The first feature-length film production I worked on was Dan Pugh's documentary on the life and times of the Bible commentator Matthew Henry, in 2019.
I was put in touch with Dan by Tim, who was already attached to the project as its composer, and the initial brief was to produce about 20 clips of various letters and diary entries being written, synced to a voiceover of the texts being read by actors. Each was to be shown on a desk or table in a narratively-appropriate environment - thankfully, most of the background-scenery images were able to be reused across multiple clips each. We quickly gravitated towards a sepia-ish colour tone with rough papery texture overlays, to evoke the feel of antique documents.
A few of the texts were written by other people in Henry's life, and I was left to use whatever handwriting style I saw fit for these. But the majority were penned by Henry himself, and we have surviving samples of his handwriting, so I did my best to emulate this; however, I did alter one or two elements to make the recreated script more legible to 21st-Century audiences, particularly avoiding Henry's idiosyncratic formation of the lowercase 'e'. Just goes to show, you never know what strange and obscure things you'll end up researching for your next art project.
Partway through the project, Dan asked if I could also make a few map clips in a similar style, showing where key events took place, with a little sketch of a distinctive building placed within the map to illustrate each of the main locations. Within this section of the project, my favourite detail is St Paul's Cathedral, which wasn't directly needed for the narrative but serves as a convenient visual shorthand for the London area. As it happened, the construction of the present cathedral would have been underway in the year when we showed the map of the capital for the first time, and it was completed by the time we showed London again - so the two maps duly got different versions of the sketch for the sake of chronological authenticity.
You can see the trailer and buy a copy of the film (available in various formats) at https://www.pughproductions.com/matthew-henry.
This was the first of a number of church history documentaries I worked on for Dan, followed by Revival in 2022 and Welsh Awakenings in 2023.
