I was commissioned by harpist Gwen Màiri to make this film in response to Gwen’s arrangement of ‘Birjina gaztettobat zegoen’, a traditional Basque carol.
The narrative was developed by listening to the track to allow the drama in Gwen’s performance to lead the storyline. Themes such as friendship, loss, and the change of seasons naturally permeated the work as well as influences from Basque songs referring to the Robin and the Wren.
The film was created through the process of stop motion animation, with over 2000 photographs taken to create the movement in the film. Despite the change in medium, an interest in the unique marks of printmaking has remained central to my work. The scenes were created by printing woodcuts on paper, before cutting and gluing the prints to create characters and landscapes to be manually moved between each photograph.
