Solipsistic films

I enjoy making silly little films, though haven’t done so for some years now. They have no particular artistic merit, more just waffling to camera than anything else, but the making and editing is a form of relaxation for me. Their presence online is a bit of a see-saw though… I tend to take them down again on a regular basis as they often seem a needless, pointless vanity. But for now, they’re up, so here’s a selection:

The Night We Never Danced is the reading of a short story I wrote for the Words to Music anthology. The story was a dream – pretty much written down in a couple of hours on waking, when I was still feeling disoriented from that dream. Our stories in the anthology were written from the inspiration of a given song. I’d already written mine (State of Undressed) but noticed a song on the ‘spare’ list which I thought was a good fit for the dream, and so it went into the anthology too. This film brings together the story and that song: Twilight Time by the Platters.

My New Shed is just me painting lyrics onto the wall of my (then) writing shed, accompanied by the wonderful Annie Lennox singing Why. Painting – whether artistically or as a domestic decorating endeavour – is another thing I find very relaxing, and Annie’s live version of this song is one of her most powerful performances and I love it.

The short film The Virtual World is the most likely one to vanish again. I tend to think the irony intended at the start of this film sort of backfires a bit, so I often remove it. Basically I have a real love/hate relationship with the online world – social media in particular – and this film reflects a few of those thoughts.

On a similar theme, my latest offering – The Virtual World II – takes a slightly more lighthearted look at the difference between the Real and the Virtual. I had a lot of fun making this one… though I cut out ten times as much as is left in.

Another one highly likely to vanish because it’s of a more personal nature is In the Garden. Made some years ago, in what was then our garden, with my gorgeous daughters, hot sunshine (scorched grass!), and a trampoline, set against the wonderful sound of Van Morrison’s In the Garden. Re-watching this one brings much joy. I didn’t film the children a lot – parents often miss out on events by being behind a camera rather than part of the action – but I’m glad I made this. They’re grown up now, so it’s nice to have captured a happy memory of their younger selves forever.