What is the film about?

A cosmic journey made of stop-frame visuals and liquid experiments.
Okemah Sundown is the first release by Spindle Ensemble featuring an extended line up, predominately consisting of musicians from Bristol’s experimental music collective Bloom.

Spindle Ensemble are

Daniel Inzani – piano, accordion, Celtic Harp
Caelia Lunniss – violin, viola
Harriet Riley – marimba, vibraphone
Jo Silverston – cello

Joined on Okemah Sundown by

Celeste Cantor-Stephens – trumpet
Josh Cottam – timpani
Peter Gibbs – upright bass
Conrad Singh – electric guitar, clarinet
Graeme Smith – alto saxophone
Daniel Truen – snare drum

What influenced it?

After seeing Spindle Ensemble live a few times, I was inspired to create a visual world in response to their music. The experimental classical band is seizing a strong cinematic vibe which I found very inspiring to craft experimental visuals from. I looked at the works of Douglas Trumbull in Space Odyssey and The Tree of Life as an inspiration as he’s made incredible handmade special effects representing the big bang and the cosmos.

A little background information...

The collaboration between the musicians and me as a visual artist is an important part of this project as Okemah Sundown’s video is composed of separate clips crafted for live performances with Spindle Ensemble, cosmic stop-frame visuals and ink experiments that would allow the audience to drift away in a distant dimension alongside the cinematic music of the band. They are originally used on a projector and I trigger them in response to the music.

How was the film made?

The video is a mix of stop-frame and film on a glass table called a multiplane, on which I played with various elements such as glass lenses, cotton wool, rice paper, water and inks lighten from underneath creating textures and light effects reminding of a cosmic world. Some of the ink effects were chemical reactions between milk, inks and washing liquid (the milk reacts with the acidity).
I was given complete creative control over the visuals, then we rehearsed a few times together selecting the right clips to create separate visual identities for each song, including Okemah Sundown.