Although an editor by trade, in 2005 I embarked on Producing and Directing my first feature length documentary. The film was a 55 minute intimate portrayal of the one of the British music scene's most influential characters.
Since the first festival on Worthy Farm in 1970 the festival has grown into the biggest Greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world.
Every 5 years the festival has a year off, to let the land and the organisers recover, and after playing host to 150,000 revelers in 2005 the festival entered one of its fallow years.
Starting just after the 2005 festival the film takes the audience through the festival's year off led by the festival's founder and organiser Michael Eavis. It looks at a side of the festival rarely seen, away from the music and the revellers and follows Michael as he follows the progress of some of the projects that the festival donates to and sees some of the many projects that the festivals revenue helps progress. The film follows Michael and the festival through the festival's new and much reported photo identification registration scheme for tickets as well as the annual Emerging Talent Band Competition held in the newly completed village 'complex' in Pilton.
Although shot largely down in Somerset the post production for the film was all completed in Manchester and the film screened at over 40 festivals over the summer of 2006 & into 2007. It was the gala film at the Portobello film festival in London and also at the SEE Brighton Documentary festival that year. The largest screening was at the Glastonbury Festival itself in 2007, when it was shown in the leftfield tent to several thousand people. I gave an on-stage introduction making me the first person out of my friends, a lot of whom are musicians (I am not) to appear on stage at Glastonbury!