Category: Documentary

Artist in Residence: The Football Club

Artist In Residence: The Football Club

Artist Tai Shan Schierenberg spends a season at West Bromwich Albion, during an incredibly turbulent period for the club.

He takes on the role of painter, narrator and interrogator in The Football Club, querying Tony Pulis, then manager of West Bromwich Albion, as he considered the inevitability of his club’s demise and his own position.

“It manages to be about failure, masculinity, creativity and community at the same time.. it gets my vote for the sheer ambition is pours into a commercial hour” – editor Chris Collins

 

Grierson Winner: Best Arts or Music Documentary
Broadcast Award Winner: Best Specialist Factual

 

Director: Marcus Plowright
Editor: Iain Pettifer
Composer: Alexander Parsons

 

 

Professor Green: Working Class White Men

In Britain today many working class white men feel demonised, forgotten and angry. Presented by Professor Green this documentary, directed by Christian Collerton, for Swan Films explores what life is really like for these men, why many of them feel abandoned, and what the consequences are for Britain if we continue to look away.

 

Working Class White Men (Channel 4) – Music Exceprts from Alexander Parsons – Composer on Vimeo.

 

My soundtrack features heavily processed piano, analogue synths and strings, recorded in London, Berlin and Paris. Recording of individual parts on to cassette tape, as well as granular techniques created a highly unstable sound with a distinctly human feel.

 

 

 

Filmed, produced and directed by Christian Collerton
Editor: Sam Santana
Exec Producers: Joe Evans and Neil Crombie
Production Company: Swan Films
Broadcaster: Channel 4

American High School

American High School follows a charismatic principal and his students over the course of one school year and through their eyes we witness life-changing moments. In the US, life chances for students who graduate high school are often starkly different to those who don’t, a disparity even more marked for African-American pupils.

With the odds often stacked against them we follow the class of 2016 over this, their make-or-break year.

We experience their highs and their lows as they prepare for life after high school. We meet Ivy League hopefuls, male cheerleaders and young mothers on a tough journey into adulthood. This is school as you’ve never seen it before and a unique insight into how it really feels to be young and black in America today.

Meanwhile, high-achieving pupil Jalena begins college applications, but with college fees costing more than a house, will she even be able to afford to go? Male cheerleader Vernon, and star football player Kordel, each prepare for the big Friday night football game. Can a win for the school help to get Dr Peters’ ambitions back on track?

Producer/Director: Marcus Plowright
Executive Producers: Joe Evans and Neil Crombie
Production Company: Swan Films
Composer: Alexander Parsons

TX Date: 18th October 2016
BBC1: February 2017
National Geographic (US): 26th September 2017

 

“Every participant is treated with careful, considered respect… This is helped by Alexander Parsons’ impressive score, mixing tinges of the music the kids listen to with his own emotive arrangements. Six episodes of hope, just when it’s needed”.

Julia Reside (on American High School), The Guardian, 11th November 2016


Big Ben: Saving the World’s Most Famous Clock

Big Ben: Saving the World’s Most Famous Clock, is a three-part documentary series on the grandest of scales about restoration work on the iconic clock tower, which will see the bells silenced for the next four years. Beginning with a feature-length episode, Anna Keay, Director of Landmark Trust, goes behind the scenes on this massive project, and talks to Parliament’s principal architect and the three clockmakers who have the challenging task of taking the gigantic mechanism apart for the first time in nearly 160 years. The programme also examines the history of the clock tower, revealing how it was almost never built in the first place.

Produced and Directed by Jenny Dames
Editor: Eddie Haselden
Executive Producers: Bernie Kaye and Will Smith
Broadcaster: Channel 4

Martin Had His Own Way of Thinking About Things

Rjukan is a small industrial town in the municipality of Telemark, in Norway, that lies at the bottom of a deep valley at the foot of the mighty Gaustatoppen mountain. The steep slopes of the surrounding mountains completely block out the sun for half the year, leaving this thriving community of 3,400 in permanent shadow from September to March.

But since 2013, the town’s residents has been basking under a tiny patch of sunlight that falls right over the market square. This light is reflected from three large heliostatic mirrors called “Solspeil” installed on the mountainside about 450 meters above the town’s square. The mirrors capture the sunlight and direct it into the market square where it illuminates an area of about 600 square meters. Controlled by computers, the mirrors follow the sun’s movement across the sky, moving every 10 seconds so that Rjukan’s square remains sun drenched for the entire length of the day.

 

They say the one thing man can’t control is nature. Martin Andersen disagrees – and he proved it by conquering the Sun.

 

A six minute film made by Vice UK, for Mazda.