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Star Wars.........Falmouth School of Art .........Annunciations

Mosaics.........Stardust

Daffodils panorama and shell fountain at Cliveden, Buckinghamshire (National Trust)

Gloria (4mins)....In 2016 I wanted to work on a project that was melancholic by nature but at the same time life affirming. I found this music by Thomas Bergersen to contain all of those qualities.

Brenda (52 mins)....Brenda Johnston founded the INEH ( International Network for Energy Healing) in 1982 but was active promoting Esoteric Healing decades before so here she talks about the early years.

This film was made in early 2008 when Brenda was living in a care home close to a busy motorway so the audio was really quite bad but recently I have managed to use AI to clean her voice so that the distractions of traffic do not impede the quality of Brendas voice.

Netta (38 mins)....Netta Wells was an integral part of the Esoteric Healing Movement, she worked with Brenda Johnston who founded the INEH ( International Network for Energy Healing) in 1982.

It is based on the principles of health and healing transmitted by the spirit Djwhal Khul through the books of Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949)

Garden Mosaic (4 mins)....In 2017 it was about time I tore up the flagstones in my small garden and converted the long path into a mosaic gateweay to the stars......unfortunately some fish escaped from next door and slithered through the fence, it took a while to return them back to their owner.....

Angela de Castro (1 hour 16 mins)....de Castro is one of the few women to have made an impact on the changing state of clowning.
"I believe in the vital role of clowns as truth tellers, entertainers, subversives and communicators in the arts, in society and across the world."
- Angela de Castro

SFXmas (10 mins 15 secs) .....At the end of the year the British Special Effects Supervisors get together for their Christmas lunch at the local 'Palm Suite Restaurant' in Iver, Buckinghamshire.

Pastures in the Sky: (1 hr 26mins) .....Patrick Woodroffe has been painting his surreal visions for more than 50 years. Recently he was diagnosed with Pick's Disease, a rare neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive destruction of nerve cells in the brain. Symptoms include loss of speech and dementia.
Paul Spooner talks to Jean Woodroffe, David Heseltine, Michael Heseltine and Patrick Woodroffe.

Julie Folley: Stories to Sing to (56 mins 42 secs) ...Julie Folley grew up in Cornwall, where she studied at Falmouth Art School. After extensive travels around the country and beyond, and now with children and  grandchildren, she finds herself back with the people and places that she knows, still creatively exploring and wondering at the World that surrounds her.

Alien Fans II (89 mins)......Gareth Ellner, Till Nowak, Andrew David Clark and Adrian McKenna talk about how the film 'Alien' still influences their lives in very different ways. Brandon Alinger from 'The Propstore of London' discusses the problems during the restoration of the Nostromo model with model makers Monty Shook and Jack Edjourian from 'Grant McCune Design'. Richie Bohach, Steve and Danita Labouyteaux from 'Richie's Armor' make an appearance as they endeavor to reach the 'Derelict'.

Ray Hopley: The Idea of Entropy at West Bay (21 mins 13 secs) ....Ray Hopley was in my year at Falmouth School of Art in the Sixties, he has continued to work with sculpture and painting up to this day. This film catalogs an exhibition of one of his ambitious projects that he started almost 20 years ago, he explains the reasons for his art.

Doug Ferris & John Grant: Mattes & Miniatures (91 mins) - John and Doug worked together as a team for over 30 years in the film industry.
They worked on films such as 'Heavens Above', 'The Bedford Incident', 'Tomb of Ligeia', 'Family Way', 'Dance of the Vampires', 'Macbeth', 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', 'The Man Who Would Be King', 'The Prince and the Pauper', 'Superman', 'The Keep', 'Dark Crystal', 'Labyrinth', 'Little Shop of Horrors', 'Baron Munchausen', to name a few.
They talk about their career in this special time of filmaking.

Ian Wingrove: The Anderson Years - (44 mins) - Ian's first job in the film industry was working with Gerry Anderson on TV productions from 'Stingray', 'Thunderbirds', 'Captain Scarlet' right through to 'UFO'.
David Sisson concentrates this interview on Ian's time spent at the Century 21 facility at Slough where most of the productions were filmed.

Ian Wingrove - (24mins) -Ian Wingrove started working in the film industry for Gerry Anderson on productions such as 'Stingray' and 'Thunderbirds' and his career led him to work with Les Bowie on productions such as 'The Last Valley' and 'Trial by Combat'. His first supervising job came in 1976 on 'At the Earth's Core' which started a long list of productions including 'Mission Impossible' 'The Omen' 'Black Hawk Down' 'Return to Oz' ' Never Say Never Again'.

DOWN UNDER - (10mins 45secs) - After joining my local video club I thought it would be fun to make a deliberately controversial film that includehe local talent in my area and see if it was possible to get as near as damn it to a d tprofessional looking result.

Alien Fan-tasy (10 mins) - This film was meant to be the ending to the forthcoming documentary 'Alien Fans II' but it seemed to grow organically, the images seemed to have a mind of their own and I just couldn't stop them from reproducing as Nature intended. If I get round to making the DVD of 'Alien Fans II' then I'll include this short as an epilogue.

Poppa Day : Mattes & Miniatures (77 mins) - The career of Walter Percy Day O.B.E. spanned the era of silent film well into the post war period, he was responsible for introducing the idea of matte painting into the French and UK film industry. His work was of the highest standards considering the technology of those days and his output equally prolific. The sheer amount of work he did in France in the years from 1922 -1932 is astonishing by its quality and precision using foreground miniatures or glass paintings.
He worked for well known film directors such as: Abel Gance, Jean Renoir, Raymond Bernard, Léon Poirier, Julien Duvivier, Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander Korda, Michael Powell, David Lean, Carol Reed and Laurence Olivier.
Percy's grand daughter Susan Day gives us a glimpse into the character and work of this man.

Some films Percy Day worked on include: Nana(1925)-Napoléon(1927)-The Chess Player(1927)- Au bonheur des dames(1929)-La Fin du Monde(1931)-The Private Life of Henry VIII(1933)-The Scarlet Pimpernel(1934)-A Tale of Two Cities(1935)-Rembrandt(1936)-Things To Come(1936)-Fire Over England(1937)-The Drum(1938)-Wuthering Heights(1939)-Jamaica Inn(1939)-The Four Feathers(1939)-The Thief of Bagdad(1940)-Major Barbara(1941)-The First of the Few(1942)-In Which We Serve(1942)-The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp(1943)-Henry V(1944)-A Canterbury Tale(1944)-I Know Where I'm Going(1945)-A Matter of Life and Death(1946)-Great Expectations(1946)-Black Narcissus(1947)-Caesar and Cleopatra(1948)-Oliver Twist(1948)-The Third Man(1949)-Gone To Earth(1950)

photo Courtesy W. Percy Day archive

Leigh Took - Mattes & Miniatures (72 mins) - Leigh started his apprenticeship working for the matte painter Cliff Culley at Pinewood Studios in the early seventies, learning the techniques of painting glass shots as well as miniatures and their integration into the final composite shot.
His career lead him into films such as: 'Clash of the Titans', 'Batman', 'Neverending Story II', 'Da Vinci Code', and many others.

Portrait of Joe as a Young Director (50 mins) - Many people considered the novel 'Ulysses' by James Joyce to be an almost impossible task to film but with the help of Fred Haines who adapted the script, Joseph Strick embarked on this task in the mid sixties. Here he talks about his involvement in directing 'Ulysses' and his second Joyce project 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'.

My site contains various artworks created over the years and spans a period of 40 years from a student at Falmouth School of Art to working as Special Effects Supervisor on feature films.

The site includes watercolours, wood and stone carving, Cyanotype and Bi Chromate photography, documentary videos of individuals, and more recently - some snippets of the film 'Alien' where I worked as a Special Effects Technician helping build and film the Nostromo space sequences. It's also about time I put up a page about ARKADON MOTION CONTROL that was formed early 80's and survived using gaffer tape and technology in the classic film style!
Recent additions to the site include some pages that refer to continuity stills that were found in Charlie Staffel's old workshop at Pinewood Studios that date back to the 50's and 60's.

Above is a selection of the various films I've been making this over the years.