The first foray into 16mm film making. With a Bolex, a 3min reel of film and with fellow student/artist Shirley MacWilliam as camera operator, this film was shot around the grounds of The Slade School of Art in 1991. The grand building in the corner of some of the shots, is the central portico of the University College Buildings on Gower Street, London. The stills are photo-copies and photographs from McClean’s family album. With the help of James Van Der Pool who worked at Four Corners Film workshop in Bethnal Green, a rostrum camera was used to film the stills and the film titles. Some editing was done on a steenbeck but the majority of it was done in camera.
The sound track was made during a sound workshop that year, with McClean playing guitar used as a backdrop for a voice-over of a sort.
The clips using colour 16mm film were shot in two locations in Co.Tyrone. The green, moss covered bridge runs above Altamuskin Alter Glen (The massrock in the glen) near where McClean’s father grew up. The red wreath was filmed near the spot where 8 British Soldiers were killed by an IRA bomb in 1988 not far from the village of Beragh where McClean grew up; too many young lives lost.
SCREENINGS/EXHIBITIONS:
The film was screened as part of McClean’s first year postgraduate work at the Slade, but may also have been screened at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in the summer of that year.
