January I : Trains

 I am in the process of writing and editing a short piece about trains.

Trains and fatherhood.

The unabating, relentless nature of these two, the locomotive and the child.

A few months back I bought some macro lens extension tubes for my Bolex, wanting to at least have the option of choosing that type of image for a future project. 

It was shortly after Cléo was born, September 2021, and one of the images I had in mind was her, her skin in a kind of abstract landscape format. Maybe the film would be called 'My Giant Baby' or something like that. But there wasn't really enough substance in the idea alone.

Then we moved, and our new place is next to the train tracks. Our old place was also next to the train tracks - but the difference is that freight trains come by our new place, and the intensity of the freight train piqued my interest. 

During the last year I'd found an old 300mm lens in the back rooms of the HFBK camera rental, and done a few small shots with it, but now combined with the macro lens possibility I thought it would be fitting to try and merge a super macro image with a super tele image.

Macro : Baby

Tele : Train 

Also a nice first project to do at home, during the first months of parenthood, in winter, during a pandemic.

I filmed at the beginning of December '21 and am almost done editing and writing now, at the end of January '22. This is always an exciting and tiresome time - having already come up with the (vague) idea and shot the footage I now need to come up with the glue so to speak, the text. 

I never write my texts beforehand. I will often have snippets written down in various places, written before and during shooting, but I don't try to presume that I will know what will actually come to be filmed even if I have a fairly concrete idea, as is the case in this project. There is always a puzzle at the end, and now it just needs to be put together - if only I could see all the pieces!

The final step of post-production is just as important as the steps prior, especially in the creative sense, by this time the film has had time to steep, and I've gotten to know my thoughts better. But it is never easy getting them out of my mind, on to paper, and spoken.

UPDATE 10.07.22 - A train of though for a train driver / Full Film