Silhouette cutting by Charles Burns
After watching Silhouette Secrets, recently launched on Amazon, people often ask: what sparked my interest in silhouettes? It isn’t such an easy question to answer. However, my mind often returns to this silhouette, which has been in my family for years. It may well be the first silhouette I ever saw. Continue reading “Trench Life in Silhouette”
Our film Silhouette Secrets includes a cameo appearance by Paul Daniels. This interview – our Paul Daniels cameo – was a late addition. We were looking for a magician to talk about Dai Vernon, the celebrated father of close-up magic, who earned a living as a street silhouettist during the Great American Depression. Continue reading “Our Paul Daniels cameo”
Last Wednesday I picked up an eighteenth-century silhouette by Isabella Beetham. Beetham is a well-known Georgian artist and her work is much prized by collectors today. She is something of a feminist icon. Continue reading “A silhouette of Marie Antoinette”
In the midst of the referendum debate I would like to draw your attention to the European Art of the Silhouette. Every so often I am asked to appear as a guest speaker about silhouettes and their history. Continue reading “The European Art of the Silhouette”
Silhouette Secrets seems off to a flying start. We took part in two film festivals towards the end of 2015 and have applied for many more this year. The first two festivals were the Marbella International Film Festival, where we were nominated for Best Documentary, and NiFF Houston, where we won the Best Documentary Award. Continue reading “First festival successes”
The film is out! I seem to have spent most of my time this summer cooped up in the editing room with Andi, making the final cut of Silhouette Secrets. Silhouette Secrets is a one-hour documentary film in which a modern-day silhouette artist (me) takes a journey back in time to explore the history of his shadowy art. He asks the question: “Where did it come from?”
While in America last year, filming for the documentary ‘Silhouette Secrets’, we visited Philadelphia to study a 200-year-old automatic silhouette-making machine. On the way my mind lapsed and I found myself driving on the wrong side of the road. Continue reading “Arrest of an Artist”
After visiting Houston the Silhouette Secrets film crew were invited to a lunch by SCONE. We met “Silhouette Cutters of New England” at the Wayside Inn, near Boston. We knew nothing of the Wayside Inn’s history or it’s connection with the art of silhouette.
There seems to be a certain ambiguity over the silhouette speed cutting world record. The main item on our US agenda was a trip to Houston to meet the world’s fastest silhouette artist. Cindi Harwood Rose holds this record, which stands at 144 silhouettes cut in one hour. The film will end with me going to Houston to challenge it. There’s only one problem: nobody seems to know the result!
During filming of Silhouette Secrets last month we were unexpectedly let down by an interviewee in London. We found ourselves, camera crew in tow, with nothing to film on a beautiful spring morning. On a whim we got the Russian motorcycle out of the shed and headed out into Oxford. Continue reading “The Oxford Shark”
As our Indiegogo campaign enters it’s final week I’m posting the promised update… and a request for a tweet! Tomorrow will be Silhouette Secrets’ Twitter day, and your chance to win a digital selfie.
Free silhouettes! I begin this year in a state of high excitement. We have started filming “Silhouette Secrets” in earnest. This is my first foray into the world of film (apart from occasional TV appearances: Blue Peter, Tales of Tools, Big Brother’s Big Mouth etc.) I’m thoroughly enjoying the experience. Continue reading “Free Silhouettes and other silly ideas”
