attainable when watching Grant Gee’s 2011 essay film, Patience (After Sebald).  Any film based on a book or around an author is always going to separate its viewers into two groups; those who have read the original source material and those who have not.  While the latter will be seeking to latch onto the their initial experience of … Continue reading Patience (Grant Gee) and The Rings of Saturn (W.G. Sebald) – Capturing Perception

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Film, Landscape

Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer) – The Human Landscape.

This article contains minor spoilers. Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin (2013) is a film that is structured around the different landscapes and their collected norms to such an extent that it comes to resemble a strange, erotic and surreal travelogue.  While the film’s ambiguous nature is one of its defining features, its portrayal of specific locations and, vitally, their effect on the people within them, … Continue reading Under The Skin (Jonathan Glazer) – The Human Landscape.

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Art, Film, Folk Horror, Landscape, Short Film, Uncategorized

Forest (Short Film) and A Screaming Breeze (Book).

For some time now I have been involved in a collaborative arts project with local illustrator and artist Katie Craven.  Before the first stage of the project could be unleashed onto the unsuspecting public, the project collapsed in on itself thanks to a Belgian art gallery among other things.  To show just how close it got to being finished, there’s even a stop press advert … Continue reading Forest (Short Film) and A Screaming Breeze (Book).

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Landscape, Short Film

Music Video – Four Hills (John McGrath)

Making a video for a song without vocals has been an interesting and ultimately rewarding experience.  Without the ties to vocals that often mean music videos scream of publicity, making a video for guitarist John McGrath has given a freedom I’ll probably never enjoy again for other music videos.  McGrath’s music is at once refreshing; a mixture of percussive guitar and electronic delays; consider a … Continue reading Music Video – Four Hills (John McGrath)

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