Page 20 - CAMPAIGN Spring 2021

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CAMPAIGN Spring 2021
An Historic Animatic Adventure by Jason Davidson Squeaky Pedal
Squeaky Pedal is a two-man film production company run by myself and my good friend Peter Roch. Both myself and Pete met whilst playing in a band, and our company name and logo take inspiration from our musical heritage, and a vague Led Zeppelin reference!
We are delighted to be working with the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association to capture the incredible stories and authentic voices of its members. Should you be contacted by us in the future to allow us to capture your unique memories,
we wanted to formally introduce ourselves to you by sharing some information about our own background.
developed into a fascination with telling the amazing stories that exist within these historical places and events. After completing my undergraduate and master's degree in International Politics, I was lucky in 2013 to meet Pete at a band practice. I explained to him an idea
I had to tell the stories of three men listed on my local war memorial who had fought at the little known
us was a desire for personal stories to be at the heart of what we create.
As the years went on, our production company grew from an amateur operation into a thriving business. We have continued to build on our belief in focusing on the stories of ordinary people, and had great success with this approach working with a variety of clients from local councils to history festivals and major organisations.
One of our most recent projects was created to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum. I had stumbled across
the oral history archive held by the Imperial War Museum whilst researching previous projects. The archive is a unique resource in that it allows the listener to hear the authentic voices of veterans describing their very personal experiences of a variety of conflicts. Whilst these testimonies provide a powerful and moving insight, due to their nature they are never really utilised for anything other than academic research.
However, I thought these incredible pieces of audio could be brought to life using specially created animation mixed with archival photographs and footage to support and enhance the words of the veterans.
Our approach and back story are unique in that we didn’t meet at a film school or receive a standard introduction to the subject, but
has stemmed from our own unique interest in storytelling. My own passion for history was initiated by my dad telling me exciting tales of Roman Britain or Victorian ingenuity on our many outings to various historic sites. Over time this
First World War naval engagement at Coronel off the coast of Chile. Luckily for me Pete had completed his degree in audio engineering, and we set about creating a two-part radio documentary telling the story of the battle brought to life through the voices of local people.
From these initial forays into film-making, what became clear to