The weather was glorious and really hot in the sun but cool in the shade and breezy wherever I stood.
I needed a day or at least an afternoon of making work for various reasons (health and stress related) so did some filming, chatted to a member of the Dover model boat club, took some photos and got down to doing two small drawings.
I am beginning to get a feel of how the final video might feel…water will definitely play a part. The River Dour, from which Dover gets its name, is a spring-fed chalk stream and flows through these gardens and Kearsney Abbey Gardens across the road. From here it flows through the town and out into the Channel at Wellington Dock.
The charcoal drawing is the view from one of the Palladian-style pergola bridges at either end of a “magnificent 170m long canal pond“.
So, I now have quite a few clips to go through including a series of go-pro clips taken by Allan and John, the park keepers, who seem to be enjoying the challenge. When I took the go pro away for a day so I could see how they were getting on, it was clear that Allan, in particular, did not want me to keep the camera for too long.
Next week I want to start doing some drawings too …. and I’m trying to get a trip to the Hague organised for the end of July.
Decisions I need to start thinking about include deciding whether it is going to be a “narrative” film in which case length matters, or whether it is going to be a film that can be played potentially all day without it mattering when the viewer encounters it. The geometry is going to be quite chaotic again, I think, so I will probably keep the timeline simple and follow the months/season in the right order. I was going to wait to edit until the Autumn but I think I am going to start now….
