The making of... Brighton Festival 2015 trailer

Guest Director

By Leonora Lonsdale of Hoi Poilloi

One day I received a call from Pete Shuttleworth, a Producer who I had long wanted to work with, saying he had a job for me. It was for the Brighton Festival and the brief was to try and create a visual piece to accompany Ali Smith’s vision for this year’s festival. Ali had written about how she wanted this year’s festival to focus on the meeting places between the art forms, on what happened when the borders between them opened up and melted. 

I was fascinated how Ali in her own work, particularly ‘Artful’, jumps forms, time and perspective constantly. One minute you are present day observing something, and within the same sentence you are examining a memory one year-old. She references with relish James Williamson’s short “The Big Swallow” where a man essentially eats the camera and the viewer. These references, playful and obsessed with the permeable screen, were what gave me the idea of how to bring Ali’s ideas to the screen. It seemed a little mad, and a bit ambitious, but we thought we’d try and show many different art forms, and navigate seamlessly between them using the transitions as the “meeting place” and the opportunity to blend perspective. 

We had some fantastic people come together to make this film. The aerialists from Starfiz who you see whirling on the sphere up in the air have been working together since the age of 8 years old. I would have loved to include more of their work, it was spellbinding to watch. We had an incredible actress and ballerina, Azzurra Caccetta who braved the elements to come and dance and mime on Devil’s Dyke in Brighton. British skydiving champions, FreeFly Euphoria, gave us their footage to use. Tanya, our producer, plays the violin having studied in a Russian conservatory as a teenager.

Little Lily came in as the little girl at the end and was a total natural. And then the team at Brighton Dome helped us put together all the difficult projections and rigging. It was a huge effort, particularly from Alex our wonderful editor who did all the VFX shots and Xavi our fantastic DP. It’s definitely a surreal little film that could not have been made without the support of many wonderful collaborators. We hope you enjoy.