The new trailer for my latest novel The Fountain in the Forest (Faber and Faber, 2018) was shot at the October Gallery in London, and on location in the South of France, in and around the town of Vence in the Alpes-Maritime region, an area where parts of the novel are set.
Since the novel explores the legacy of the 90 days between the end of the Miners’ Strike and the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985, I wanted to be able to include at least some new footage shot using media that I might have had access to at the time, in those pre-digital days, so some of the trailer is shot using Super-8.
The close-up footage of water purling and playing in the fountains of Vence was shot on location in August 2017, on a vintage Canon 512XL. It’s a beautiful camera, an absolute pleasure to use, and the delicate clattering sound that it makes is incredibly evocative. While I was shooting in the Place du Peyra in Vence, I was aware that someone had stopped to watch, although he stood still and remained respectfully out of shot. Once I’d finished, he came and shook my hand, nodding at the camera enthusiastically. ‘Super-huit?’ he asked.
‘Oui,’ I said. ‘C’est Super-huit!’
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