HILL-ROLLING, BUTTERFLIES, AND BACK STORIES

12nd September, 2022

Stuart and I were joined by Canterbury-based actress Charlotte Mounter today, to film a hill-rolling sequence that forms part of the show's animation work.

Charlotte's hill-rolling aims to capture something of the chaotic, elusive movement of the white butterfly, a motif which travels across much of the visual work created for 'Vivienne Sometimes'. Conceptually, the butterfly reflects the difficulty of any artistic endeavour to pin down the real 'real' Vivienne, who remains stubbornly, endlessly elusive. In narrative terms, the butterfly is also part of a backstory - a flashback to Vivien's childhood; it re-emerges in moments of physical and mental anguish (a flutter of pain) but primarily in moments of imaginative transformation and release (see the show's Epilogue in my blog 'Animations').

Below are stills from our dress fitting at UCA, our afternoon filming at Kent University campus, together with (unedited) footage captured by Stuart with his 35 mm LomoKino camera. The final edit was used as part of a longer animation sequence.

LomoKino video uploading soon...