The Bench Scenes
Projects
Intro/Outro Concept by Christian Masters
Featuring: Gwenevere Lyra Terry
Supported by: Gail Oakley
A young girl meanders around the Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery, ending up on a bench where she finds a scrapbook which takes us on ajourney through her imagination, covering nearly 200 years of local history.
1831 Written by Christine Lawrence
Featuring: Ceri Christensen Jones, Christine Lawrence, and Yvonne Maxwell
Genre: Historical Drama
Two women take a seat on the bench and look out to sea at the hulk ships holding their menfolk who were sentenced to transportation to Australia after the Swing Riots. They are joined by a young woman with a secret to share.
1874 Written by Clare Campbell
Featuring: Patric Howe, Francesca McCrohon, and Jackson Batchelor
Genre: Heist/Thriller
A woman meets with two two ne'er-do-wells after the Battle of Southsea, hoping to convince them to break her wrongfully imprisoned husband out of the dreaded Portsmouth Prison.
1916/1926 Written by Christian Masters and Harry Aspinwall
Featuring: Graeme Brookes
Genre: Arthouse/Suspense
A dockworker in 1926 sits smoking at night under lamplight, and we watch him flashback to the horrors of the trenches in 1916 as the world around him triggers his memories.
1941 Letter provided by Matt Wingett
Featuring: April Singley
Genre: Documentary
Sourced from a historical letter from 1941, we watch a young woman wake up on a bench the morning after her home was destroyed by a timebomb and write a letter to her beau detailing the night's events.
1983 Concept by Christian Masters
Featuring: George Craik as The Dancer
Aerobics class: Graham R Brown, Jessica Kerswell, Aimee Ward
Business Man: Lee Ruttle Priest: George Gooding
Arguing Family: Lucy Ashton, Andrew Morgan
Supported by: Jordan Journeaux-Brown, Frano Ashby, Kia Wilson, Poppy Lowles, Didi Brown, Alicja Peplowska, Sue Evans, Daniel Flanagan
Genre: Music Video (An original pop-punk track made for The Bench by Dreamstopper)
A young man walks up to the bench, takes a potion, then begins to combat the establisment powers-that-be before the band marches in and Portsmouth shows up to party.
Featuring: Poppy Lowles, Toki Ogunkolati, and Tony Course
Genre: Sitcom/comedy
Two friends happen onto a strange man inspecting the bench for listening devices- and things just get wackier from there. Cheese goblin? Check. An illicit ferret transaction? Double check.
Credits Sequence Drone filming by Matt Brydon
The final shot of the film involves an incredibly complicated drone shot moving from the girl, up over the museum, and revealing the city skyline. Timings were coordinated with Wightlink Ferries to ensure that Matt had a vessel to follow which takes our shot out past the Spinnaker Tower as the vessel goes through the Portsmouth Harbour Entrance, revealing the war memorial, the Solent, and the Isle of Wight as another ferry crosses the opposite direction.