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Adapted from a tale told by
Marty Keane from West Clare.
Produced by Metropolitan Films
Directed & Animated by Naomi Wilson
Sound & Music by Brian Doyle
Synopsis:
An ancient tale from the Loop Head peninsula about a fox who outwits all those around him.
Told in drawing made of sand from the landscape of the story itself.
Background:
The story of REHY FOX is a local folk-tale that still circulates in West Clare. It is associated with Marty Keane, a renowned storyteller from Tullig. The story is rooted in the local landscape as Rehy is the placename of a hill close to where Marty lived. From the top of the hill you can see across the Shannon estuary to Kerry.
From the back of the hill a steep cliff drops into the sea, and even today foxes can be seen up there disappearing off the back of the cliff! Marty was recorded on video telling the story as initial research for the film, but sadly he passed away during the making of the film. The voice-over was taken from excerpts of that first encounter.
Technique:
REHY FOX was made in drawings of sand. This sand was collected from a beach at the foot of Rehy hill where the story is located. A tabletop of glass was constructed with lights underneath and a camera attached to the ceiling. Drawings were made in sand on the glass, blocking the light and appearing as silhouettes.
The sand was moved by hand using various implements and each drawing was filmed frame by frame using stop motion technique with a bolex camera. Sound effects were all recorded locally including the authentic sound of rowing in a currach. Sounds were also foleyed in real space to give the images weight and solidity. At the end, a traditional Irish tune 'Jenny's Welcome to Charlie' is played on mandolin, chosen for its twisty, fiesty character. The overall look and feel of the film was designed to appear simple yet with a subtle complexity to mimic the world where the story came from; a world of shadowy archetypal imagery,
stoic yet dense.
Format:
35mm/BetaSP PAL
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Colour
Optical Sound/stereo sound
R/T 6.5 mins
DVD
Festival History:
Premiere at the Cork Film Festival, Ireland 2002.
Also screened in Anima 2003 Brussels, Tehran Iran, Dresden Germany,
Oberhaussen Germany, Seattle U.S.A., Melbourne and Sydney Australia,
Rio de Janeiro and Sao paulo, Brazil, Galway Film Fleadh Ireland, KROK
in Ukraine, Atlantic Film Festival Novia Scotia, Kinofilm Manchester,
Foyle Film Festival Derry, Bradford England, Braunschweig Germany,
Sienna Italy and Bilbao Spain. It also screened as a short before the
feature "Man without a Past" in cinemas around Ireland.
Broadcast on RTE in Ireland.
