Now this is a one-off. “It’s what I’d call a whimsical homage to Kentish Town,” says filmmaker David Hill, of his new 9-minute short film on the area that’s now live on Youtube.
“It’s based on the idea of how street scenes were filmed in the very early days of cinematography to demonstrate the technology, and document life, during that time.”
A mix of archive film, photographs, and contemporary footage Hill took on his clockwork 16mm movie camera, DSLR and Meta Smart glasses, he says that “some footage and photographs have been manipulated using AI (because everything must be these days), but the earliest archive footage was shot in 1924. So, it’s a kind of collision of filmmaking technology over a century. Maybe some readers will recognise themselves or someone they know.”
Hill, who lives in Castle Road (funeral directors Leverton are featured at the start of the film), says the idea came to him when looking at restored archive film of London on YouTube and he recognised the junction at the top of his road.
“It was just a quick shot, in a film detailing the route of the Grand Union Canal. Seeing this made me think of how much history all London streets hold, and I wanted to mark a century since this shot was taken by my counterpart a century ago.”
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A film editor, working mostly in TV documentaries, he’s been making his own little films since he was a teenager, “just for the love of it. I even shot some of the material in this film using a clockwork 16mm camera I have had since I was 17.”
Must-see moments include glimpses of old boozers, supermarkets, cars and more. Watch it here:
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