Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 1316 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| HOME GROWN | 1999 | 1999-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: MiniDV Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 27 mins Credits: 'Special thanks, John Brooks Brickyard Farm, Altech, Greenheart, Northern Green Gathering, Talamh, Pictish State Physical Theatre, and everyone who took part in the making of this film. Production Team: Judi Alston, Andrew Wicks, Billy Johnson, Ben Harris, Katie Harris. Post production: off line edit - Steve Richards, on line edit - Elite Television. Produced and directed by Judi Alston. Funded by The National Lottery, Wakefield MDC Museums and Arts. Made as part of the A4E Contemporary Video Collection. One to One Production May 2000' Subject: Politics Agriculture |
| Summary 'Home Grown' is a film about life-style, personal choice and principles. Set in the fields of Brickyard Farm, Ackworth, West Yorkshire, Home Grown tells the story of an organic farmer John Brook who forms an unusual attachment with eco-activists. Home Grown is shot at the third annual Northern Green Gathering and captures the spirit and hope of a growing contemporary culture of grass roots activism. |
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Description
'Home Grown' is a film about lifestyle, personal choice, and principles. Set in the fields of Brickyard Farm, Ackworth, West Yorkshire, Home Grown tells the story of an organic farmer John Brook who forms an unusual attachment with eco-activists. Home Grown is shot at the third annual Northern Green Gathering and captures the spirit and hope of a growing contemporary culture of grassroots activism.
The film begins with an interview with farmer John Brook at his Brickyard Farm,...
'Home Grown' is a film about lifestyle, personal choice, and principles. Set in the fields of Brickyard Farm, Ackworth, West Yorkshire, Home Grown tells the story of an organic farmer John Brook who forms an unusual attachment with eco-activists. Home Grown is shot at the third annual Northern Green Gathering and captures the spirit and hope of a growing contemporary culture of grassroots activism.
The film begins with an interview with farmer John Brook at his Brickyard Farm, speaking about his background, his conversion to organic farming, and showing his free-range pigs. Brook and his wife load their van with fruit and vegetables for delivery.
Elsewhere on the farm, people are putting together a permaculture house and garden on the site of the festival. One of those involved, a man with a beard, explains their outlook. John Brook arrives in his van. One of the organisers explains the philosophy behind the festival. John drops off his food and explains how he got involved in the festival. Another organiser explains how they found John through the Soil Association.
While playing the accordion, a woman sings a French-sounding song about consumerism. Meanwhile, people are shown around the site making preparations. Other people there are interviewed, and John explains how the money works whilst picking beetroot from a field overlooking the festival site. He states that he hadn’t been to a musical festival before this one which was started three years ago.
Some of the festival-goers talk about their traveling homes and tents. Several of the sights around the festival are shown, and the bearded man talks about the festival as well as how he makes jewelry from copper which he has picked up from here and there. The accordion player states that she, "…has been called an environmental fascist, but that's by people with no sense of theatre."
The person running the solar and wind power explains what they are doing and how it works. A couple of small boys talk to the camera about the electricity. Other people there talk about the festival and about their alternative lifestyles. The father of the accordion player gives his thoughts on the festival and the issues for which they are campaigning. John Brook explains how he wants his involvement to go beyond just providing a field. More of the festival-goers, including someone from Greenpeace, give their views on the festival and the message for which it stands. One person talks about the June 18th protest against globalisation and how participants in this protest have used the internet. Another interviewee, who is running a green play area for children, talks about what they are doing and about renewable energy.
As the sun goes down, groups of people walk around carrying flares. They form a singing circle a bonfire. A woman performs a ceremony which appears to have pagan influences. The circle is then filled with performers juggling fire poles or dancing trance music background. The film finishes with the fire jugglers.
End Credits: ‘Special thanks, John Brooks Brickyard Farm, Altech, Greenheart, Northern Green Gathering, Talamh, Pictish State Physical Theatre, and everyone who took part in the making of this film. Production Team: Judi Alston, Andrew Wicks, Billy Johnson, Ben Harris, Katie Harris. Post production: off line edit – Steve Richards, on line edit – Elite Television. Produced and directed by Judi Alston. Funded by The National Lottery, Wakefield MDC Museums and Arts. Made as part of the A4E Contemporary Video Collection. One to One Production May 2000’
Context
This film is one of 38 films made between 1998 and 2001 as part of the Yorkshire Media Consortium Partnership.
The YMC was a partnership of seven companies – including One to One Productions and the Yorkshire Film Archive – set up with lottery support from Yorkshire Arts in 1998. This film, as well as seven other One to One productions, was produced and directed by Judi Alston, some in conjunction with Steve Richards. All the films are held with the YFA, as well as the rushes, director’s...
This film is one of 38 films made between 1998 and 2001 as part of the Yorkshire Media Consortium Partnership.
The YMC was a partnership of seven companies – including One to One Productions and the Yorkshire Film Archive – set up with lottery support from Yorkshire Arts in 1998. This film, as well as seven other One to One productions, was produced and directed by Judi Alston, some in conjunction with Steve Richards. All the films are held with the YFA, as well as the rushes, director’s notes and background files including detailed records of the people, communities and filmmakers involved in each production. After graduating from Bretton Hall College, Leeds University, Judi Alston formed One to One Productions in 1988 after winning the Barclays Bank award for the "Most Innovative Business Idea in Yorkshire and the Humber". One to One Productions is a highly imaginative multimedia company producing films, and also facilitating digital art projects, websites and other innovative multimedia work. Judi runs One to One Productions, with fellow director Andy Campbell, with a focus on working with communities and under-represented groups. It aims to be inclusive and participatory, and this can be seen in the very many projects it has been involved with. It has run the Realtime Film Project in collaboration with Barnardo's; the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Youth Arts Project between 2000 and 2003; a project with The Wakefield and District Play Forum and many others. One of its exciting current projects is Dreaming Methods, ‘a fusion of writing and atmospheric new media that explores digital storytelling, imaginary memories and dream-inspired states’ (see the website for full details). Of related interest to Home Grown is the Travellers Heritage Project on residents based at the Wakefield Travellers site. John Brook, the farmer in the film, was one of the pioneers in organic farming at Brickyard Farm, Ackworth, West Yorkshire. John had been farming all his life and took over the farm from his father. Through selling organic produce to eco-activists in Leeds, John got to stage the Green Gathering Festival on his farm in 1998 (John gets a bit confused about the dates in the film). It was whilst attending this that Judi got the idea for the film, having just made a similar local film about Castleford Rugby League, Taming the Tigers, also on YFA Online. Judi was somewhat reluctant at first of making a film about a group of people who were very naturally wary of the media, given the misrepresentations that travellers and environmental activists had often been subject to. But as Judi states in her notes on the film, “I believe that if you can bring through the essence of beauty and involve participants of a film as much as possible, then that is all you can do.” It is certainly a feature of the film, as it is of other films Judi has made, that the people in the film are allowed to speak for themselves. The film was made in a truly interactive way, as well as discussing it at length with the participants, the day’s unedited shooting was shown in a tent later in the evenings – the first showing whilst a fierce thunderstorm raged above! Judi was keen to allow all the many issues aired in the film to come across in the final edit, and to this end showed the film to Eco-activists from Planet in Leeds before it being released and shown at the Green Gathering in 2000. The showing run according to the principles of the Green Gathering, to use self-generated electricity, and it was powered by four people peddling cycles! The film was also shown several times in the Groovie Movie at Glastonbury. Here, in keeping with the exploratory ethos on One to One productions, the film was re-edited by Mothball, the resident DJ, and played alongside crazy animations and a live soundtrack. The film has since been shown at many other festivals. John Brook is still keeping his organic farm going, selling his produce at Brickyard Organic Farm in Pontefract, and putting on local events such as the Ackworth Steam & Historic Vehicle Show. And the Northern Green Gathering is still putting on its annual festival, ‘with all the usual crafts, cafes, music, permaculture, children's activities, healing area and campaigns’. The film remains of huge relevance, as all the issues it covers are as burning today as they were in 1999. It presents a group of people wishing to have a different way of living to the prevailing orthodoxy of our consumer society. A large number of people who are still prevented from having the space they require to live as they want. During the time of the conflicts between travellers and police at Stoney Croft in Hampshire in 1986 and 1994, most travellers’ sites were closed; and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 effectively excluded travellers from what remained. Yet those advocating alternative ways of producing energy, food and other products are making their views felt despite being marginalised. One person interviewed in the film talks of the June the 18th (1999) worldwide protests against global capitalism that took place to coincide with the G8 nations meeting in Koln, and how the J18 network was organised across the globe through the internet. Hopefully, making films such as this available online and open to comment, will also help to encourage this process of allowing people to share their views over the internet. Further Information: Saving Time, a booklet and CD ROM produced by the Yorkshire Media Consortium. This outlines the work of the group including an index of the films it produced. A copy is held with the YFA. For more information about One to one Productions own Archive list visit: www.onetoonecollection.com One to One Productions Northern Green Gathering Dreaming Methods Traveller Law Research Unit Set up in 1999 by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, this is an invaluable source of information for travellers and their rights. The photographer and campaigner David Lodge: This has a very useful section on travellers and their rights. Myspace: This has lots of interesting posts on the experiences of new-age travellers. Danny Wallace ‘How to start your own country’ |
