Hull residents recreate Hollywood film scenes to celebrate becoming city of cultureLos Angeles Herald
Photographer Quentin Budworth recreated iconic scenes from some of the people of Hull and East Yorkshire’s favourite films to mark the city’s status as 2017 City of Culture in the Hullywood icons project.
It may lack the glamour and sunshine of Los Angeles, but that has not stopped hardy Hull residents using the city’s landmarks to recreate famous movie scenes in celebration of its 2017 status as UK City of Culture.
Braving biting North Sea winds rather than paparazzi, local film buffs have temporarily turned the Yorkshire port into Hullywood.
Well known scenes recreated for the Hullywood Icons project include Tom Hanks appearance in the film Castaway recreated under the Humber Bridge by Jim Wardlaw.
Quentin Budworth, the photographer behind the project, said: “Poor old Jim, it was freezing on the day we did the shoot.”
Other pictures include a recreation of Ursula Andress’ bikini-clad emergence from the balmy waters of the Caribbean, transplanted to Hessle Foreshore on the banks of the estuary.
A huge firework display and the opening of a city-wide installation signalled the start of Hull’s tenure as UK City of Culture on New Year’s Day.
Organisers of the hundreds of events planned for Hull in 2017 have said they are ready to welcome visitors from around the world as well as include all of the Yorkshire city’s 250,000 residents saying: “The stage is set, we’re ready for showtime”.
Hull is the second city to be given UK City Culture status, following Derry-Londonderry in 2013.
The city was selected in 2013 amid some surprise, from a shortlist which included Dundee, Leicester and Swansea Bay.
Organisers of Hull 2017 and local politicians have explicitly linked the cultural plans for the year with the economic transformation of the city, symbolised by the £300 million investment by German tech firm Siemens in an offshore wind manufacturing plant at Alexandra Dock.
Stephen Brady, council leader, has said more than £1bn of investment has flowed into the city since the UK City of Culture announcement, including £100m of capital investment in the cultural and visitor infrastructure.
The crowds were amazing, we had a fantastic and enthusiastic response. We couldn’t access the first floor offices to draw the curtains so we had some gaps in the projection surfaces but we’re hoping we can remedy this tomorrow. We want it to be brilliant and will relocate if we can’t draw the curtains. This is after all is Hullywood and stars must shine!
Zebedee Budworth’s musical ‘Score of Scores’ had people dancing in the street not a small thing on New Years Day and opening night… Pete Massey Director, Yorkshire & The Humber at the Arts Council mentioned the music as being fantastic.
At 4.pm on New years Day I released the Hullywood Icons film into the Twittersphere and Facebook realms with a digital release.
At 4:21 The Hull Daily Mail shared it on their website. You can read the article and see the film here . Please note the article incorrectly states that there are 40 Hullywood icons there are in fact over 120.
At 11:42 the Hullywood film release tweet was retweeted and the Hullywood Icons film was shared by Darren Henley Chief Executive of the Arts Council Arts Council leaving me feeling deeply honoured and supported. Delighted he is a Hullywood Icons fan.
Meet Priscilla and her owner the remarkable Chris Broadwell, a wizard with light engineering and live sound.
Priscilla is a customised 1963 series2 long wheelbase 109 Safari Station Wagon built by Landrover. If my maths are right that’s 55years old. Priscilla does not pay any Road Tax as she is exempt due to her age. In Priscilla’s career she has taken the groom to be and 20 of his best friends to assorted public houses in Hull, appeared at a millenium rave and now is one of the stars of the Hullywood Icons team.
Priscilla almost came to an untimely end when the modifications for the Hullywood sound and light projection systems set fire to her dashboard (it’s a welding thing) on Christmas eve but she now has a new wiring loom and is rocking and rolling with the good people of Hull.
I realise that many people who have followed the Hullywood Icons project over the internet will not be able to get to Hull, Beverley or Bridlington to see the projected images. The project is all about the images and the wit and imagination of the participants and not the manner of viewing them and for this reason I present for your amusement The Hullywood Icons online film.
I must say a huge thank you to the 200 or so people who attended the opening projection event at the St John’s Hotel on Queen’s Road in Hull.It was a fantastic event with a great vibe and heart.
In particular I would like to thank:
Adie and Robert for hosting the event and making our set up easy and hassle free.
All the Hullywood Icons who came along and brought their friends and family you are awesome!
I would especially like to thank everyone in costume who spoke to one of the four film crews at the event.
Bandanarama for playing at half time as a flash mob you are my guilty pleasure and I love your thang you are a Wild Bunch.
Chris and Tim and Priscilla Queen of the Desert for sound and light magic.
There will be a piece on the BBC towards New Year and also in The Hull Daily Mail and the icons will be featured in two documentaries currently in production.
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Feeling jolly! Had a lovely time this evening, Congrats on a great project Quentin Budworth🙂 fantastic music from the band was an added bonus. .
Here is the Boxing Day Article By Alex Wood quoted in full there is a also a link to the online version as well.
Stars of the screen are recreated as Hull looks set to be on a roll with City of Culture in the spotlight’
Project says hooray for Hullywood!
If Ursula Andress had surfaced in Hull…
BY the rocky Khyber Pass in East Park on a dank December day, Richard Hall is stripping off to become Wolverine – the mutant superhero of Marvel Comics. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads Suitably muscled he looks the part, along with a set of rapier-like claws – made out of cereal boxes. Recreating The Wild One on Hessle Road Mr Hall admits to being nervous, having in earlier life, struggled with his body image. But after the quickest of shoots – photographer Quentin Budworth has to rush off and meet “Marilyn Monroe” in under half an hour – he is glowing. “I feel a real weight lifted off,” he says. Budworth’s delightfully quirky Hullywood Icons project will be a highlight of the opening event to UK City of Culture 2017. A runaway success, the artist started out with the intention of inviting a few dozen people to dress up as their favourite Hollywood characters, against instantly recognisable city landmarks. But the calls kept coming in, and he now looks to top 100, with over 300 people, adults and kids, taking part. There’s been everything from the 37-year-old mother-of-two recreating the iconic moment in film history when Ursula Andress stepped out of the water in Dr No – except she was in front of the Humber Bridge – to a leather-clad mob (The Wild Ones) doing their best to look menacing outside Rayners pub on Hessle Road. “Marilyn Monroe” is Lucy Lines, looking splendid in a plunging halterneck dress and silver stilettos, who comes with partner Mike, who admits he “normally stands in the corner quietly watching.” The shoot in Kingston Square is for The Seven Year Itch – a cinch for blonde Ms Lines, who does vintage pin up modelling as a sideline – while Mike plays the part of Tim Ewell. Ms Lins said: “We’ve had a naff 2016, I think Hull really needs to celebrate 2017. I’m a massive fan. Quentin has given an opportunity for people to take part, you don’t get a chance to do that every day.” As part of the seven-day opening event, which starts on January 1, called Made In Hull, Budworth will be touring Hessle Road and Spring Bank in a Land Rover projecting the images against buildings to a specially composed Score of Scores, before coming back into the city centre for the last hour. To me, it seems the project has shades of a dressing game, rather like the cartoon Mr Benn. In this case people meet Budworth, briefly discuss how they want to pose, there’s a short adventure – the posing in the park certainly takes the dogwalkers by surprise – before they reenter their ordinary lives. Budworth said: “The idea was I wanted to use Hull as a playground and play with the people of Hull and this was a good way of doing it. “This is showbiz, creative and fun – people instantly see what they get from it. “I really want it to come from them. I want them to take ownership of it. It is a co-authored piece. It is not wrapped up in art speak. It is a dead simple concept.” Budworth discovered what it was like to be on the other side of the camera when he appeared as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (medieval costume, pointy shoes, hump made from rucked up woolly jumper) at the city’s Holy Trinity Church, the only long shot in the whole sequence.“It was a bit weird, but good,” he said. Later in January, Budworth is taking the Icons to Beverley Minster, St Mary’s and the Guildhall, and after that to Bridlington. He is having an exhibition from February 7 to April 2 at the Hull International Photography Gallery in Princes Quay, and there will be a print-on-demand book. For more visit hullywoodicons.com.
Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/what-s-on/cinema/hooray-for-hullywood-1-8303464
Hullywood Icons 