Ardoyne

I want to reinvent how documentaries are watched!

Thousands of short films are watched by few people beyond film festivals, mine included. The most watched videos today are Music Videos. So, I took a political event and put it to music & lyrics and set it to footage from my 1972 documentary on 'The Troubles' in Ardoyne, Belfast, Ireland, which won the 1973 Chicago Film Festival.

Sixteen forward thinking International Film Festivals have officially selected our 2014 film "Ardoyne" and its innovative format.

I wrote the lyrics to “Ardoyne” after 4 decades spent watching the annual July 12th event that occurs in Belfast, stemming from William of Orange and the 1690 Battle of the Boyne. The orchestration of the music by Swedish Film Composer Daniel Buhr is as complex as the history. We start with the Protestant fife tune: "The Sash My Father Wore," a rallying song of the Orange Men. The first drumming lick is the work of a retired British Army drummer, who served in the Inniskillings Dragoons. The second drummer represents the Apprentice Boys marching through Catholic Ardoyne. The bass drummer is mimicking the sound coming from under the bridge in Glasgow. The fife then starts to incorporate Celtic sounds, such as “The Wearing of the Green,” thus mixing the sounds of Ulster and Eire. The musical bridge melds these disparate historical themes together in a way that would be considered sacrilegious by most.

Most impressive of all is fife player Brian Dunning of Dublin, (The Dubliners, Sinead O'Connor, U2, the film "Gangs of New York,") who did an impeccable job of creating a highly complex musical track from his own studio in Dublin, which music producer, Tim Ellis (Portland, OR) then wove into Buhr's song.

I know it takes time for viewers to comprehend challenging artistic endeavors such as this one. The original film was also met with resistance. Banned by the BBC, torn from KCET’s line up as too controversial, the children's paintings, which we animated for the music video, were trashed during a break in at an art gallery in Manchester after being touted at The Tate in London. "A Place Called Ardoyne," was recently chosen by the British Film Institute - from 450,000 British films - to be digitally restored. One day, I believe "Ardoyne," the song, will be sung across all of Ireland and perhaps the world, but, hopefully, I won't have to wait another 40 years to see/hear that!