B-Road (clip only)

B-Road Just prior to seeing information about a Dorset festival in summer 2008, and in particular the opportunity for 4 artists to make a three minute film on a subject related to the Weymouth area at PVA medialab, Bridport, I had just happened to have visited my place of birth for the first time. This was in what used to be Portwey Hospital, a solid and imposing building in Wyke Road, which had been a purpose-built Victorian workhouse, and is now an apartment block. The B-Side opportunity, with it's Olympian theme then prompted an acknowledgement of a modest and yet heroic effort made by my father half a century ago. On the day after my birth on Monday 17th March he had cycled 20 miles from Wareham to Weymouth along a dark, unlit road in wintry and treacherous weather to visit his new family. He was rewarded only by a short visit to his wife and a glimpse of the newborn in a crowded nursery through a glass screen, as was normal for fathers in those days. He then made the return journey, which was largely uphill, arduous, and in blizzard conditions, reaching home in the early hours of the morning. It was a challenge to describe this event in a three- minute film, but I attempted this by riding the route myself, with a Sony camcorder attached to the front of a bicycle, and combining clips from this footage with short animated sequences making reference to the earlier journey. The tremendous advantage of the residency at PVA was working with experienced editors and other crew. The soundtrack consisted of spoken narrative provided by my parents enhanced by the noise of sea, weather and cycle mechanisms painstakingly recorded in nearby locations by a highly professional sound artist. The animation was created by working on large-scale photographs of parts of the road with charcoal and chalk, by erasing the previous frame on the same surface before drawing the next.