I awoke today having only had four hours sleep. I immediately turned on the TV to see the roads outside my studios office transformed into some kind of battleground.
The whole Living Spirit team was told to stay home today, and later in the day I got a text from Stephen Follows saying ‘The studios have been evacuated’ (this following intelligence that further rioting was imminent). So far that violence has not manifested, in Ealing at least.
I picked up the video above on Twitter, made by a film maker in Ealing (Kris Thompson, who I don’t know – his youtube channel here ). To me it looks like it was shot on one of the cheaper DSLRs at 50p or 60p, but it does offer another view of events on the street from last night. To me the footage looks more like a movie than a document and I keep reminding myself that I know those streets intimately, I walk down them most days, I eat in those restaraunts… The use of slow motion, music and sound effects serves to enhance that ‘movie’ feel. Whether that is appropriate or not, I don’t know, but it certainly captures the feel of what it was like on the streets in a way that does not feel like news footage.
No actors, no sets… just reality.
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspiritgroup.com
www.ProductionOffice.org
e: mail@livingspirit.com
8 Responses
Amazing footage! I have some photos here: http://www.phil-hudson.com/2011/08/london-riots-in-ealing-photos.html
Thanks Phil, yep its kinda staggering
Wouldn’t want to be one of the faces at 03:07! You’re going to jail, er, ‘bruv’
Odd one at 00:41, looks like an eastern european getting thumped. He’s not dressed for rioting, that’s for sure.
That’s crazy. It really does look like a movie and I had to remind myself several times that it wasn’t, this is real.
Sad times indeed – truth is stranger than fiction……and other cliches……
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things,
Some shall be pardoned, and some punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this
(R+J)
Hey Chris,
after seeing that film on your blog we went up to Tottenham and took our normally insane comedy character Super Massive Raver with us. Mix with two parts Hamlet, one part beatboxer Killa Kela and some Stevie Wonder and we’re hoping this might give people a bit of lift.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2q4Yb7Vw4
Dear Chris,
It might interest you to know that I’ve written an article, that acts as both my account of the events and my reasoning behind the film. I have posted the article on my blog here: http://kristhompson.tumblr.com/post/9787375114
Kind Regards
Kris Thompson