Local award-winner Ollie’s latest project
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romsgrove cinematographer Ollie Walton, whose company Fix 8 Films won a BAFTA best British short film gong for 73 Cows, played a leading production role in a landmark film project in Birmingham. World’s Stage, a series of seven shor t films, is the latest instalment in the Everything to Everybody project, which aims to bring the Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library into the heart of 21st century life. Suppor ted by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and History West Midlands, the collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council comprises a three-year programme of community activities which will climax in conjunction with the 2022 Commonwealth Games in the Second City. It will explore the ways in which culture can come to life for people and communities and confidently expects to change Shakespeare in the process. The project’s patron is the Birmingham born and bred actor, Adrian Lester. Created in 1864 to celebrate William Shakespeare’s 300th bir thday, the memorial library was the world’s first great Shakespeare collection and once had such an excellent reputation that the Soviet government deposited 300 items in the collection during the Cold War. However, in recent years it has become a neglected asset. World’s Stage features a cast of 140 multi-lingual people from Birmingham, who perform in most of the 93 languages to be found in the collection. Split
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into five acts, the films showcase people of various ages, communities and backgrounds performing Shakespeare’s lines in a vast range of languages and dialects, largely without subtitles. “We wanted to see and hear Shakespeare in these beautiful languages,” said Daniel Tyler-McTighe, director of ar t collective 27:31, who collaborated with Ollie, a former Nor th Bromsgrove High School pupil, and John Roddy from Audio Bassment on the project. “Even if we don’t understand those languages, we just wanted to enjoy them as performances or as visuals.” The films explore the concepts of learning, speaking and living Shakespeare in a vibrant, diverse city. Children from a local primary school perform a scene from Henry V in multiple languages and there is also an eight-language version of the “All the world’s a stage” speech from As You Like It. The World’s Stage crew were: Director - Daniel Tyler from 27:31 and Creative Multilingualism, cinematographer and editor - Ollie Walton of Fix 8 Films, sound - John Roddy from Audio Bassment, production manager - Laura Killeen, unit still photographer - Ben Gregory Ring and production assistant - Sean Bould. All seven short films can be viewed on the project’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/ UC0Slt8atR9oqw8UyMHJO8JQ/videos
