Kalla - Location Scouting

Kalla exists in something of a loose series of writings and films that revolve around questions I am asking about important spaces, areas of my surroundings that make me in some way feel closer to the experience of being alive. Not that I don’t feel alive ordinarily, but the experience of existence is just rarely vivid for me, making music or changing my interior chemical balance creates immediacy in my experience, but what role does place play in the phenomenon of being alive?

I am also interested in the many world’s theory of quantum mechanics, and fascinating books like Before the Big Bang by Laura Mersini-Houghton, The Elegant Universe & The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene among others have had me head scratching and pondering how these exotic ideas relate to my surroundings, especially Dartmoor. Could there be places that feel special to me that bump up against other local bubble universes in our group, where significant things have happened to other me's?

These queries led me to thinking about places I knew on Dartmoor and how the narratives I want to develop seem to climax at these places. If you have seen my previous short film Merrivale you will have some idea of my general thinking here, but that film can be watched by following the link on my film page.

Once the story idea was developed, next it was time to head out in the car to the early summer sunshine with Christian our cinematographer, to hunt out locations that work best for these strange ideas. Places that are accessible, but still appear remote. I am also interested in place as character, the trees and the natural world itself needs to communicate with the characters - we searched out spaces that made me feel like there were eyes in the trees, eyes in the hills, watching us.