About the Film

This music and light documentary follows The False Lights of Durham, a short film conceived and directed by artist and composer Ed Carter, which I filmed inside Durham Cathedral in 2013. The piece takes its name and its subject from a stretch of maritime folklore along the County Durham coast, and translates that history into a sequence of light and sound built around the region’s lighthouses.

The Legend of the False Lights

In the 1860s, ships were repeatedly wrecked along this stretch of coastline by unexplained lights that appeared along the shore. Trinity House accused local fishing communities of deliberately creating these false lights to lure vessels onto the rocks and steal their cargo, a charge the communities always denied. The controversy eventually led to the construction of proper electric lighthouses along the coast, permanently changing how the region looked at night.

Ed Carter’s Composition

Ed Carter’s piece turns that history into music. Each lighthouse gets its own rhythm and melody, based on the actual light pattern it used when it was first switched on: Souter, opened in 1871, then Herd Sand, South Gare breakwater, Sunderland North East pier, Hartlepool Heugh, both piers on the River Tyne, Sunderland South pier, Roker pier and Seaham North pier. The film follows that sequence, so the viewer moves through the lighthouses the way a ship once would have, guided by nothing but the intermittent glow of each signal in turn.

Filming Inside Durham Cathedral

Filming took place overnight inside Durham Cathedral, and it was a milestone shoot for me in more than one way. It was the first piece I ever filmed for broadcast, and the first time I shot on a Canon EOS C300, hired specially for the job. The camera’s low-light performance turned out to matter enormously, since almost everything in the film depends on subtle beams of light moving across stone in near total darkness.

Jonathon Hodges designed the lighting, building sequences of pulses and fades that echoed real lighthouse signals and synchronising them precisely with Ed’s score. My job as cinematographer and editor was to hold onto enough contrast to make the lights read clearly without losing the texture of the cathedral itself. A choir, Pippa Anderson, Jo Blenkinsop, Neil Blenkinsop, Michael Bridgewater, Kiz Crosbie, Michael Dawson, Susie Green, Dave Scott, Nicola Singh and Ryan Tilley, sang as the voice of the fishing communities, responding directly to the accusations made against them, and organist James Lancelot brought the cathedral’s own organ into the piece, tying its historic sound to Ed’s modern composition.

Working With an Artist’s Composition

Films like this are close to why documentary work with artists appeals to me most. A music and light documentary like this one lives or dies on rhythm and atmosphere rather than plot, and getting to work that closely with someone else’s composition, matching camera movement to sequences Ed had already worked out in sound, is a different kind of filmmaking to most of what I do. It has stayed one of the projects I am proudest of.

Channel 4 Random Acts and BALTIC

The False Lights of Durham was commissioned by Northern Film and Media and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art for Channel 4’s Random Acts strand, which showcased short experimental films across music, dance, visual art and animation, usually broadcast late at night in bursts of two or three minutes. Being part of that strand meant the film reached a national television audience well beyond the cathedral itself, and it was also exhibited at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle from 25 October to 17 November 2013, my first time having work shown in a major contemporary art venue.

About Ed Carter

Ed Carter is a composer and artist working across music, light and sound. You can see more of his work, including further detail on this project, at edcarter.net.