Home > The Crake – the story of a river
We commissioned Dan Fox of Sound Intervention to produce a short film about the River Crake. A camera was set up in a garden in Lowick next to the river to take a photo every 10 minutes, from dawn to dusk for just over a year starting in January 2019. The bridges on the river provided suitable focus points for additional footage. The first lockdown also extended the opportunities for further filming and sound recordings.
In total Dan stitched together over 40,000 images to produce the time-lapse film – A Year of the Crake. The film charts the 6 mile course of the river from Coniston Water to Greenodd, capturing the rise and fall of the water, the passing seasons and light and even the occasional duck and canoeist.
The sound track is entirely made up of field recordings taken in the Crake valley. Dan used parabolic and stereo microphones, hydrophones, contact mics and a battery powered recorder. The hydrophones captured the sound of rocks moving on the river bed, which were also used by pupils from Penny Bridge Academy on a Sounds walk, whose descriptions are also in the film. Other sounds include winds in the trees, thunder, shrimps and fish, as well as a nearby ants nest.
It’s a beautiful film that shows the essence of a river, invites you to explore further and feel relaxed by its soothing movement.
