Ataraxia

Brassington bellringers and friends haven’t felt quite the same since their surreal sortie into the world of film on 17 and 18 February 2011. They had never dreamt they would ever have the opportunity to be film stars.

A couple of weeks earlier Tina Pawlik of Anthem Films, a small independent film company based in Nottingham, contacted tower captain, Frances Haynes, about shooting one sequence of a six-part film, Ataraxia, in Wirksworth and Brassington. An eight bell team was to ring on Friday in Wirksworth and a more local band was to ring in Brassington on Thursday.

Ataraxia is the brainchild of Dutch director, Sander Blom, a man of great charm and enthusiasm, who later visited the area himself and pronounced it perfect. Ataraxia is a “lucid state characterised by freedom from worry or any other preoccupations”. The film shows activities typical of the traditions of the country concerned. England gave bell-ringing, pubs, and pie and chips. Local inhabitants of Papua New Guinea, the next stopping-off point, were to re-enact the cargo cult. One wonders what their local food is.Thursday saw the six members of the local band breakfasting at 8.30 am in their usual haunt, the Miners Arms, Brassington. They were plied with coffee and pains au chocolat and visited at frequent intervals by the crew, half of whom were from Holland. Tina and her team worked with them and one or two other members of the crew had come from elsewhere in England.

Sander was busy filming an earthworm on the church steps, but at around 11.00 am the ringers were escorted to the ringing chamber, lights in place, director of photography at the ready and did their best to ring up in peal. They rang some changes, did some intentional firing, and after an enjoyable lunch at the Miners Arms the next part of the film was shot in the bell tower.

Each bellringer was asked to repeat the same tongue-twister

Pretty Kitty Creighton had a cotton batten cat

The cotton batten cat was bitten by a rat

The kitten that was bitten had a button for an eye

And biting off the button made the cotton batten fly

after which a local amateur actor took a blood pressure reading and pronounced it satisfactory or even perfect! They rang some more changes and rang down, finishing at around 5.00 pm.

Some of the crew had never met before, but they all knew exactly what was required of them and went about their work with great professionalism, friendliness and calmness.

The next day Frances arrived at Wirksworth bell tower at 8.30 am to let the lighting engineer in. She had invited eight experienced ringers from Ashford-in-the-Water, Bakewell, Youlgreave, Matlock and Wetton to ring in Wirksworth. It was difficult to find fourteen bell-ringers who were all available for a full weekday, so the Gold Card brigade won out.

Frances took Sander to see the bells and after helping the lighting and sound engineers, went to join everyone else breakfasting in the Red Lion, where the crew were staying.

At around 10.00 am they assembled in the bell tower and filming commenced. The team rang up and did some touches. Ringing lasted until 1.00 pm, whereupon the ringers’ efforts were congratulated by local supporting artistes (who might in the days prior to political correctness have been referred to as extras) as they exited the tower.

Other supporting artistes were an earthworm, perhaps the same earthworm that starred on Thursday, and a kitten acquired for the day.

A very convivial lunch was enjoyed at the Red Lion after which the ringers recited the tongue twister outside church. A healthy bunch obviously, as they did not have to have blood pressure readings!

Sander hopes the film, which has received funding from various sources, will be ready in May and intends to return to the Wirksworth area to arrange a public showing of it for the local community.

We look forward to this event and in the meantime keep visiting his website. Sander wanted to convey how change-ringing looks to outsiders and we had a wonderful experience of how film-making looks to outsiders.

We look forward to welcoming him and Tina and team in Wirksworth later this year and are so glad they didn’t opt for Morris dancing

Some of us, who have recently visited The Quad in Derby have been pleased to see shorts made by Anthem Films (Tina Pawlik) prior to the “big film”, in our case “True Grit”. It’s good to know of local producers and we hope that they will enjoy continuing and ever greater success.

From Events

text written by Christine Windsor. Photography (c) Roger Lawson.