DRIFTING

 

Director:	John Clayton for Swivel Films
Producer:	Alex O'Neal
Released:	1997 (mastering date 11.9.1997)
Duration:	5.12

 

 

 

 

Watch DRIFTING on Vimeo.

 

 

The promo for DRIFTING was filmed inside the derelict Brook Hospital in South East London.

 

It featured both vocalist Siobhan Lynch and Alan himself, together with an extensive cast of characters which included his 2 year old daughter Paris and his former partner Hepzibah.

 

Clayton expressed his idea for a "dark atmospheric mood piece" with a "filmic, cinematic" quality. He wanted to capture the "very composed and choreographed setting and style of early Antonioni and Bertolucci films" and felt that these elements could be synonymous with every aspect of the promo; from the "sharp, clear photography and moody film-noir lighting" to "the cast dressed in slightly anonymous smart suits".

 

 

THE ORIGINAL TREATMENT:

The film opens with a man falling through the air. We see tall buildings in the background as he falls to earth in slow motion.

We then cut to a hospital trolley being pushed along a long corridor.

The camera is fixed to the trolley and becomes the main POV in the video. We see the feet of the people pushing the trolley but not their faces. As we move down the corridor we encounter a series of characters - a mother restrains her child, a pair of middle-aged twins whisper something to each other as they smirk at the trolley, a couple sit in an empty hospital ward, a woman walks over and shuts the door. Alan sits in an optician's chair having his eyes tested. At the end the man gets up off the ground and walks away...

 

 

THE CAST:

Doctor: Peter Saracen · Nurse: Jacqueline Duff · Optometrist: Sid Wragg · Psychiatrist: Mark Moony · Bald Guy: Robert Stone · Twin 1: Austin Mews · Twin 2: Howard Mews · Waif: Molly Hallam · Psycho: David Fernandez · Orderly: Nick Stephens · Mother: Hepzibah Sessa · Child: Paris Wilder.

 

 

DRIFTING was shot on super 16mm, film stock designed to give a more cinematic look. With roughly 1 and a half hours of raw footage, the 'rushes' are processed at a laboratory and then transferred to video format (TK-telekenetic transfer).

 

At this point decisions are made as to the 'look' of the film. T.K. is an extremely sophisticated process which allows colour within the film to be saturated, de-saturated or even changed completely. Black can be 'crushed' to give a harder look, filters can be used to soften - there are a thousand different ways the raw film can end up looking.

 

With all the rushes now on betacam video tape, the images are digitised and, once loaded into 'Avid' (software which runs on Apple Mac computers), they can be accessed randomly.