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Filmmaker Gideon Koppel on the changing Welsh landscape reflected in his new documentary feature, The Library Van
BELONGING
The Library Van is a feature- length film set in an isolated hill farming community near Aberystwyth. Although more rural and further north than
Dylan Thomas’ fictional village of Llareggub in Under Milk Wood, there is sometimes a similar quality of ‘the
“comic and the tragic’ in the air.
This is a landscape and popula- tion that is changing rapidly as small-
It is a vehicle for stories - not only books, but for the stories and news of each other and the community.
There is a saying in Wales that ‘people don’t own land, they belong to it’, that is to say, the land comes first and is cared for by the changing popu- lation who live on it and from it.
It reflects a sense of values which are at the core of this farming commu- nity and it was therefore important that the landscape should not emerge merely as a geographic location or a pretty backdrop to peoples lives, but it should almost have the presence of a character in the film.
I felt very strongly that to be able to create images, which can be evoca- tive in that way, I needed to shoot The Library Van on film. As the gap between film and high definition video formats closes - at least in terms of specification - it is becoming increas- ingly difficult to articulate and justify
film over video, particularly for a low budget project, which was branded ‘documentary’.
If you imagine a video image of a magnificent landscape projected onto a big screen, it works as a signifier - it says ‘great landscape’ loud and clear... but not a lot else. But the same landscape shot on film has the possibility of allowing the audience to ‘fall into’ the image, to engage with the image with and through their imagina- tion, not simply their powers of recog- nition.
‘Time’ was going to be another important element within the film: ‘time’ in rural life has a very different quality to ‘time’ in an urban experi- ence. It is defined more by the light, the movements and patterns of weath- er, than it is by a mechanical clock.
The change of seasons - in the case of The Library Van from summer to winter - creates a completely differ-
ent mood and atmosphere in the val- leys as the colours gradually become muted, the light fades and cools... and a sense of silence descends. Again, I wanted to find ways of translating these dynamics into images and sound and needed a visual medium, which was sensitive to the details and ges- tures, which interested me.
After complex negotiations, which included obtaining generous technical support from Panavision and Technicolor as well as production sup- port from Kia Motors, Margaret Matheson [Executive Producer] secured the possibility to shoot The Library Van on film. I wanted to restrict myself to one stock - for exte- rior, interior, day and night - so it had to be a high-speed film.
John Evans [focus puller] and I tested both the Eterna 500T and Eterna 400T, opting for the 400T because it seemed to be slightly lower
scale agriculture is disappearing and the generation who inhabited a pre- mechanised world is dying out.
It is a world that I have a particu- lar relationship with – not least because my parents, both artists and refugees, found a home and a belong- ing in this beautiful, but sometimes, harsh environment.
The mobile library comes here each month, stopping at each farm and each small cluster of cottages. Everyone is waiting for the yellow van.
“It seemed to me that with the highlight detail and subtle grain structure this stock [Eterna 400T] really looked like film.”
26 • Exposure • The Magazine • Fujifilm Motion Picture