January may well be a challenging month in terms of the weather, but it is also an exciting time for those who can find opportunity in the freezing climate.
That was certainly true of AFU filmmaker Seth, who last month became the first Abingdon filmmaker of the new year to shoot footage for his 2025 film.
Seth, who is now embarking on his third AFU project, wanted a wild, empty landscape for his opening scene, and found the perfect location in Burgess Field, an area near Port Meadow in Oxford that was once the City Council rubbish dump but is now a much loved nature reserve. Accompanied by AFU tutor and BAFTA-winning filmmaker Colin O’Toole, as well as AFU director Jeremy Taylor, Seth braved the cold of an early morning in January and was rewarded with some excellent footage. His images of the natural landscape, which he intends to convert to black and white in the finished film, were further enhanced by the use of a “lens baby”, a quirky piece of AFU kit that adds a blurred edge to the image.
The crew also found time to capture the lazy loops of a lone red kite, circling in the skies above, for potential use by another AFU member, Hector, who gets his 2025 film underway next week, when he films an interview with Dr Mike Pienkowoski, the man responsible for reintroducing these magnificent birds to the UK.
Seth’s and Hector’s films are part of an AFU production line that is running at full speed in the first months of the year. This weekend, for example, two further crews will be out filming – one aiming to capture the sights and sounds of a Cotswolds nature trail, while the other will look behind-the-scenes at an Oxford United home game against Bristol City. The following week, in addition to recording for the red kites project, one crew will be filming at a classic car rally at Millets Farm, another will interview fans of Feng Shui in and a third will visit the Greenwich Meridian line in London to ask passers by about their attitude to time.
With such an array of different subjects, life in the AFU is never dull.