We were looking for a place where we could film his
solar-powered sound installation SUN BOXES with the sun setting over the
ocean. Seeing as we’ve been filming on
the East Coast, an island was our best bet to capture what is typically a West
Coast privilege. We scouted locations at
a number of beaches around the eastern side of the island before discovering
Philbin Beach. It’s a private beach for
residents only, however, we were told by locals Craig’s van would not get towed
or ticketed after 5pm. So we arrived at
4:30, hung around the parking lot and waited until 5 before Craig, myself and a
production assistant named Evie began hauling the boxes up through the sand
dunes to the open beach on the other side.
This shoot was to bookend a sunrise shoot we had done back
in June of 2011 at Cadillac Mountain in Maine, the first place in the country
to see the sunrise every morning. That
particular shoot is what opens the film.
Craig scaling the rocky terrain of the mountainside at 3:30am donning a
headlamp and setting up SUN BOXES against the colorful haze of the Sun’s light
well before appearing over the horizon.
The sounds of the boxes come alive with the ascending Sun and the film
INSTALL truly begins. At sunset here on
Philbin Beach we were hoping to capture the opposite experience, the sounds
fading out with the disappearing sun, offering a physical representation of
that threshold between day and night.
Although the result wasn’t quite what we were hoping for due to a band
of clouds blanketing the horizon, we did manage to capture some great footage
for the film and close out what has been a remarkable experience filming
Craig’s work all over New England.
