Fountain of youth: how a film-maker recaptured his passion for the craft

Burned out after years making the epic documentary The Story of Film, Mark Cousins describes how filming kids having fun helped him find his way back and create a moving portrait of childhood

Sometimes when you switch off, you turn on. After making my 15-hour The Story of Film: An Odyssey, I wanted to switch off. It had taken six years to make and I'd travelled the world. I wanted to go nowhere and to think about anything but film-making, so I walked a lot, drew a bit and filmed stuff. Filming to escape filming is weird, I know, but, like people watching or climbing hills, it's absorbing and relaxing for me. So I filmed cities, clouds, the sea and my niece and nephew, Laura and Ben, playing. I had fun watching them have fun.

Orson Welles once said that to write a poem you need a pen, to paint a picture you need a brush and to make a film you need an army. I was army-less, and as far away from film-making as you could get or so I thought.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/apr/02/mark-cousins-on-story-of-children-and-film-documentary

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