Bring in Daylight

The film begins in the Cattle Sale Ring as a man scatters straw in the half light of early morning. Filmed over a year at Taunton Cattle Market prior to its relocation, Bring in Daylight centres around a series of panning shots, the camera making a slow, steady observation of the livestock auctions. The scattered sounds of the market underscore the film: from the slipping of hooves and feet on straw to snatches of stories and an auctioneer’s banter.

Returning to the Sale Ring for the closing shot, an assembly of farmers, auctioneers and buyers are framed as a tableau. Two at time, cattle slowly enter the ring, and are goaded in a clockwise fashion to the heavy, brutal sounds of clanging gates and the clack of the auctioneer’s hammer as they exit.

Bring in Daylight previewed in the Sale Ring at Taunton Cattle Market and was screened as part of New Work UK: The Sensible Stage at the Whitechapel Gallery in association with the LUX.

UK/ 2008/ Colour/ 16mm/ 16.9/ 11 mins 45 secs

Watch an extract:

New Work UK: The Sensible Stage – Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2008

Previewed at Taunton Livestock Market, 2007