I was asked by Hazel McLaren of Box,
Lumsden and by Deveron Arts to submit a proposal for "Halloween in
Huntly" - a thriving town in rural Aberdeenshire. Listen to
clip for a
remixed soundtrack treat (12mb) or go to end of page to see a clip
from YouTube.
Irritated by the spate of Hollywood remakes of perfectly good
films, I decided to do my own remix of Robin Hardy's 1973 Scottish
classic THE WICKER MAN. And before you say I've contradicted myself
by even contemplating a remix, my aim here was to draw
attention to the original to make a kind of advertisment for it,
whilst allowing for some playful edits and tablaeux. Anyone who
knows me knows how much I love this film.
A potential remix was slightly problematic as it was to be for a
family audience. So I had a problem, how do you preserve the pulse
of that film, where a Christian gets burned alive in a huge man
shaped bonfire... but be suitable for kids?
Initially I thought it wouldn't bother any of us, playing with
those images of screaming and sacrifice - after all, kids are
hardier these days right? We are talking about the playstation
generation, even in the Scottish countryside! Besides, I felt that
Halloween had been watered down somewhat in recent years. I'll stop
there before I end up sounding like an Daily Mail reactionary. So I
viewed the film over ten times to see what I was going to do with
it.
In the end, I decided I would make something site specific, - it
was Halloween in Huntly after all, so it had to have a
local element. I had come across a part of the film that was
extremely family friendly in my view. It was the parade before
Edward Woodward gets burned at the stake. Full of costumes and fun
and cheek. As luck would have it, I encountered a mask maker called
Cath Whippey who had made some amazing wolf masks, and although she
didn't have the legendary "Salmon of Knowledge" in her
animal arsenal, she did have a great badger head (above) alongside
those wicked wolves (such as our Wolf Windae-Scratcher
below).
I shot material that was literally influenced by the film, as well
as material that was more tangental, but I was ever so pleased with
what was made over the two week period in Huntly. I filmed in quite
a lot of agricultural ghost towns which was really exciting. I also
used material from an existing pagan tradition: "The Burryman" of
South Queensferry, Edinburgh - this sequence was particularly good
fun as I was trying to emulate the neo-folk band Tunng with my edit of
the opening theme music from the film. I included footage from
Edinburgh's "mountain" Arthur's Seat on fire! But the
title "The Slough of Despond" has nothing to do with The Wicker
Man. It comes from a Biblical-style text on a wrought iron gate in
the countryside (see penultimate image below).
The commission was to be for an audience of potentially 1000
people, and would be a "live" remix of the soundtrack where I used
an ipod, two laptops and a mixing desk - alongside my own 15 minute
film and weather permitting, we'd have a ten foot high back
projection and a massive P.A. system.
In the end, rain did stop play a little - we got away with a 45
minute set. On the 21st of July 2007 I am doing the only
full-length version of the piece at Perth Concert Hall directly
after the actual film itself! Strangely enough on the first day of
The Wicker Man festival in the borders. I cannot wait!!!
