Safe as Houses
A little girl's cosy world view of family and home is disturbed by her father's threatening alcoholic presence. She tries to hang on to her childhood by recreating an untroubled vision of her family inside her dolls house.
Perhaps one of the most challenging shoots I have ever run. Involving a 5 month stop frame animation and a remote winter lodge house location situated on the moors above sheffield. The shoot went well. Six of us had to construct a 30m road using piles of stones and planks, in blizzard conditions and push a 3 tonne generator to a sound proof shed. We had to re create summer in the middle of february with gale force winds blowing. At one stage three of us had to hold down a light and umbrella in pouring rain to stop the light swinging from side to side. we had to transport 4 tonnes of books from a central library dump in sheffield to the location. They all had to be carried up two flights of stairs by hand. The set remained largely unlit because of cable/power shortage. We engineered a dolls house and toy blocks and were supported by Tim Rothwell at Digital Epic productions. The axle fell off our production vehicle. There were no toilets. We made one and emptied the twenty gallon container every day. On top of all this the final scene of the film was shot by mistake on black and white stock and ruined a run of processing at the rank labs. The film ends with a shot of a gate which doesn't really work. I enjoyed working with director Sue Ramsey very much and believe she is still being creative and dynamic in the USA. Some of the best Film stills capturing the energy and bleakness of the shoot by Clive Eckington.
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