Mill Mechanic Grandfather
I am celebrating a return to the mill this June with this little film I made about the maintenance of the mill wheel following the floods in Cumbria earlier this year. Stuart Hobbs (the mill mechanical engineer) and his dad spent many days dismantling, refitting and repainting the water wheel and I documented a bit of it. Towards the end of the film you will catch a glimpse of Stuart’s son resulting in a cast of three generations for this little film experiment. I was struck by the importance of radio programmes played on iphones that make you whistle while you work. Then recently I found myself returning to the world of the fairy tale reading and listening to Jack Zipes and Marina Warner as I seek out ways of representing my time here at the mill and search for a new project idea. It took a while for me to publish this film since I had to consider the use of a track by Edwyn Collins . I reflected on this for some time not knowing how to get the synchronisation license and having spent a long time pursuing another copyright issue on another film I made earlier (that story follows in a later post). I am very grateful for Edwyn’s generous permission to use “A Girl Like You”. It was such a simple process in the end. I was able to contact him by joining his website and simply asking directly. His manager’s message was “Please feel free to use the track in your film with Edwyn’s blessing”. Thank you Edwyn.