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Title: FACES

Reference number: 1942

Date: 1959

Director: d. Edward McConnell

Production company: Templar Film Studios

Sound: sound

Original format: 35mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: fiction

Running time: 14.22 mins

Description: A comment on the personas we adopt. [Shown at London Film Festival and Brussels Experimental Film Festival].

The screening of the short film FACES at the 1961 Edinburgh and London Film Festivals kick started the film career of young McConnell then studying at Glasgow School of Art. FACES, a comment on the personas we adopt, was inspired by a visit to the Brussels Experimental Film Festival of 1958 where McConnell saw the work of many European film makers, films of a genre unseen at that time in Britain. Many were without words, telling their stories in a variety of genres, live action, animation, puppetry, and making social comments on their times.

FACES was shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1961. It was awarded Outstanding Film of the Year at the London Film Festival, 1961.

Short version also preserved by the Archive.

Credits: cast : Bill Gleeson, Rose McBain, James Graham, David McKail, Walter Campbell, Irene Cox, Katie Gardiner, James Sleigh
[The Park Keeper Bill Gleeson with Rose McBain & James Graham; David McKail and three wee boys from Maitland St. other parts Walter Campbell, Irene Cox, Kate Gardiner, James Sleigh]

m. Stanley Thomson
sd. rec. James McKee
p. team Oscar Marzaroli, Cyril McConnell, Gavin Craig, Hamish Sinclair, Ian McKenzie, Alasdair Gray, John Mathison
masks Alasdair Gray, John Mathison
filmed by permission of the Parks Dept., Glasgow

Shotlist: Credits (1.00); Keeper opens the gates (1.49) various masked worthies greet him; he smiles back [Botanic Gardens] (2.37) panning shot of keeper in park takes in Kelvingrove and the main building of Glasgow University on horizon [in Kelvingrove Park]; very foreshortened c/u of Keeper standing at the very top of Kelvingrove Park (3.17) A young unmasked couple walking hand in hand; they play on the swings (4.24) Keeper blows on his whistle, ordering them off; intercut with still photography of unhappy couple stopping; they leave the swings (4.47) three (unmasked) boys run shouting along a path; the Keeper looks thoughtful and feels his mask; the boys throw a bottle into the river; the Keeper blows his whistle intercut with still photography again; the boys run away (5.45) shot man sitting by a drinking fountain, nodding off as he reads the Sunday Times; the three boys remove his mask as he sleeps revealing another beneath (7.02) masked people seated on a bench look disapprovingly at (an unmasked) whistlebinkie playing on the edge of their seat, pushing him off when another mask comes to sit down; the whistler plays a trick on them by wearing a discarded mask; shots disapproving people leaving the bench, intercut with stills (9.45) gvs sunset in park; Keeper blows his whistle to signify closing; as the young couple are leaving, the man tries to pick a flower from a tree, Keeper intercedes with his whistle; he sees them out of the park (11.12) Gates shut, the warden removes his mask, grins and plucks the blossom (11.43) he calls the woman back and gives her the flower (12.31) the couple meet on the Granite Steps and climb to the top; carrying his mask, the Keeper smiles at the boys playing; pan boys playing in sunlight (13.37); ecs (14.22)