***<\/span><\/p>\nHiraeth Film is a small mini-documentary Youtube channel. I started it because for the longest time I wasn\u2019t super aware of Welsh history in particular. Coming from South Wales we get some parts of it, but you don\u2019t hear much about the history further than Brecon or something like that. So when I moved further North, to Welshpool, I started travelling a bit further around Wales, I learnt a lot more about different areas of Wales, different events, historical and cultural things.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
The idea was to retell or reexamine bits of Welsh history and reintroduce them to a newer audience that may not have had the opportunity, either in school or outside of that, to actually engage in that history. And try and tell it to a different audience, to a younger audience that may not have known about these things at a young age. That was the idea, to retell and re examine and re explore those different parts of history that sort of make up Wales.<\/b><\/p>\n
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How does Hiraeth Film operate?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not my full time job, I do work full-time, so it\u2019s a lot of part time, a lot of weekends, when I get time off and things like that. So it kind of fills up the space I should be spending relaxing! Currently it\u2019s sort of a three person job, I do most of the writing, directing, editing, most of the things you see on screen. Then we have a sound producer who does all the recordings for interviews, goes and does all the sound checks, does all the sound editing and things like that. And Ben Gwalchmai who lives nearby does the majority of the voices you hear on our films, so anytime you hear someone talking it\u2019s usually him. That\u2019s kind of how we operate as a three-person volunteer-led sort of group, people come in and out, some people lend a hand for different things, for example on bits of graphic design work for us, we have people who do bits of animation work, bit of after effects work, but it\u2019s all sort of, do what you can with the time you\u2019ve got, and not sort of forcing people into doing too much, just what people feel most comfortable doing.<\/b><\/p>\n
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You mentioned you had a full-time job. How is it to balance your job with the film work?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It can be quite difficult to balance that, you know, if you\u2019ve worked all day the last thing you want to do is come home and sit down and fiddle around with Premiere all night and try to fix its millions of problems at any given moment. So it can be a challenge. That\u2019s sort of why we take a little bit longer when we make things, we don\u2019t try and rush that content out. It\u2019s kind of an unspoken contract with our audience, because I think people expect that when they get the film it\u2019s gonna be highly produced, it\u2019s gonna be as professional as a couple of people can make, it\u2019s not gonna be just thrown together just to make <\/b>content<\/i><\/b>. We try our best to give it 100%, but that just takes a little bit longer, So it can be quite challenging.<\/b><\/p>\n
For the Celyn documentary we were fortunate that in the first episode the location we were looking at, Dolanog, was relatively close by, but then when it came to Vyrnwy which is still relatively close but still about three quarters of an hour to an hour\u2019s drive away, depending on whether you\u2019re stuck behind tractors and things. So we had to plan to say, right, these are the weeks that we\u2019re gonna shoot this. And especially with the size of something like Vyrnwy, because it\u2019s a massive reservoir, we couldn\u2019t shoot it all in sort of one week or one day so we had to plan and say, today we\u2019re gonna shoot just this section, and then, it might be a couple of weeks before we move on to the next section and stuff. And I think in some ways that does work quite nicely, for example with the Dolanog episode, since it took us longer to shoot that (because of covid and things) we had that changing of the seasons. So weirdly, by taking our time and only being able to schedule in certain ways meant that we created that narrative, of a full year in this village. For some reason this way of working works for us, so I won\u2019t question it.<\/b><\/p>\n
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Out of interest, what is your full-time job?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I work in education full-time. I teach film. It\u2019s quite nice in aspects, I get to talk about film all day and then come home and make my own, and I think they like that as well, it gives them a sense of the vocational angle to when they\u2019re watching films, or producing their own films, they have someone they know that makes the things, and I\u2019ve done all the same mistakes and pitfalls that they have when they make their film, so they can feel comfortable and confident that there\u2019s someone there that knows kind of what they\u2019re doing? Sort of?<\/b><\/p>\n
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So film\u2019s always been a passion for you then?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Yes. It started when I was about 13, 14. I watched <\/b>The Evil Dead<\/i><\/b>, and probably shouldn\u2019t have \u2013 I was scared to all hell, but I was like, this is so cool, how they\u2019ve made this, because that film\u2026 isn\u2019t as <\/b>technically<\/i><\/b> brilliant as other films, but it wears quite a lot of that on its sleeve, and you can see sort of how things are put together in that film and how it was made, and yeah, films aren\u2019t just things big studios make for millions and millions of pounds, people will sometimes just make something for relatively cheap with a group of friends and pull that together through whatever bits and pieces they can, and whether it looks real or not, it doesn\u2019t really matter, it\u2019s the experience of watching the film itself that matters. And I think that\u2019s what really inspired me, so I think about a week later I stole my dad\u2019s camera when my parents were away somewhere, I stole the camera and we made our first zombie horror film, as everyone does, everyone makes a zombie film first. I ban them. In class. We\u2019re not allowed to do zombie films anymore, because I\u2019m not marking another one ever again.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
But yeah that was where I started and grew from there, documentary was never the thing I ever thought I\u2019d do. It was never something I was super excited about in university. But moving away from the people I made films with meant I sort of had to do different things, and I can make this kind of stuff by myself or with a small group of people, I don\u2019t need to get actors into things. And that\u2019s how it sort of shifted, where as I get older, I kind of want to shift into making some narrative things in the future, but that\u2019s all years and years away from now.<\/b><\/p>\n
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Do you feel Wales in general is harder for specifically fiction film to get off the ground?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I think it has been in the past, I think there has been that sort of \u2013 the lack of support maybe is not the word, but when you compare it to somewhere like Scotland, for example, and their film history, it\u2019s quite burgeoning, and it\u2019s quite vibrant. I think we\u2019re seeing the beginnings of that, with <\/b>The Feast<\/i><\/b> and stuff, but I think there\u2019s been that feeling that maybe we had to chase other countries, chase what Scotland\u2019s doing or Ireland\u2019s doing, and I think maybe that\u2019s where we tripped up as an industry in Wales, feeling we have to grab what they\u2019re doing over there or try doing their thing. And I\u2019ve seen that we\u2019re starting to tell our own stories within film, and within narrative films as well, where people are taking Welsh myths, Welsh history and incorporating that into their films. I\u2019ve seen recently someone has announced they\u2019re working on a Mari Lwyd horror film, which \u2013 it feels like it should have been done before – because it\u2019s such an obvious thing that nobody has said \u2018I\u2019m gonna make that\u2019.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
We don\u2019t have to be the same as any other country in the UK when it comes to filmmaking, we can tell our stories and tell them for us as well. I think we can tell stories for the people in Wales, and still have that element of going outside of the border and letting people have a snapshot of what we have here, maybe we\u2019ve felt too scared to talk about that stuff, and maybe- there\u2019s a growing confidence, I think, which is kind of exciting?<\/b><\/p>\n
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What would be one takeaway you\u2019d want a viewer to have watching one of your films or, say, one of the parts of Fel Gwaelod Llyn?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I really like it when I get those comments of, oh wow, I didn\u2019t know this, or that\u2019s kind of interesting, I\u2019m gonna find out more about that. So for example, the original plan for <\/b>Fel Gwaelod Llyn<\/i><\/b> was to make an hour and a half film, and Dolanog was originally going to be a footnote, it was gonna be two or three minutes of the film, and I thought why don\u2019t we expand that into a fifteen minute film, so it meant then that we could research and explore those things in a lot more detail. And the amount that people have said they didn\u2019t know the history of Dolanog before seeing that film, and how that it relates to Capel Celyn, and how the history is almost beat for beat exactly the same especially considering it was only a year or so before, and then, people want to go and learn a little bit more about that history, so that\u2019s quite nice.<\/b><\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I enjoy from making things, really. If I look online and I can\u2019t find anything on the history of Dolanog on youtube I sort of get excited, because I go oh we\u2019re gonna make a little thing that\u2019s our little niche over here, and even when we did the second episode on Llanwddyn, there\u2019s lots of videos that talk about the history of Dolanog and Llyn Efernwy and stuff like that, they exist, but we had that chance to maybe bring in some bits that are glossed over, for example the original plan for London to drown certain sections of what is now Llyn Efernwy and looking at how close their initial plan was to what became the final plan. That stuff\u2019s quite fun, when it hasn\u2019t been talked about in the same way, or not given as much attention.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
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It’s true what you were saying. I didn\u2019t know about Dolanog at all before I watched that episode.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s fortunate that it was so close to where we live, because very early on when you could only go certain distances during covid and things, it meant we couldn\u2019t drive up to Llyn Celyn. So that kind of put a massive stop to a lot of what we were making, so we had to look closer, and I thought, this is kind of on our doorstep here, so why don\u2019t we talk about it in a bit more detail, we could have just done the sort of potted history of Capel Celyn as read by Wikipedia, but we have the chance to try something different. When we do the Capel Celyn episode, let\u2019s talk about the 30 years before that announcement. Let\u2019s talk about the weird tidbits of history that came before, (such as) the distillery that was about five miles down the road, and places like <\/b>Frongoch<\/i><\/b>, the \u2018university of revolution\u2019 as they called it, which wasn\u2019t far, how the railway network was built, and all these little areas and stuff that don\u2019t get talked about, that we have the chance to. So when it comes down to it you can watch our content against someone else\u2019s and get the full picture, the entirety of that sort of, I guess, 150 years of aqua politics in Wales.<\/b><\/p>\n
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I find it really effective in the Dolanog episode where just talking about the place in the context of Capel Celyn being a drowned village, and having the camera wander through this very sleepy village and talking about how now it\u2019s like a country retreat for people \u2013 it\u2019s interesting to think about if Capel Celyn was never drowned, it might be full of holiday homes or something. It\u2019s often taught in schools, the story of Tryweryn, and then it\u2019s often regurgitated in the simplistic logic of \u2018us vs them England vs Wales\u2019, without reference to the material conditions at play.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It is the constant struggle of making something that\u2019s politically charged, in certain directions \u2013 When I was talking about the project, I had a message from someone saying \u2018I hope you don\u2019t try and give Liverpool their side of the story\u2019. But the way I try and angle that is every aspect of that story has to be told, the good bits and the bad sections. I\u2019ve had people tell me I should shy away from the people who sabotaged the Llyn Celyn operation \u2013 because in some ways there is that level of romanticism, I guess, towards what happened, whether people would like to admit it or not, I think they do have that drowned village romanticism.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
But I always say we have to talk about things, we have to talk about what Liverpool was like in 1865 and how that led up to Llyn Celyn, we have to talk about how different people had wildly different opinions. We talk about the political aspect – it all boiled down to capital. It always boiled down to, who has the money, who has the influence, who has the power, and that\u2019s what shaped what happened. In a lot of cases it just boiled down to it was cheaper and easier, and that\u2019s the sad part of it, there is no romanticism, there\u2019s nothing beyond \u2018that\u2019s cheap, that\u2019s easy to drown, let\u2019s do that\u2019.<\/b><\/p>\n
The same way there\u2019s so many places in England that were cheap and easy to exploit so they did it there, or, even in places like the US, it\u2019s been the same thing. And when it came to the political aspect, we had to go into that sort of especially in that first episode, we had to go into the criticism of Plaid Cymru in that beginning of the Dolanog campaign, because the people of Dolanog didn\u2019t really want that political interference, they really felt that it cheapened their argument, which was different from Llyn Celyn or Capel Celyn, where plaid Cymru\u2019s involvement was a lot more overt, and maybe in some ways that does lead to where they are today as a party, whether they\u2019re successful or unsuccessful, that can be led back to these threads and these links. It is a very difficult tightrope to walk, and it can get quite politically charged, but it started because I visited Llyn Celyn for the first time and it was that political charge: \u2018this feels horrible being here and it makes me angry, I wanna make a film about it.\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n
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Do you think your mode of working is a good example for people who want to pursue film in north wales?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
What I can say is we have access to this massive platform like YouTube and this massive platform like TikTok (which I\u2019ve never delved into) and I think that is a really exciting way of working, it moves out of that traditional television broadcast sense and into that sort of self-created content, and I think youtube and those kinds of platforms are a brilliant way to start, not just posting your own content but the communities that spring out of that, the ability to find advice and guidance and things. I think it’s an interesting thing that a lot of young people don\u2019t produce enough content within Wales, and maybe that is the worry of \u2018do people want to hear me, with my Welsh accent, talking about Wales?\u2019, and the answer is yes, someone will! If you make a short film about some local legend, people will watch that, because it\u2019s exciting, it\u2019s interesting, it\u2019s different, it\u2019s new, and I think that\u2019s the one positive, that Wales is growing as an industry means that there\u2019s all these opportunities for people to tell original stories. We\u2019re only a small country but we\u2019re a nation of storytellers, a nation of myths and legends.<\/b><\/p>\n
The way we do things is exciting, because I get to do things on my own, or when I want, but the downside is we sort of self-fund everything, so if you\u2019re looking to make something with lots of money \u2013 that\u2019s not the path that I would take, but, if you just really wanna tell those local small stories of what we call the pocket history of Wales, then yeah! I started making things about a year before youtube launched as a platform, 2004-5ish, and they just stood on my hard drive when I made them, they didn\u2019t go anywhere. When this platform launched, I could show 20 people, 30 people, 40, then you\u2019re in the thousands of people watching your content. I think it\u2019s about having that confidence to say, you know what, people would like to hear about some weird myth or some weird legend from my local town \u2013 every town in wales has this little story that should be told, and everyone should hear about them, so I think it\u2019s a great platform and a great way of doing things if you\u2019re willing to accept that you\u2019ve gotta work on it in a different way, and you\u2019ve really gotta push yourself in developing subscribers, developing a brand and name for yourself and really getting yourself out there, but if you\u2019re willing to do that then you kind of have the freedom to make what you like!<\/b><\/p>\n
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***<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Thanks to Charlotte for speaking with me and to you for reading. Hiraeth Film can be found on <\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2106,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2105","newyddion","type-newyddion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mentermon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newyddion\/2105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mentermon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newyddion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mentermon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newyddion"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mentermon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mentermon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}