Cally Trench: Films

Watch Feet
on YouTube (44 sec)

Watch Roses Hat
on Youtube (20 sec)

Feet (2017) is a short silent time-lapse film made up of 239 drawings that Cally Trench made of her feet, which appear to wriggle and fidget, sometimes socked, sometimes naked, and sometimes with one sock on and one sock off.

Feet was shown in Draw/Bridge, Zug/Brücke (curated by Alex Dewart) at ARTHOUSE1, London in 2017, and was included in Soundstripes at The Making Space, Huddersfield (silent film screening with live scoring) on 12th October 2017. The film was also shown in Lost & Found (curated by Mervyn Diese) at the Hundred Years Gallery, Hoxton, London in November 2017. Feet was also shown in Siblings Cannot Agree, an exhibition of self-portraits and portraits by Cally Trench and Nick Trench at the Heseltine Gallery, Middleton Cheney, in September 2018.

Roses Hat (2016) is made up of photographs taken on a 1950s Kodak Brownie 127 camera using black-and-white film, with the hat coloured by hand digitally. The music was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2017.

Roses Hat was shown in Videovada 2017, Festival of the Moving Image, OVADA, Oxford on 15th June 2017, and in the Film Night on 10th November 2017 during Lost & Found (curated by Mervyn Diese) at the Hundred Years Gallery, London. Roses Hat was exhibited in Only The Sunny Hours in June 2018 at OHOS, Brock Keep, Reading.

Watch Words you could say instead of CHEESE
on Youtube (1 min 30 sec)

Watch Peephole Hut on Youtube
(4 min 20 sec) Still photo: Lydia Julien

Words you could say instead of CHEESE: Taking photographs and being photographed with a 1950s Kodak Brownie 127 film camera, with the need to pause and pose, means that the occasion is a memorable single moment. We still conventionally say 'cheese' as we pose, but, as we increasingly take unposed snaps with our digital cameras, the need for a single perfect grin is removed. For Words you could say instead of CHEESE, Cally Trench invited people to try out other words, with different vowel sounds, as she photographed them with a Brownie 127 camera.

Words you could say instead of CHEESE was shown in Videovada 2017, Festival of the Moving Image, OVADA, Oxford on 15th June 2017, in the Candid Projection Room on 19th September 2017, and in the Film Night on 10th November 2017 during Lost & Found (curated by Mervyn Diese) at the Hundred Years Gallery, London. Words you could say instead of CHEESE was exhibited in Only The Sunny Hours in June 2018 at OHOS, Brock Keep, Reading.

"What lovely results for a great idea - a slightly odd thing to do for a (now) slightly idiosyncratic camera." (John McDowall, 2016)

"Great film! Giggled throughout!" (Steve Perfect, 2016)

Peephole Hut: Cally Trench and Philip Lee performed Peephole Hut on 17th November 2016 in Visions in the Nunnery, curated by Cinzia Cremona and Tessa Garland, at Bow Arts, The Nunnery, 181 Bow Road, London. Cally Trench and Philip Lee presented a black hut, which both hid and revealed the performers as they played and competed with each other within their golden lair. The film, which Cally Trench speeded up and edited, is fast-moving and jerky in the manner of old silent movies, with music written specially for the film in 2016 by composer Josh Hagley.

The film of Peephole Hut was shown in Live Art Cinema: It's Alive!, organised by Homes for Waifs and Strays and the Magic Cinema, at The Edge, Birmingham on 25th May 2017, and in the Candid Projection Room on 19th September 2017. The film was also shown at the Only The Sunny Hours Film Show on 23rd June 2018 at OHOS, Brock Keep, Reading.

Cally Trench
Watch Hand
on YouTube (18 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch Pink House
on YouTube (42 sec)

Hand (2016) is a short animation film made up of drawings that Cally Trench made of her left hand, which appears to drum on a surface or maybe play invisible musical instruments. The music was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2016.

Hand was shown in Draw/Bridge, Zug/Brücke (curated by Alex Dewart) at ARTHOUSE1, London in 2017, and in the Film Night on 10th November 2017 during Lost & Found (curated by Mervyn Diese) at the Hundred Years Gallery, London.

Pink House (2016) is an animated film based on one of Cally Trench's linocut prints. The music for Pink House was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2016.

Pink House was shown in Videovada 2017, Festival of the Moving Image, OVADA, Oxford on 15th June 2017, and in the Candid Projection Room on 19th September 2017.

"Love the videos with the music. Work well together, enhance each other to make one fuller, more complex whole." (Sophie Loss, 2017)

Cally Trench
Watch Ice Lollies
on YouTube (16 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch Sphinx
on YouTube (25 sec)

Ice Lollies (2015) is an animated film based on one of Cally Trench's linocut prints.

Ice Lollies was included in Soundstripes at The Making Space, Huddersfield (silent film screening with live scoring) on 12th October 2017.

Sphinx (2015) is also an animated film based on one of Cally Trench's linocut prints. The music for Sphinx was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2016.

"Your videos are great and very funny. I love the fact you take linocut prints to this level of almost seeing them being made." (Valérie Mary, 2015)

Cally Trench
Watch Cemetery Botany
on YouTube (2 min 21 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch A Walk in the Cemetery
on YouTube (54 sec)

In Cemetery Botany (2014), photographs of stone carvings of flowers on Victorian and Edwardian graves are animated. The music was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2016.

The earlier silent version of Cemetery Botany was shown in Videovada 2016 Festival of the Moving Image at OVADA, Oxford, on 24th June 2016. The scored version was shown in the Candid Projection Room on 19th September 2017. It was also shown in The Art of Dying at Wycombe Museum (November 2017 to April 2018).

"I love the Cemetery Botany one, the opposition between life and death... It's just great." (Valérie Mary, 2015)

"Cemetery Botany – simple but beautiful." (Diana Bell, 2015)

"Mmmmm... interesting, they instantly have the Cally Trench playful pop art manner about them. There is the feeling of passage of time, change, aging and the essence of revitalisation. Cemeteries are amazing places, markers of past lives. There is something satisfying and worthwhile about freshly retracing directly over the old. I like colouring in, not enough importance is placed on the process. I really like it when you colour in the leaves and the different ways you colour them. Lurid colours over mouldy stone is quite funny really; of course to an artist/historian it reads as a playful nod to the original coloured intentions of ancient sculpture, the digital application really highlights the colouring process well I think." (Guy Tarrant, 2015)

"J’aime beaucoup cette video. Simple, explicite et l’idée me plait. Les tombes sont toujours très mornes et cela fait du bien de voir ce qu’ils imaginaient en les faisant c’était finalement bien plus gai que le résultat bien trop sage." (Kaliko, 2015)

A Walk in the Cemetery (2010/2015), with music written specially for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2017, shows a lanky Chaplinesque young man, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black bow tie and carrying a black furled umbrella, walking along a tree-lined path in a cemetery - suggestive of the final scene in Carol Reed's 1949 film The Third Man.

It was shown in The Art of Dying at Wycombe Museum (November 2017 to April 2018).

Cally Trench
Watch Window
on YouTube (33 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch Banquet
on YouTube (1 min 26 sec)

Window (2014) is a silent animated film based on one of Cally Trench's linocut print.

Banquet (2013) is a silent time-lapse film showing a sociable meal shared by artists and guests at the private view of Do you remember it - or weren't you there? on Wednesday 30 January 2013 at London Gallery West, University of Westminster (Harrow Campus). In the film, four hours is compressed into one and a half minutes. The Banquet was created by Cally Trench with help from Lorraine Pepper, Hepzibah Hill and Philip Lee, and contributions from the artists. Do you remember it - or weren't you there? was supported by the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, University of Westminster.

Cally Trench
Watch Flashes
on vimeo (30 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch Exercise Slip Silent Movie
on vimeo (2 min 1 sec)

Flashes (2012): People like taking photographs of live performances, and these 'snapshots' from video footage of a performance by Philip Lee and Cally Trench show the bits that people found interesting enough to take a flash photograph of. When editing footage of a live performance, the flashes might often be bits to edit out. In this film they are all edited in. What you see in this 30-second silent time-lapse film is still 'snapshots' of each flash, followed by a 'snapshot' of the moment immediately afterwards for contrast. The flashes vary in intensity, and some create jagged gashes of light. The performance itself was Double Helix, devised and performed by Philip Lee and Cally Trench at The Rubik's Cube, The Joiners Arms, Hackney, London, on 29th January 2012. The Rubik's Cube was curated by Iceberg Fernandez.

Exercise Slip Silent Movie (2012) is a silent time-lapse film by Cally Trench which shows the performance artist Philip Lee attempting to complete a set of 5BX exercises while naked and entirely covered in clay slip - a homage to fitness in the year that the Olympics came to London. The jerky movements and almost entirely black and white pallette are reminiscent of early cinema - both Muybridge and Buster Keaton.

Exercise Slip Silent Movie was shown in At Play 2012 at OVADA, Oxford and in Hoopla! at the Sugarhouse Studios, London. It was also shown in Do you remember it - or weren't you there? at London Gallery West, and in the British Ceramics Biennial in Stoke-on-Trent in 2013.

Cally Trench
Watch Skin and Slip Silent Movie
on vimeo
(58 sec)

Cally Trench, Judy
Goldhill and Philip Lee
Watch Somersaults
on vimeo (35 sec)

Cally Trench, Judy
Goldhill and Philip Lee
Watch The Camouflage Flipbook Movie
on vimeo (21 sec)

In Skin and Slip (2012), the naked surface of a man's head and shoulders are distorted by viscous clay slip, creating a new surface, which is then partially washed away: a metamorphosis referencing aging and bodily mutability. This is a time-lapse film of a performance for camera devised by Philip Lee and Cally Trench, and performed by Philip Lee.

Somersaults (2011) contains is a silent time-lapse film featuring nudity, with performance artist Philip Lee, who was painted in stripes by Cally Trench, and photographed by Judy Goldhill. The film was edited by Cally Trench.

The Camouflage Flipbook Movie (2011) is a silent time-lapse film featuring nudity. The performance artist Philip Lee rotates as stripes of paint descend his body. A film by Cally Trench, Judy Goldhill and Philip Lee.

A 101-second version of The Camouflage Flipbook Silent Movie was shown as part of Project 101 Video Installation at The LAB Gallery, New York (an AMBruno project curated by Sophie Loss) in November 2011.

Cally Trench
Watch The Horse's Mouth
on YouTube (27 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch Unwrapping
on YouTube (31 sec)

The Horse's Mouth (2011) is a short animation film, created from a series of drawings and collages made on paper, and in some cases altered on computer. The music was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2016.

Unwrapping (2011) is a silent time-lapse film of a parcel being unwrapped. The parcel was exhibited in Parcel Fever at the Keep, Reading (curated by Ingrid Jensen), 14th-15th October 2011 as part of Reading's Nuit Blanche. The object in the wrapping was made by Cally Trench, and it was wrapped in collaboration with Philip Lee.

Cally Trench
Watch Face
on YouTube (1 min 3 sec)

Cally Trench
Watch Chess Wars
on YouTube (58 sec)

Face (2010) focuses on one man's face. He starts by blinking and smiling, like a simple computer animation, but his choreographed expressions become more and more extravagant and extraordinary, before reverting back to blinking and smiling. Composer Josh Hagley wrote music specially for Face in 2017.

The early silent version of Face was shown as part of Project 101 Video Installation, The LAB Gallery, New York (an AMBruno project curated by Sophie Loss) in November 2011, along with Chess Wars, The Black Hat and a 101-second version of The Camouflage Flipbook Silent Movie. The scored version of Face was shown in Faces by Cally Trench in the Special Exhibitions Gallery at Buckinghamshire County Museum, Aylesbury, 15th July to 9th September 2017. It was also shown in the Candid Projection Room on 19th September 2017, and in the Film Night on 10th November 2017 during Lost & Found (curated by Mervyn Diese) at the Hundred Years Gallery, London.

In Chess Wars (2010), the board becomes a playground for chess gymnastics and a battle ground between chess and draughts pieces. The music was specially written for the film by composer Josh Hagley in 2016.

In 2011, the early silent version of Chess Wars was shown in At Play 3 at South Hill Park, Bracknell (curated by Outi Remes and Cally Trench) and in Project 101 Video Installation, The LAB Gallery, New York (an AMBruno project curated by Sophie Loss). The scored version was shown in the Candid Projection Room on 19th September 2017.