A film by Emily Richardson
Camera John Adderley
Sound Recordist Chris Watson
Composer Benedict Drew

Cobra Mist captures the enigmatic atmosphere of an abandoned military landscape.

Cobra Mist explores the relationship between the landscape of Orford Ness and the physical traces of its unusual military history.

Cobra Mist explores the relationship between the landscape of Orford Ness and the traces of its unusual military history, particularly the experiments in radar and the extraordinary architecture of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. The place has a sinister atmosphere, which the architecture itself begins to reveal and the sense of foreboding is accentuated through the film’s soundtrack.

Cobra Mist was shot on 16mm anamorphic and uses time-lapse and motion control techniques. The sound is created from location recordings, then edited, layered and composed into the film’s soundtrack.

A film by Emily Richardson
Camera John Adderley
Camera Assistants Tony Hopewell, Inger Lise Hansen
Sound Recordist Chris Watson
Composer Benedict Drew

Thanks to:
The National Trust, VT Communications, Ian Tickle, Grant Lahore, Dave Cormack, Duncan Kent, Bess Harrup, Barry Smith, Rosa Richardson, Sam Abelman, Soho Images, On Sight

Benedict Drew is an artist who works in performance, sound and video. For several years he has been involved in promoting concerts in London such as Audit and currently produces concerts for the London Musicians' Collective.

Current projects include a collaboration with artist Emma Hart and the trio Portable with Rhodri Davies and Louisa Martin. Benedict has also worked with various improvisers including Tom Chant [as duo Suscete] Angharad Davies, Alistair Leslie, Steve Beresford, Seymour Wright, Rhodri Davies, Mark Wastell and Matt Davis. He has travelled widely performing live video.

Benedict has also composed the soundtracks for four films by Emily Richardson, Redshift (2001) Nocturne (2002) Aspect (2004) and Petrolia (2005). A CD of these soundtracks was released in September 2004.

Chris Watson is a sound recordist with a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist for film, TV and radio, Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post production. He has worked on numerous BBC series including Life in Cold Blood, Spring Watch, Big Cat Diary and Life in the Undergrowth.

Having spent some wild windswept days filming I now have the majority of the footage for the film. Chris Watson and I have been out recording sounds in the abandoned buildings, leaving mics out overnight to catch the sound of the birds bursting out of the old pipe work where they have made their nests. Chris is a hugely experienced sound recordist who worked with David Attenborough on Life of Birds so has been able to capture the textures and atmospheres of the Ness in fantastic detail.

I am now working on the rough picture cut ready to give to Chris and Ben Drew, the composer, to begin shaping the soundtrack.

Emily Richardson