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"With its latest project, Still Life, the Company again demonstrates that it understands the ways in which film can help people to see the world afresh and to arrive at a better understanding of themselves and of the communities they inhabit.....the Company, their principal backers, Screen West Midlands, and most of all the people of Bromyard, should be very proud of what has been achieved. It should be an inspiration to communities everywhere as to what they can achieve with film".
I hope you find Still Life as enjoyable and stimulating as I have. It is work that deserves a wide and appreciative audience.
Lord Puttnam - June 2009 (from the foreword to the Still Life book)
Over 300 people contributed to the Rural Lives project, and our latest ambitious community film production Still Life, created over the course of a year with the people of Bromyard.
The film premiered at the Hay Festival in May 2009 to a packed audience. The DVD and booklet will be launched at the Conquest Theatre in Bromyard on July 25th.
Over the past 12 months residents of all ages and backgrounds have worked alongside media professionals to explore a variety of media arts forms such as scriptwriting, film making, photography, soundscape design and animation to articulate the experience of living in a rural community in the early 21st Century.
Set in Herefordshire Still Life wrestles with isolation and identity in a rural market town, where people quickly learn how to move on rather than move away. Eleven year old Lauren has almost come to terms with her parents splitting up when a school history project re-kindles some very painful memories and a violent and dangerous jealousy
The shoot for Still Life took place over seven very hectic days in March, with a church full of extras in 1940’s outfits for a ‘Hop Picker’s wedding re-enactment’ and a tipper truck decked out in ribbons for a registry office wedding on the Sunday finishing the week off.
A cast and crew of 50 local people and film professionals worked all over Bromyard and the surrounding area; burning scarecrows in Edwyn Ralph, braving snow and sleet for scenes outside Queen Elizabeth Humanities College and love and rage at the KTH yard on Porthouse Industrial Estate! Eagle-eyed locals will also have spotted the film crew on lanes near Little Cowarne and Pencombe, at the Players play park and on residential streets in the centre of the town. Filming brought Bromyard High Street to a standstill as‘Lauren’ (played by Chloe Bagley, 12) was followed by a tracking camera, sprinting past Gilberts stores, for a critical scene in the narrative of the film.
“The commitment and enthusiasm of the crew and cast over the last 7 days has been phenomenal,” said Adrian Lambert, the Producer/Director of the film. “We’ve had every type of weather to contend with and the days have been long, often over 12 hours, but everyone enjoyed the buzz and challenge of being part of this high quality production and the results are looking fantastic.”
The project began in April 2008 and has produced a number of short films, photographic montages that were used to develop the final screenplay.
75 people thoroughly enjoyed seeing themselves on the Conquest’s big screen at the end of the Scarecrow Festival, as they watched a film and slideshow made over the weekend by Queen Elizabeth pupils and local media makers Jim Rolte, Pete Andrews, Monica Szewczyk, Barry Phillips, Mariusz Szwonder and Jason Wall with support from The Rural Media Company. Local gypsy jazz band ‘Tipsy Jazz’ provided the film’s catchy soundtrack. View the film and the slideshow on www.bromyard.info
Key narratives were drawn out in collaboration with the community, through workshops and locally led research. Peter Cox, the project’s screenwriter, lead a series of stories to film workshops, working with members of the local community to look at ideas and themes that could be developed into the final screenplay. Film maker Rachel Lambert worked with members of the community to create three short film sequences from some of the ideas that had been devised and discussed.
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Similar Projects
Participants of the Photography and Sound recording workshop embraced a steep learning curve. Under the expert guidance of Chris Preece, they experimented with new photographic skills, sound recording equipment and learnt 3 different picture and sound editing software packages to create short audio visual studies of corners of Bromyard.
Twenty Five young people from Brockhampton Primary School have taken part in a four day animation project, creating 5 new animations that took the theme of the project as the starting point and then explored it in claymation!
During the Autumn there were further open sessions working with Peter and Producer/Director Adrian Lambert, to further develop the 30-40 minute screenplay. Still Life is about the story of an imaginative young girl who has been picked to play ‘the bride’ in the school’s re-enactment of a hop pickers wedding just when her own family is in turmoil
All the ideas and creative pieces generated through the project inspired the writing and creation of Still Life. Building upon the success of our previous community film Crafta Webb the project similarly drew on many local skills, enthusiasms and creative talents to create the final production.
The project has several key outputs:
- Still Life - a 30 minute film drama built on lives and stories of Bromyard which members of the local community helped research, devise, crew and perform in.
- A “making of” documentary highlighting the production process behind the project
- Three short films devised from the initial themes of the project
- A short animation
- Workshop film/photo materials generated throughout the process
- A 40 page book highlighting the process behind the production
Rural Lives aims to strengthen and build inclusive, rural communities through a focussed programme of participatory media and arts activities.
For futher information please contact veys@ruralmedia.co.uk
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Still Life 
