Unravel - the longest hand painted film in Britain

The weekend before last I visited Ikon Gallery to take part in the Unravel film project. It is a true epic that will create a hand painted film that correlates in length with the 874 miles between John O'Groats and Land's End (each metre between the two places is seen as a ratio to equal one frame of 16mm film). I was told that seven hours of film have been made so far.

It was a wonderful family-friendly, hands-on workshop with all ages drawing with pens, using stickers and Letraset to produce their own few seconds of film. Visitors were also encouraged to try live film making, drawing directly onto the film whilst it ran through the projector. The results were busy and colourful, very much like the films of Len Lye (which Ikon happen to be showing as part of their current retrospective of the artist).

The screening of all the footage made in the session was packed to the gunwales. Just under ten minutes of film was produced on the day.The lovely film above was made by James Dyer on Unravel's visit to the University of Huddersfield in December and shows some of the footage made in that workshop.

Unravel will be part of this year’s Colour Box, our film strand for kids at mac over the Flatpack weekend (26-27 March).

Len Lye: The Body Electric at Ikon Gallery runs until Sunday 13 February and is highly recommended.