CINEMA AS TIME CAPSULE (2021-2022)

The Cinema As Time Capsule: Using Film to Capture Vanishing Worlds was an AHRC-funded project run by Max Long and Amy Cutler. Bringing together thematic screenings, talks, archival workshops, and filmmaking masterclasses, this was a free training programme for young participants via the Widening Participation network in Cambridge. Information on the project is available here from the University of Cambridge, and information on the AHRC funding, which was designed to engage young people with climate action, is here. Timed to tie-in with COP-26, this project gave young people the tools to impact nature documentary storytelling and create their own film from scratch, while considering both the histories and the futures of this powerful global discourse. The project drew on materials from my research and from Max’s PhD on science and natural history films in interwar Britain, as well as nature documentary imaginaries of future ecosystems, such as the CGI generates series The Future Is Wild (2002). From the role of moving image in capturing the last images of extinct species or disappearing environments of ice and coral, to the role of talking heads, foley work and ‘false’ soundtracks, we explored the hidden histories and powers of this genre. We also collectively analysed its links to other genres - including horror and B-movie science fiction - to try and understanding its most powerful and emotional storytelling tools.

Looking at data on the impact of nature documentary when broadcast or transmitted, we asked questions such as: why is nature documentary more than just ‘armchair geography’? What are the futures of nature documentary? What should they be? Why might we want to change its voices? As part of the programme of activities, we examined forms of preservation, new work with archival film, and also forms of time lapse, environmental forecasting, and prediction. We also experimented with nature documentary as a co-creative and speculative practice, exploring worldbuilding with different spaces and species on site at our partner institution, the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Screenings and talks included films about human and nonhuman pasts and futures, from Into Eternity (2010), the documentary on the long-term storage of legacies of radioactive waste, to the archival media intervention Bear 71 (2012), an online interactive documentary drawing on trail cameras, surveillance, and tagging/tracking footage. Expert advice and professional filmmaking and film editing training and support was provided by screenwriter Darren Rapier and filmmakers and producers from Ark Media and 104 Films.

The resulting short film, titled At Last (2021), can be watched in full below. It also premiered at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse in February 2022 in a special screening event including introductions from the young filmmakers, alongside the feature film Living Proof: A Climate Story (2021), created from evocatively re-worked film archives by the National Library of Scotland’s Dr. Emily Munro. At Last was produced by five teenagers, and it interweaves public domain archival footage with images shot at the Botanic Garden. Created over the course of a weekend of filming and editing while world leaders gathered for the COP-26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, it is a reflection on the role of images and storytelling in shaping our attitudes towards climate and the environment.