Burnt Candle Presents......

 

Homepage

The Leader Plus project list

Filming Schedule

Orkney Recce Photo Album

Shetland Recce Photo Album

BCP Blog Page

Dave's mobile 0771 4712340

 

 

===============================================================================

8th January

Just to keep everybody posted on progress so far....

Christmas was great, realtively decent weather, Went sailing on Christmas Day - mighty big seas but totally refreshing, then home for a wee dram and some Chrissy cake, made by Moira in the village - total work of art and rather a shame to cut it!

Debbie at the helm on Christmas Day in Skelda Voe about 2:30 pm

Now that's a Chrissy Cake - whisky's nae too bad either

Anyway - We completed all the Orkney segments tonight and put them out to DVD for the first client review on Friday. Have to get them to Orkney though, and that is, as always, weather dependent. Should finish the Shetland ones tomorrow, with a fair wind. Have to pick up a couple of the segments from Karen who has been working at home.

==============================================================

 

21st December- Greenvale

You're probably wondering why there's been so much silence on this here blogpage....

Well we've been VERY busy. Yesterday we did the Folkloore segement while Andy has been gertting the rough cuts together for our first deadline which is ... er.... TODAY.

Good news is that we've done it - the first cut will be sent to Orkney today... Better get on with it - I'll keep you posted (Scuse the Pun)

============================================================================

 

15th December -Greenvale Studio

Midnight Hatston Terminal, Kirwall Force 8/9, light p[oles swaying in the wind, Northlink late due to weather, but the four of us, Peter, Me Andy and Debbie eager to get back to Shetland and get on with the edit. In the event the trip wasn't too bad really, a few majore lurches round about the Sumburgh Roost was really all that I was aware of.

Ready to roll - the bone mill

Critical eye of Maria

Now comed the job af transferring all of Andy's looged clips to the large edit machine in the studio, that'll take the best part of the day and then on Sunday Andy will begin cutting each segment.

=============================================================================

14th December - Bere Barley

Ask Dr Peter Martin, of Orkney College anyhting about agronomy and his eyes light up. For those of us who are not familiar with the term, agronomy is the study and theory of all things agricultural, at least, to my simple mind, that's roughly what it's about.

Pete Filming a flooded mill stream in a force 10 gale

It was to Orkney college, after filming the sune rising over Maes Howe in a force 10 gale the we hove up to the college to find out more about the Bere Barley project, which, in part was funded through the LeaderPlus scheme.There's much more to this "heritage" grain than meets the eye. In fact it's a fascinating development which crosses many boundaries and discipline. Historically Bere has bee selectively bred in the northern isles since early Viking times to withstand the rigours of our northern climes. The grain has been used in baking, brewing, cookery, distilling, bedding for animals, thatching - I'm sure there are many others - suffice it to say that culturally, it occupies a major place in the culture of the islands.

Stanes of Stennes

The particular focus of was the Bere Beer project which neatly ties together the tewo island communities in a commercial partnership involving Orkney College and Valhalla Brewery in Shetland. The Bere grain is grown in Orkney - step forward Arthur Cromarty and colleague John who oversee the growing and harvesting of the crop. This is not without difficulty because of the long stalk of the Bere plant, but a new combine harvester has greatly helped this.

The harvested grain is then sent South for malting and returned to Unst in Shetland where Sonny Priest transforms it into the amber nectar known and marketed as Bere Beer, I can attest to it's wondrousness and we'll be sampling it in the next segment - Davy Cooper's Trowie Tales.......

 

=============================================================================

13th December - Stromness - Aquaterra

On the face of it an easy day for us, our (temporary) home patch, so no travelling. A media company so the folk would be savvy - you get the picture. Aye, but these guys know all about our job. I'm a tad nervous of working in front of professionals - and make no mistake about it - these guys are professional.

 

Mike Walker and Gareth Jones - Aquaterra

Mike, of Northstar New Media, creative partner company with Aquaterra, worked for many years in the recording industry, working with greats like U2 and David Bowie, now settled in native Orkney, working among other things with G Dr.Gareth Davies on the pioneering frontiers of the new renewable energy technologies.

The work which Gareth and Mike do, involves visualising landscape and seascape, plotting the geography of an area using very high definition satelite imagery and mapping these to known contours on the land and under the ocean. This highly specialised work enables energy companies and ordinary people like you and I, to better understand how large machine will impact on the environment.

And it's not just today's high tech industries which can benefit from their work. Using this technology we can be shown how the landscape would have looked in the past and glimpsing into the future. It's truly cutting edge stuff and the result of many years of visionary work.

What's great for this project is that Mike and Gareth have made a imulation available for this DVD which, I hope will start of the main film and get us into the projects themselves. Good stuff guys and yes, the shoot went really well with no apparent camera shake.

===============================================================

 

=============================================================================

Tues 12th Dec

Moment for Me

Excuse the rahther sparse blog today. For a start, the Vodaphone internet connections is just plain, well, crap and I haven't got the time to faff around. Moment for Me mums - you're all great. What a brilliant project and I hear what you say - got to continue - get lobbying!

 

Preparing for camera

An expert view of the "babycam"

St Magnus Cathedral in the afternoon for Ruth K's segment. A world class venue made entirely relevant to our project with LeaderPlus funding some stained glass window work. It's not an easy thing to do, perform for the camera but Ruth managed it expertly with aplomb and a great speaking voice - nice

 

=============================================================================

Monday 11th Kirkwall

orkneycommunities.co.uk and orkneybusinesses.co.uk

Two websites linked by a common vision. Technology serving the needs and aspirations of a pragmatic and resourceful community. Such an ideal can never be the preserve of one person and so it is with these two linked, but diverse projects.Jack Moodie and Steve Heddle are modest men. Web design and making life tolerable for those of us who have to struggle against physical odds are not glamorous or high profile occdupations. And it's sometimes difficult for communicators themselves, to actually take a step back and communicate their own story.

Hello Mr. Chips, owner of the "Harbour Fry" and disabled champion. (Sorry didn't get your name)

I guess that's where we come in, but to tell these stories without, in some way, changing the whole dynamic is difficult and can seem insensitive. Jack, Steve, Gayle (I hope I've spelt that right and thanks for the brillliant pen), Gaynor and Sian, whom I've not actually met yet but who, I know, was also instrumental in pushing these crucial projects, thanks for giving us your time.

|

Jack the Brave

I'm not going to say any more. If you're reading this, then please click the links. Pictures, thousands of words - theres a proverb :-)

 

=======================================================================

10th December Stromness

Sorry it's going to be a short blog tonight, (Sunday) we jsut got back from Kirkwall wher Andy and I were meeting Jack Moodie and Steve Heddle to talk about tomorrow's shoot for the Orkney Business Directory and the Orkney Community Website, which until tonight I was a bit muddled about, Now I see the projects clearly and we've arranged to meet at the VAO centr tomorrow, first thing to start filming. I'mk writing this in our rented flat in Stromness using a Vodafone connection which is very flakey but managed to download a couple of MP3 music files written by Hayden Hook, who is Stevie's boy. Don't count on any stills for the next couple of days though.. We're going to be using one of them for either the Westray Hofn project, which we filmed yesterday, or for the Moment for Me (Mums) project on Tuesday.

Friday's filming in Yell went really well, Mary Ellen is a star and Mike McDonnel, in his irrepressable style recounted some side splitting irreverent tales of the great man himself, to the background of a good peat fire and some spectacular winter light.

Low winter sun at the Old Haa, Yell, Shetland

Piece of cake - say no more

The Westray Hofn project, which involves the building of a wind turbine to power a meeting place for local young folk was a little more difficult, because clearly the kids were not too comfortable talking to us. We hit on the novel idea of letting them direct and shoot the piece while we reapired to the local hostelry and let them get on with it. Result! Don't worry Roy, there'll be no extra charge and we did have parental release...

The romance of filmaking in winter in Westray

Westray Light

I'll try and get some still up if I get a chance, in Kirkwall, maybe on Tuesday because we're starting out at th internet cafe where we're meeting Donna Wylie

 

=========================================================================

7th December - The Planet Volco

A virtual planet peopled by primary kids interacting over the internet. This was the concept brought to Shetland by Roxane Permar and American artist now resident in Burra. It took my addled brain a little time to get round the concept, but it's a good one, enabling the Leader Plus funding, which bought the scanners, and other equipment which made the project possible.

Anyway it's nearly beddy byes for me so here are todays pick of the crop

Approaching Bressay by SatNav

Discussing Volco

Volcan Masks

Happy Group Shot

 

===============================================================================

December 6th - Lerwick - GeoParks and Public Art

Just a quick one today, just that I'm pretty knackered and I'm not sure anyones reading this - Pleeplse, Pleepse - send me an email . So here goes , rather than bore anyone with details here are some stills from the shoot.

Full moon at the new museum public art installation

=================================================================================

5th December - Cope Composting Project

Wind finally eased for a while. The North boats fianlly were able to leave Aberdeen after some sustained South Easterly weather, which mad it possible for Andy Wills, finally, to make it to Shetland. This is good - it means we have a professional editor - for a wee while I was worried that I would have to do the edit. I'm a photographer to trade, really. I can edit, of course, but it's no da sam - don't tell Andy I said that, by the way.

Karen and the camera (Note the rainhat)

Anyway today was the Cope composting segment. Now you might think that composting is a fairly basic affair, as I did. Chuck a load of vegetable matter into a pile, leave it for a few months, shovel it into your garden and hey presto! - prize cabbages and onions. Errrrr - no, sorry. It is an art and a science.

Enter Janet and her team of Cope composters, ably aided and abetted by BIG HANNAH. BH is a big green vegetable scoffing machine which turns brussels sprouts (and no, that's not a reference to our European Funders, even although it was this money which enabled the project) into, well, compost. (Quiet at the back). It's a long story and one which we hope to tell rather more eloquently in the DVD, but in a nutshell, Cope recycles all of its waste from other activities, Kitchen, recyclying etc. plus other organic waste from around the islands to produce a first class John Innes type compost which can be used to root rees, shrubs and flowers.

Where there's Muck - there's Janet- the end product

This compost is also ideal for the rearing of - wait for it - worms - blue nosed tiger worms to be precise, which, in the words of Aristotle, beautifully paraphrased by the Shetland worm Guru, Stuart Graham, are the "Intestines of The Earth" They do a great job all round these guys, and bizarrely help our local angling fraternity to catch bigger and better fish.

Stuart Graham on the Diet of Worms

 

============================================================================

4th December - Ist Day of Filmshoot

Isleburgh, North Mainland and Tingwall - Organic Wool Project

Well, nobady said it was going to be easy, a Shetland winter shoot when, at best, you can get maybe two hours of useable daylight for filming. The day dawned dismal and raining, a quick look at the forecast showed more to come with the chance of a short break in the middle of the day.

I picked Pete up from his home, just up the road, daylight just managing to illuminate a sodden landscape, didn't really look too hopeful, but we met Karen at Sandwater as arranged and headed North to Addie Doull's farm at Islesburgh. It was raining heavily and the metal roof of the byre where we were filming the organic wool clip made it impossible to properly record any sound.

Pete Johnson prepares camera 1

Having a bit of confidence in the forecast, we set up the shoot, took us about half an hour, and lo and behold, the rain ceased!! Enough time to film, the important part while Lorna and Addie explained what was going on, and bang on cue when we had finished - on came the rain - marvellous.

While we still had daylight, we high tailed it south to Tingwall, to Pete and Linda Glanville's organic croft, where Linda had prepared a splendind bowl of chicken broth. Torn between my stomach and an acute sense of "Losing the Daylight", we compromised, gulped down tha elixir of eternal youth and set up the interview with Ronnie Eunson. Amazingly the sky cleared enough to film Ronnie in the Glanvilles' "Sitootery" , which is one of the best in Shetland. A good day's work and very lucky.

 

Weel kent farmer and organic champion - Ronnie Eunson

=============================================================================

December 3rd.

It's a testament to the commitment of the Burnt Candle Producer (Ahem) that he managed to drag himself out of his cozy pit this morning to attend the Youth Issues meeting, at the Islesburgh youth centre in Lerwick. Because it was absolutely foul weather - thinks: what did I agree to film this at 60 degrees north in winter for - certainly not the money! - anyway, dragged myself out of bed, two legs in one underpant, fell over the cat, while brushing teeth and then motored 25 miles to Lerwick - to hell with the expense and damage to the environment - arriving panting and as dishevelled as a baldy old git can get.

There, to be met by Claire Pearson and co., who was as surprised to see me as I was surprised by the.... well.... YOUTH of the august "Geddery". Anway I managed to persuade her that despite appearances, I was not some kind of Psycho (OK, OK, that's not even remotely funny, please guys you'll get used to a lifetimes's irreverence) and could I sit in at the meeting for 10 minutes.

Luckily Claire and her colleague Shona, whom our (rather enlightened) council have gifted as Youth Empowerment people, had heard about Burntcandle and what we are doing, gave me an a unnanounced agenda extra, before the important business of the day. If you're reading this - thanks guys.

 

The youth issues committee

I tried to give a flavour of what we were trying to achieve, what is was about, what it was not about and I think I may have sparked a bit of interest. It was good to hear at first hand what the Youth Bank was about. They're basically financing small scale community, youth based, intiatives in the islands. These projects are all handled by folk under 18 and include stuff like funding life-jackets for the boating club, a healthy eating tuck shop, a filmaking project (which I hope we can get clips from... hint, hint), a garden in Tingwall etc. etc. Inspiring stuff, especially for an old cynic like me.

I hope we can get something organised, they're having a meeting next friday - I'm hoping one of our team can get along and film some of their work, meanwhile Ryan Smith is going to look into some musical tracks and I've asked the group to think about how they would like to be filmed and even take a bit of ownership of this segment direction wise... Watch this space

 

=============================================================================================

 

 

December 1st

David Sjoberg has put a piece of music together for the Volco project. Very "planetary" and ethereal, certainly hits

the spot artistically - thanks Dave. Volco is a virtual planet created originally by a group of primary kids in South London and has taken on a kind of life of tits own. Roxane Permar, artist and film-maker, now living in Shetland jas brought the concept to Shetland and was succesful in getting some funding for the project. Several schools in Shetland are taking part in this lovely prooject, where the kids develop their own planet, inhabit it with virtual characters and intertact with each other and the inhabitants of other "planets" across the world.

Roxane Permar

Planet Voco planets

 

=============================================================================

Wednesday 30th

And things are moving along apace. We're now getting all the technical stuff together for the shoot - filmstock, batteries, spare lighting lamps etc. etc. Preparing new hard drives for the edit, both in studio and with Karen's fantastic new Sony Viao, which has been loaded with the latest edit software. JJ Jamieson has come with a co0uple of unpublished BongShang tracks for the musical soundtrack. Yesterday we met with Mary-Ekllen Odie, Booby Tulloch's sister and custodian of the Tulloch photo archive, at the old Haa in Burravoe. Fascinating and unique collection of Bobby's lifetime work consisting over 14000 images, preserved and digitised by the team at Burravoe.

Then to Tingwall where Pete Glanville and Linda work with frabuloous Shetland organic fleeces. We'll be filming the work with these on Monday up north - Should be interesting

I've added more stills from the Yell and Tingwall reccies to the Album - enjoy!!

====================================================================================

Monday 28th

Shetland Recce Starts

Karen and I started the Shetland recces. First up to Cope on a fairly rubbish morning, but the guys at Cope, Vic Thomas and Co., made up for it with their enthusiasm. I've put up som pics of the day at http://www.burntcandle.co.uk/ShetlandAlbum/

Musical Soundtrack - Stevie Hook and Cluny Revell have started with the soundtrack, using some atmosphere music produced earlier and adding some new tracks. We have some great original music coming up, including a funky drum and bass rap - very exciting stuff and will be interesting to see how it all pulls together.

=====================================================================================

 

Orkney Recce - 23rd,24th,25th November

Firstly, very many thaks ot everyone who took the trouble from your busy schedules to speak to me and give me such good insight into the projects in Orkney. I'm not going to name names just now, you Know who you are! But there is now a distinct shape taking place in my mind of how we are going to craft the final piece. I only hope we can get some decent weather in December when we're there but if not - well, it's going to look exciting and it's definitely going to be challenging film work.

The weather for the recce was pretty mixed but on the whole pretty good. Saturday in Westray was brilliant and I got some really good pics, plus some lovely mini DV footage of a very young seal pup and his mother. I learned about the Bere barley grain and how it has developed from ancient times by careful selection. We sampled the wonderful Bere beer which is brewed here in Shetland, making a natural link between our two communities. I found out how disadvataged young mums in Orkney have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, thanks to some inspired tutoring and how new technology is helping disabled people.

Cutting edge work in computer graphics and geophysics are making a difference in preserving Orkney's linguistic heritage in a surprising offshoot from renewable technolgy visualisation techniques and how this links into projects being undertaken by young people in Westray, where LeaderPlus cash has helped to introduce these young folk to renewable energy, sparking a wave (excuse the pun) of interest in all aspects of alternative power in the islands.

I've put together a filming schedule for our work. Our team will arrive in Orkney on 9th December. We'll be setting up our edit suite in Stromness, where we have accomodation and start shooting the different projects on Monday, stareting in Kirkwall at the imposing Voluntary Action Centre.

 

Here are some stills from the recce.

Baby Seal in Westray

 

Winter Berries at Orkney Enterprise

Fish Boxes at Pierowall

Childs Eye View of Creche, Kirkwall

Early Wind Machine - Westray

 

Mill Wheel - Birsay

 

St Magnus Cathedral Detail.

 

=========================================================

22nd November

Dave

Looks like a beautiful day, it certainly is here in Reawick, getting ready to leave for Orkney and the recce's,

View from studio window this morning (Wednesday 1030)

 

BUT

THERE ARE WARNINGS OF GALES IN FITZROY SOLE FASTNET SHANNON ROCKALL
MALIN HEBRIDES AND BAILEY

THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS AT MIDNIGHT
LOW 800 MILES WEST OF FITZROY 1007 EXPECTED MALIN 959, BY MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY. LOW VIKING 976 LOSING ITS IDENTITY

FAIR ISLE FAEROES
NORTH VEERING EAST OR SOUTHEAST 5 TO 7, PERHAPS GALE 8 LATER. ROUGH
OR VERY ROUGH,
BECOMING MODERATE FOR A TIME. SHOWERS. GOOD

 

Don't like the sound of that - so it goes

 

========================================================

 

20th November

Dave

Just a quick one to say that we've started contacting all the projects, if you haven't heard from us you will. If we can't get hold by phone hopefully you'll get an email. It's a fairly complicated task trying to co-ordinate 15 projects, so if I contact you more than once - sorry in advance!

Great piece of news today, Stevie Hook is going to engineer and master the soundtrack for the film. Stevie has been working here in shetland for more years that he probably cares to mention and refently has been involved in mainstream sound production work for BBC among other clients.

Anybody who feels they should have been contacted by now and hasn't, don't hesitate 01595 860338. I'm (weather permitting) setting off for Orkney on Wednesday night to meet up with folk and do the intitial interview/recce. Karen has been contacting the Shetland projects and we hope to get around everyone next week. Going to send initial email to Orkney tonight.....

=============================================================

 

Hi everyone, Dave Hammond here, producer of the Leader Plus DVD project . You can find out more about Burnt Candle Productions from our Homepage - please excuse the development status - it'll get better.

This is going to be an interesting and diverse project to produce. We're looking at 15 individual projects, and although each segment on the final DVD will be 3 to 6 minutes in duration, there is a lot of background work to be done. Like Dolly Parton says "It costs a lotta money to look this cheap", it takes a lot of footage to make a 3 minute short. At the moment the, we are doing a lot of the pre-production work, which involves the boring but necessary stuff, paperwork, insurances. Preparing call sheets, risk assessments, release forms. All 3 of us, Karen, Andy and myself are researching the individual projects, trying to fit together a schedule which can suit everyone (impossible), or at least a compromise which can work.

We have a really interesting and diverse group of projects and this is reflected in the individuals who are involved. You'll be getting to hear from us in the next few weeks and I thought that this blog page would be a good way of keeping everyone informed and, I hope, Interested in what's happening. Please feel free to contribute, criticise, praise, carp or anything else, as long as it's not profane or libellous I'll post it up on the web :-) Email to dave@burntcandle.co.uk

The first thing to happen on the filming front will be some work with Pete Glanville and the organic fleece project which is a co-operation between Shetland Producers and a mill in North Ronaldsay in Orkney. You can read about this project here.