Walking

'WALKING'
A Film by Lisa Thomas and David Halsted
Summary
This experimental short film about Burnley and its people was produced as a means of exploring a changed urban landscape, and the possibilities for remembrance that it affords. Burnley is a large town in the northwest of England and has been shaped by a once thriving industrial past. This placed the town and its community at the heart of the world's weaving trade during the Industrial Revolution but it now suffers from high unemployment rates and recognised levels of deprivation within the UK. The architectural remnants of an affluent history remain, and indeed dominate the Burnley of today. 'Walking' is concerned with the memories that are encapsulated within the heritage of the built urban environment and their relationship to the nature of Burnley's current identity and its memories.
Presentation Abstract
'Walking' compresses a year into a day using over 8000 RAW format still photographs, taken over a period of one year. A strategy of developing time-lapse photographic techniques with complex, state of the art post-production enabled a unique relationship to form between the moving image and issues of memory, heritage and the passing of time. The resulting aesthetic of the film presents a surreal quality that visually and creatively represents the nature of memory without compromising the actuality of the photographs that have been taken.
The photographs were taken in transit, without the use of a vehicle, 'rigs' or tracks. The intention was for the photographer to be as unobtrusive in the events being photographed as possible. Post-production was required to stabilise the photography, and additional requirements of blending techniques and grading (HDR) were required. 'Walking' represents innovation within film-making in that it uses no masking techniques and no images were altered other than blending, grading and stabilization. The 'actual' images within the photographs are linked in such a way as to develop a narrative that frames the past within the present and is a canvas upon which a relationship between the two has been recorded.
The film reflects like a mirror, the influences of the past and the forming of the present, without casting judgement or cultural bias regarding the community held within its bounds.