This weekend ten community performers took their place in front of the camera to film a series of monologues. Each of the finished films will last around three minutes and will be a combination of direct to camera address, footage of the parks, and images that have been collected through the project research work. Sitting in front of a lens and talking directly to a camera is never an easy thing to do, especially with a fair chunk of text to be shared, and so congratulations must go out to all of those that took the plunge.
The films feature a wide range of characters – Thomas Hawksley; a young man protesting at the decision to charge admission to the Arboretum (1850s); a late nineteenth century non conformist preacher, upset at the preponderence of music in the parks; the cricketer Arthur Shrewsbury; a woman waiting for the return of her husband from the Great War; a Home Holidaymaker; a post war walker of the walks; a park keeper bemoaning the introduction of Compulsory Competitive Tendering; a young woman reflecting on the Goose Fair and the importance of the Forest to her childhood; and a volunteer talking about the work of the Park Rangers and the state of the parks today.
Sam Derby-Cooper of Rubber Goat films is now starting to edit the material and the finished films will be ready for exhibition in August. We think that – as a collection – they will be a useful and informative exploration of many of the themes investigated in this project.
