SHIFT (Trailer)

Trailer for Young Programmers' film compilation on the theme of environment and climate change.

Trailer for 2019 film SHIFT produced by YAK Young Art Kommunity and CLIP Experimental Music & Sound Collective at Firstsite, Colchester working with films from the East Anglian Film Archive. The film conveys a sense of threat and time passing, and the need for change and for optimism. Archive film sequences are accompanied by clips from the film soundtracks, together with a composition of mechanical repetitive sound of increasing urgency. These create a feeling of tension and unease. The archive films show a 1930s harvest scene with the sound of a threshing machine; a crowd of people approaching the camera as if going to work (sound refers to weeks of labour and worry); intertitle IT IS TIME; sound ‘around the gleam of sunshine’ over scenes of a welder in protective gear and a blazing furnace; a fried breakfast served in the kitchen of a Norfolk Broads holiday boat; a woman dusting or polishing an ornament; a man packing a parcel; a man in a bowler hat standing on a slowly moving vehicle, probably a canal boat, looking down at the river scene passing slowly below; intertitle SHIFT; 1930s farmyard scene of a man feeding hens surrounded by haystacks (the sequence runs backwards so the grain returns to his hand); a handful of sand dropped into a beach of sand (played backwards); intertitle HAVE FAITH; a woman seen in profile walking right to left; the same woman sitting with a dog on a windy hillside; intertitle SHIFT; shoots of plants sprouting from soil as in time-lapse cinematography; a dandelion clock against the orb of the sun or moon; intertitle WE WILL SURVIVE; intertitle SHIFT; intertitle COMING SOON TO THIS CINEMA; credits sequence.

Keywords

Environment; Climate Change

Intertitles

IT IS TIME SHIFT HAVE FAITH SHIFT WE WILL SURVIVE SHIFT COMING SOON TO THIS CINEMA Produced by the Young Art Kommunity (YAK) at Firstsite, Colchester Jude Bowden Jack Dempsey Jan-Alain Diaz Freya Gascoyne Li-Ting Hsia Chao Wang Darla Wilson Music composed and performed by Experimental Music & Sound Collective (CLIP) at Firstsite, Colchester Jude Bowden Haydar Kafala Harry Woodman Films used in this trailer supplied by EAFA cat 290 cat 1025 cat 328 cat 4088 cat 2422 cat 163 cat 4059 logos - University of East Anglia / East Anglian Film Archive logos - The National Lottery / BFI / BFI Film Audience Network

Background Information

The film ‘Shift’ is a collaborative piece of work involving Firstsite’s Young Art Kommunity Art (YAK) and the East Anglian Film Archive. Film Hub North funded the film and project through their ‘Changing Times’ funding steam. Film Hub North were keen ‘to support a series of adventurous collaborations between exhibitors and archives that respond to one of the most important debates facing society today: people's changing relationship with their environment.’ EAFA worked with YAK, who curated the film and accompanying trailer using clips from a range of material in the film archive, and with Experimental Music & Sound Collective (CLIP). YAK were led by Beth Hull from Firstsite, and Clip were led by Frazer Merrick and Simon Keep from Firstsite. Produced by the Young Art Kommunity (YAK) at Firstsite, Colchester: Jude Bowden Jack Dempsey Jan-Alain Diaz Freya Gascoyne Li-Ting Hsia Chao Wang Darla Wilson Music composed and performed by Experimental Music & Sound Collective (CLIP) at Firstsite, Colchester: Jude Bowden Haydar Kafala Harry Woodman The film was screened on Thursday 30th January 2020 and artist and filmmaker Jevan Watkins Jones chaired a panel discussion following the screening. The five-minute film 'SHIFT' is Cat 1989620. The group also produced this one-minute trailer to promote the film. The group were inspired by the Changing Times theme from the funder Film Hub North. ‘Shift’ uses archive material from the EAFA collection to explore the ideas of destruction caused by environmental change and change within the environment. They were interested in exploring the concept of polar opposites and the inaction shown by many people in society to climate change. Films used in this trailer supplied by EAFA: Cat 290 Norfolk Broads, 1957 - 'Norfolk Broads Holidays Afloat' Cat 1025 Norfolk, 1983 - 'The Norfolk Coast' Cat 328 Suffolk, 1936 - 'This Was England' Cat 4088 The Grand Union Canal, 1964 - 'The Prendergast File' Cat 2422 Harlech, Gwynedd, 1934 - 'Sundown' Cat 163 Suffolk, 1936 - 'The Wheatlands of East Anglia' - Regional Geography (series 1) Cat 4059 South Shields, Tyne and Wear, 1979 - 'The Magic Sea'