A tribute to William Blake &, in a sense, to Stan Brakhage, this short film was commissioned by the City of London to be shown as a temporary installation at Leadenhall Market on Open House Day 2006 & 2007. Shot on location, partly in Bunhill (‘Bone-Hill’) Fields, the Dissenters’ burial ground where Blake & his wife are interred, along with John Bunyan, members of the Wesley family & the hymn-writer Isaac Watts, this is a visually experimental piece which exploits the extremes of the video camera’s shutter speeds, from abstract washes of colour shot with a constantly-moving camera at exposures of half a second to single-frame images shot at a speed of one ten-thousandth of a second. The sound track, orchestrated for three voices, draws on Blake’s poems & journals, & incorporates the tunes of hymns by Isaac Watts, arranged by the composer Paul Archbold & performed by cellist Neil Heyde & viola player Bridget Carey.

click frame to see clip

Companion of Angels

BACK