A Little Film About Little Libraries
I've made a handful of videos over the past ten years but up until recently they've been music videos or pieces in which I'm taking to camera or in a voiceover. However, when my great friend Billy Jenkins told me he was cycling around South East London to visit book swaps and micro libraries to tidy them up and keep books in circulation it sounded like a good topic for a short documentary film.
I should point out that I'm very bad at working on a project for the sake of it - there needs to be some kind of goal to aim for and a deadline to complete the work. In this case the goal was to make a 15-minute film for submission to Brockleywood Nights, a really cool film event that showcases the work of film makers in the borough of Lewisham. Films must have a genuine connection to the Lewisham borough or, at the very least, South East London. the organiser, Declan McGill, puts out a call for submissions during April which gives film makers about six or seven weeks to produce a film (unless they already have one in the can).
Anyway, I was intrigued by Billy's book swap cycling adventures and fancied making a film so I joined him on two rides, did some hand-held filming and was blown away by the number of book swaps dotted around South East London. Some are little more than wooden boxes set up on a post, others are recycled cupboards and cabinets and then there are those in repurposed public telephone booths - the best known example is in Lewisham Way.
I figured it would be good to interview some of the people who set up and maintained the book swaps so I wrote a form letter explaining who I was, what I wanted to achieve and invited them to get in touch if they were interested. The strategy worked and I managed to interview three hosts. Each had a different reason for setting up a book swap and all had interesting stories to tell about their experiences and ideas for the future.
The film was completed in about three weeks and I managed to squeeze it into the 15-minute maximum requested by Declan. I think Declan might not have minded too much if it had been up to 15 or 20 seconds longer but since I teach the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) video module which has very strict rules on running time I felt it was only right to respect the specifications.
The big night came and the film was shown to a very appreciative crowd at the Honor Oak pub in Brockley Rise, South East London. It turned out some the audience knew Billy Jenkins and some of the book swap hosts which meant it worked well as a piece of community film making.
The funny thing was getting "post-gig" blues first after finishing the film making process and again after the live premiere. I made it live on YouTube the following day but it didn't really have the same excitement. There is nothing quite like a live event with real people watching and reacting in real time.
You can see the film on YouTube.