This is the story of a year in the life of Fred Burnell’s garden. Fred, a retired gardener who used to work at Kew Gardens, demonstrates how prepares, dresses, sow and looks after his garden from one winter to the next. This is a film which no-one with aspirations to improving their own plot of land can ignore. Surely one of the best instructional documentaries on the subject that has been made. Although Fred makes it seem so effortless, Peter Schurbrook’s excellent commentary (spoken by Bryan Forbes) puts it all carefully and precisely into perspective and you really do feel that you are learning something that you can put to practical use. Music played by Alan Snelling and Terry Read’s.
For those of you who are interested in the technical details of the equipment and facilities used here they are:
Filming started on “Fred’s Garden”, mid-February 1984. The camera was a Swiss, Paillard Bolex RXH16 Standard 16mm Movie Camera, with a Kern Yvar 16mm f2.8 Lens, 25mm Switar 1.4 Lens Kern Yvar 75mm lens, Kodak 150 mm lens and a Som Berthiot 16 to 80mm zoom lens, the clockwork motor, fully wound could film for 30 seconds, some shots lasted between 10 and 15 seconds that was long enough for the shot. Filmed at 24 frames per second (standard sound speed), the roll of film lasted 2 minutes 46 seconds, using a Western 5 exposure meter for correct exposure, at this time Kodak had just brought out a new Eastmancolor negative 7294 film this was very sensitive, so I could film in lower light. I couldn’t afford new film, I purchased, what was call short ends from The Film Stock Centre in Wardour Street London for 6p a foot/30 cm, otherwise a new role of film would cost me £15 for 100 foot/30 metres a roll.
I chose Technicolor Laboratory to process the rushes, they were on Bath Road, West Drayton, opposite Heathrow Airport, because it was a short drive away. I went down to the lab and met my contact man, Ron Thompson, said to me. ”If it’s sunny when you start filming and continue, if the light changes stop, and wait till the sun appears again, because we can’t grade the scene finally”. A very good piece of advice. Editing the film using a French Muray 16mm animated viewer, and Italian 16 mm professional CRI tape joiner. It took three years to complete, because of various problems. There was another reason, if something went wrong, I would have to wait until the following year on that day to reshoot the shots again, because of the position of the Sun, I took a year to record the sound effects using one Sony analogue a reel to reel and a Sony cassettes recorder. The analogue tape was transferred to analogue 16 mm magnetic film at Twickenham film studios in St Margaret’s this was for the purpose to match the commentary, sound effects and music to the silent film. The film was dubbed at Anvil Denham. The negative was matched up to my cutting copy by The Neg Cutting Company. The technicians at Technicolor graded the negative, then printed it to a low contrast 16mm print to be scanned to 1 inch/25.4 mm master videotape, those days the electronic system had difficulty in coping with the range of contrast, brilliance and colour of film, then VHS tapes made from the master videotape. Years later the master videotape was transferred to a standard definition DVD, which has been used. In the 21st-Century it all this seems quaint now, but it worked. Stuart J McKean (c.) November 2022
NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR
Stuart J. McKean, producer and director of “Fred’s Garden” would like to explain that this film of his will not be as good on You Tube as watching the 16mm film projected, or from a DVD. This is because the image and sound have been compressed due to the constraints of the electronic system at the time of uploading.
A copy of the film is in the library of the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers film library.
READ MORE ABOUT HOW THE FILM WAS MADE
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQBwzIgoFsy1j-FW7_-1ybyFXXm2-sCpH0flA2_RzUqOqa__G0_G_mSfUmXbgvbCQz4kq-ghg_WGHsb/pub