One sultry mid-august morning, and the bexhillian bungalows of suburbia awake to an unfamiliar sound. As the bolex whirrs through the first few feet of the day, Sam Lynas organizes primary coloured bowls on a lawn, well kept but seldom used, whilst another hoses the pebble-dashed pavement. The chimes of a pastel ice-cream van can be heard above the splattering of water against hot concrete. From the solemn serenity of old age, a small girl appears riding a bicycle. The ice-cream, freshly plunged, but held just out of reach falls past her outstretched hand toward the path, shimmering in the heat beneath her. Another unfamiliar sound, a singing bowl, resonates louder and louder. Olly Crowther mans the wheelchair I now perch upon as I rewind the bolex. In one back garden a man wearing an untidy beard, red trousers and green shirt looks with curiosity at the apples that lie at his bare feet. We roll around the corner just in time to catch the man curiously pick up one of the rosy red and green apples, with a swift flick of his wrist he launches the fruit skyward and as it inevitably returns to earth, he catches it with a solemn thud. As I withdraw my gaze from the diopter, I look with astonishment; the prim foliage of the garden has been replaced by an expansive corn field, undulating in the breeze and burning amber in the low slung afternoon sun.
This is the experience of shooting Olliver Crowther's latest surreal short 'Bungalow Juggler' the story of a man who's juggling gives him the power of imagination to escape the boundaries of his suburban habitat. The film currently resides in Soho images awaiting further finance to telecine, and it looks like Max McNeilley, sound design and composer for 'Perfect', will be applying his intuitive flair to yet another art-short, with cut and grade at Neon Films.
