Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 5283 (Master Record)
Title | Year | Date |
UNKNOWN [SHEFFIELD STUDENTS SCIENCE FICTION FILM] | c.1972 | 1969-01-01 |
Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 24 mins 44 secs Credits: A film with Dick Parker, Andrew Webster, Pickworth Sheldon Ashbury, Andrew Robinson Smith, Wright Bower, Phillips Grant. Synthesised sound David Cox Titles John Guest Photography, Editing, Soundtrack Paul Miller Produced by Sheffield University Union of Students, with thanks to the Film Department, Sheffield Polytechnic School of Art. |
Summary This is a dystopian science fiction film made by Sheffield University Union of Students. It features five men in some surreal settings on the run from a controlling state organisation. The organisation is capturing the population on 3D film images, making everyone dispensable. |
Description
This is a dystopian science fiction film made by Sheffield University Union of Students. It features five men in some surreal settings on the run from a controlling state organisation. The organisation is capturing the population on 3D film images, making everyone dispensable.
The film begins with a long haired man in a black cap and cape emerging from a hole in a concrete construction and climbing over a wall. Then another long haired man, with a beard, lays naked in a patch of waste...
This is a dystopian science fiction film made by Sheffield University Union of Students. It features five men in some surreal settings on the run from a controlling state organisation. The organisation is capturing the population on 3D film images, making everyone dispensable.
The film begins with a long haired man in a black cap and cape emerging from a hole in a concrete construction and climbing over a wall. Then another long haired man, with a beard, lays naked in a patch of waste ground, clutching himself, seemingly in pain. Then a third long haired man in 17th century dress, emerges from some derelict houses being knocked down by a demolish ball. A fourth long haired man in a red headband and with a union jack on his back, emerges from a pile of stones and slides down a helter shelter. Then the third man seems to be stuck in some kind of large tent. The first man lies on a burial stone, the naked man crawls in the mud, while the third man is now clambering up a large pile of stones. The fourth man finds himself trapped in a turngate. A fifth man finds himself in some kind of deserted park.
The film continues with each of the protagonists trying to escape from their situation. The fourth man is in a field painting at an easel, and then reads ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’, by Irving Stone. All the characters continue in their own dreamlike world, with the first man now carrying a gun, and the second man seemingly mystified by the objects he finds. All of the characters then find themselves in a maze, before being a house, playing several board games simultaneously, while a voice-over, speaking to the audience, suggests that the viewers might find themselves outside the frame of the film as the five characters try to escape their celluloid stage. He explains that a ruling organisation has enslaved the entire population through the use of 3d film, and reduced them to their celluloid essence. These five have so far eluded capture.
The film switches to the control room of the ruling organisation, where the films are being processed. There is a warning that the five escapees seek to destroy the capacity for projecting images on a global scale. They are deemed inter-galactic criminals and a red alert is put out as film crews depart to capture them. The film crews disperse around the city taking images of the population, operating as if a police force. Meanwhile our five runaways make their way across some shrub land until they find themselves caught in the fire of floodlights.
They manage to escape in a colourful VW Beetle. They stop at a complex of concrete flats, where four of them continue on foot while one stays with the car, and who is finally captured. He is taken to a studio where he is supposedly auditioned for a part in the film he is in, and given a machine to use on the film crew. Now, having caught his image in celluloid, his fate awaits to be determined.
Meanwhile the other four escapees make their way into a large building as the captured man witnesses weird scenes going on around him, eventually finding himself entangled in film. The four escapees eventually break into the film room where they are themselves caught on film, and the film comes to an end with credits.
End Credits:
A film with Dick Parker, Andrew Webster, Pickworth Sheldon Ashbury, Andrew Robinson Smith, Wright Bower, Phillips Grant.
Synthesised Sound David Cox
Titles John Guest
Photography, Editing, Soundtrack Paul Miller
Produced by Sheffield University Union of Students, with thanks to the Film Department, Sheffield Polytechnic School of Art.
This is followed by a postscript where the camera is moving through some of the landscapes seen previously, with items of the men’s clothing draped over statues.
Context
This bizarre science fiction film made by students at Sheffield University gives a great insight into the mind-set and aesthetic of the early 1970s.
The Film Unit at Sheffield University Union of Students produced many fascinating films during the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. This one, with its surreal landscapes and alarmingly prescient storyline, is definitely on the imaginative outer limits of their collection. It has five men on the run from a controlling state organisation that is capturing...
This bizarre science fiction film made by students at Sheffield University gives a great insight into the mind-set and aesthetic of the early 1970s.
The Film Unit at Sheffield University Union of Students produced many fascinating films during the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. This one, with its surreal landscapes and alarmingly prescient storyline, is definitely on the imaginative outer limits of their collection. It has five men on the run from a controlling state organisation that is capturing the population on 3D film images, thereby making everyone dispensable. We don’t know exactly what year this film was made, or whether or not any of those involved in the production went on to work in moving image. The film reflects a time when psychedelia met paranoia – not only with the drug culture, but as also reflected in film (think of The Parallax View) and music (think of King Crimson). An obvious influence may be the 1967/68 cult TV series The Prisoner (re-run in 1974); although this film is darker still. Yet, ahead of its time, with themes of 3D imaging, surveillance and virtual reality the film could hardly be more consonant with contemporary trends. |