Aftermath

Aftermath (2006) is a film made by three collaborators: Rosemary Butcher (choreographer), Cathy Lane (composer) and Cathy Greenhalgh (cinematographer and director). It is a 1- minute film played in either a cinema or gallery environment as installation. The film uses colour, cinematography and editing in new recombinative ways.

The film deepens and broadens the interdisciplinary research and shared language that was begun with their previous collaboration Undercurrent (2001). The director was inspired to explore the somatosensory and affective dimensions of perception of material phenomena on the cinema screen; in part her influence derives from recent critical approaches to the tactile in film (Marks, Sobchack, Naficy, Deleuze).

Aftermath combines footage shot in Southern Iceland with dancer Elena Giannotti’s precise movement in the studio. The film language is minimal, concentrating on the body state; in parallel, the sound shifts between palpable silence and focused representation of the environmental sounds of ice and wind. ‘Aftermath’ refers to Icelandic jokulhlaups (glacial bursts of voluminous debris) that happen after subterranean volcanic eruptions under icecaps and to the aftershocks of earthquakes and tsunamis.

The film has been designed to be experienced in two forms: as cinematic screening or gallery installation. The film was premiered at BAFTA, 6 July, 2006 as part of the launch of the Film and Phenomena research initiative. It was shown at the Videodanza Dance Film Festival in Barcelona in March 2007 and at ICMC 2007. It was the first prize-winner for Best Experimental Video at Strange Screen, the Sixth Audiovisual Festival of Experimental Video and Creative Documentary 2007, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Cathy is a Principal Lecturer and a Course Director of MA Investigating Film Practice (due to begin now 2010/11), and BA Film and Video (now BA Film and Television) for several years. She teaches practice classes in cinematography for fiction, television and documentary and co-teaches with directing and production design staff.

Cathy also delivers lectures on e.g.: Wildlife Filmmaking, Presence and Space, Documentary Ethics and Performance, Film and Landscape, Interactive Storytelling, Dance on Film, Practice as Research and writes about cinematographers and filmmaking practices, performance and narrative, creative collaboration and practice language, film aesthetics and cinematographic phenomena. This work is influenced by ethnographic work with feature film cinematographers undertaken over ten years and various projects with students, including CLIPCETL studies of creative collaboration and how students learn on the film set.

Cathy is co-founder with Sal Anderson of UAL's Film and Phenomena Creative Laboratory which promotes discussion and collaborative film works with scientists. She originally trained at the National Film and Television School and worked as a cinematographer for years in the British film industry.

Cathy directs films which incorporate choreography, documentary and animation elements, using a combination of media for film/gallery spaces. Her last film, 'Aftermath' (2006) a collaboration with choreographer Rosemary Butcher and acoustic composer Cathy Lane was screened at many festivals in Europe and beyond. Cathy is currently working on two films, 'Switch - Luminous Blackpool', about natural and artificial light and 'Cottonopolis', which explores similarities in the experiences of elderly cotton mill workers and their descendants in Manchester, Lodz (Poland), Ahmedabad (India) and Shanghai.

• http://www.lcc.arts.ac.uk/Cathy_Greenhal...