The Wealth of Nations

The Wealth of Nations
video still by Christopher Hall

When we were making Leave No Trace in 2002, Chris and Barry went to Scarborough for us. Leave No Trace was about a woman who went through a fugue state, leaving the life she knew, travelling happilly, not even remembering her name.

We were struggling with how to present this story - partly because the whole point was that she would not remember the events of the fugue afterwards. It was hard to tell, from our research, what would actually have happened to her. We had an idea that, this being a small island, she would have ended up at the coast, at the sea side. Looking back, though I don't know how conscious this was at the time, it seems appropriate that we asked film makers Christopher Hall and Barry Ryan to go and collect images for us - without us being there. To document what they encountered on their travels.

They brought back an hour or so of rushes of misty seaside entertainments, along with seaside souvenirs. And those souvenirs made it into the show, but the footage didn't, as we gradually moved away from a thought-track of video images to hand drawn animations. (There was some video in the first version of Leave No Trace, but none of the Scarborough footage).

So this tape has been on the raw materials pile for a few years now, waiting for the right outlet. A week or so ago Chris came into the Third Angel space, as he does from time to time, and dug out the rushes. He explained he'd got an idea for something in response to a call out for films for White Night in Brighton.

The resulting 30 second video, The Wealth of Nations, will be presented during White Night as part of Lighthouse's 30 Seconds of Fortune, on 24 October. You can also see all the 30 second films on line, and find out more about the scheme, on Lighthouse's site.