During the summer holidays I
was asked by a tutor, on behalf of the Site Gallery, Sheffield if I would be willing to
form a team to help an internationally renown artist who was flying in from the
US to exhibit a film installation piece at Art Sheffield 2013. This was to be paid work and involved working
alongside the artist, Edgar Arceneaux, as editing assistants.
The team consisted of myself, Fraser Harrison
and Rhys Holland. I met Natasha from Site and Edgar when he arrived in Sheffield and went
through the footage that he had compiled so far. The film 'A Time to Brek Silence' was to be an hour long, the same
length of time as a catholic mass, and was filmed in an abandoned church in
Detroit. The film itself was based on a
speech by Martin Luther King and the set up of the film included religious
iconography and included references to Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey.
This is the link to Edgar's exhibit information on the Art Sheffield website. The film and artist's talk was hosted at CADs on Shalesmoor.
For our part we cut sections
of the film, decided on best shots to use, applied effects such as slow motion
and colourisation and spent a lot time rendering the work and passing out
versions to the Site Gallery for press previews and tech rehearsals.
As the main organiser of the
team I also took on the role of production runner. This involved getting Edgar to the right place
at the right time, gaining late night access to the university edit suites,
making sure that he had refreshments and sometimes acting as liaison between
Edgar and the Site Gallery. I also
filmed the exhibition for the gallery.
The work for Edgar was really
interesting. The film came to us in a
rough cut state and it was interesting to sit and work with the artist as we
worked on finishing the editing of his film, as he made his last minute
changes, rearranged sequences and tidied up his cut.
It was very good experience to
see how a professional film maker approaches his work and how a film exhibit is
arranged through the gallery committee and how an artist is treated.
As a producer I gained
valuable experience about a production runner's role and it started to flesh
out the profiles and job descriptions that I had read for runners on sites such
as Creative Skillset, BBC and Prospects, and I was able to put into practice a lot of
the duties and responsibilities that the job entails.
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