The making of the films

Finding our film-makers

We held an initial online taster session with members of the public with lived experience of severe mental illness (SMI) and/or who were carers of people with SMI. At this we introduced our plans for making the film and a member of the Northern Ireland research team presented their ‘blue and green spaces’ research project. Everyone who attended had the opportunity to introduce themselves and explain their interest in nature and the outdoors and also talk about a favourite green or blue space.

Our first workshop

Our first workshop proper was also conducted virtually via ‘Zoom’ to make this more accessible for everyone and since we were not planning to do any filming activities just yet. The session was dedicated to discussing everyone’s viewpoints, feelings, and experiences with regards to green and blue spaces.

One exercise involved us choosing from a selection of photographs of nature - including of mountainous landscapes, woodlands, parks and gardens and coastal scenes - an image that particularly spoke to us. We thought about which particular qualities stood out (both within the scene and in the way the photographer captured it) and how the image made us feel. We then proceeded to deepen our reflection on the relationship between natural outdoor spaces and inner emotional states and to explore how different types of scenery can have different emotional impacts, ranging from exhilaration (for instance being on a beach during a winter storm) to soothing (for instance walking through the dappled shade of a wood on a calm, sunny spring day).

For more details on this workshop, please visit the blog section of this website.

Our second workshop

We came together in person on the University of York’s Heslington East Campus for our second workshop. We started by thinking about some of the factors that might prevent a person with mental illness from getting out and enjoying nature. We identified a number of internal/psychological (e.g. lack of initial motivation) and external (e.g. physical access) barriers and what might help the person to overcome these.

We then moved onto crafting some miniature story-boards, stringing together selections of famous sayings about nature with our own more personal reflections. We also started to think about what kind of narrative we would like to convey through our film and what kind of filming style we would prefer. We sought inspiration from a few different examples, including a film shot with a drone, a documentary style format with short interviews, and a more creative sequence of edited snippets with a voice-over narration. Finally we went outside with our phones and i-pads to put some of what we had learnt into practice.

For more details on this workshop, please visit the blog section of this website.

Filming

For the filming workshop itself we chose the St Nicks Nature Reserve and Environment Centre a mile or so outside the centre of York. This enchanting reserve comprises 24 acres of woodland on the site of a former rubbish tip and was officially established in 2004, following a decade of activity to transform the former landfill site by the local charitable volunteer group the ‘Friends of St Nicholas Fields’. It was the ideal filming location and we were lucky enough to have good weather too!

For more details on the filming workshop and the overall process please explore the blog section of this website.