Helping out on location.

Earlier on this year Christopher Lunn and Company staff were asked to make up crew numbers on a short film being shot, in the local area, by one of our clients. Amongst the volunteers we had Runners, Riggers, Camera Assistants, and Production Accountants to name but a few, all gaining valuable experience of what it is like working on set and location. The film is due to be shown at various festivals in 2010 and updates as to its reception will be posted here soon.

PRESS RELEASE: 'Ode on Innocence'

2^nd August 2009

An innovative short film designed to challenge generational preconceptions as well as entertain and delight.

'Ode on Innocence' is a Tunbridge Wells-based production, and the first step in a national campaign aimed at altering underappreciated perceptions of poetry and the literary world among young people. Within the same vein as the BBC's 'Let Poetry into Your Life', it seeks to revive the nation's interest. The film captures the spirit of Keats' writings through an ethereal journey into interaction and intimacy between two individuals seeking different ends.

"Attitudes need to change. This generation is losing touch with resources invaluable to our past and linked to us as a nation." says Producer Vivienne Errington-Barnes. Baz Lurman achieved huge international success amongst young people with his production of Romeo and Juliet, which questioned popular interpretation of Shakespearian literature. Accordingly, 'Ode on Innocence' encapsulates Keats' paradoxical attitude towards the sublime, fusing it with modern life and young love in order to stimulate and inspire today's youth.

Two polar opposites, one of transience, one of permanence.

Being drawn principally from John Keats' ballad, 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' (The Beautiful Lady without Mercy), it captures central Keatsian themes such as beauty, emotion and sensuality within an atmosphere of enchantment.

With a constant undercurrent of transience at odds with permanence, 'Ode on Innocence' tells the story of La Belle, an alluring and beguiling enigma who enraptures the heart of the young, idealistic and fervent Knight. From their first encounter, they are drawn to each other and engage in an exploration of the very concepts of life, love, time and ultimately happiness that leads them on a venture spanning bewildering sexual euphoria to crushing emotional rejection.

Having been shot in High Definition, using experimental technology in order to push the boundaries of the genre and add more to the contemporary finish, the short film was shot in a variety of locations in the town, including Doctor Who actor Tom Baker's former house in Church Road, as well as Dunorlan Park and Chilstone Sculpture Park. Locations designed to parallel Keats' emotional landscape.

With an international cast and crew of around 45, boasting filmmakers from the Czech Republic, Austria and America as well as all corners of the British Isles, the film takes inspiration from both contemporary cosmopolitan culture and romantic poetry.

Despite a challenging budget, young, enthusiastic filmmakers and a crew with an average age of 24, aptly close to Keats' dying age of 25, have created work that defies the classic themes for short films 'Ode on Innocence' challenges the norm in a cultivated attempt to confront a past literary glory that is slipping away. Writer and director Jamie Morton, recipient of a Guardian Media Award, has worked in the past with those such as George Shaw (composer for productions such as 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' (2005)), as well as the BBC.

Keats looked at death, love, change and the human condition; 'Ode on Innocence' embodies such notions, with what the Writer and Director has dubbed "an emphasis on Keats' voice, rather than the poet himself."

Produced by Kylarkin Productions and financed by Christopher Lunn & Co., only improving their already excellent knowledge of the industry, as well as individual contributors, 'Ode on Innocence' is currently being submitted to multiple festivals. (DVD DISTRIBUTION)