VIDEO | HLH: The Crystal Farmers

The Crystal Farmers film is an extension of Harald Lunde Helgesen’s recent collection by the same name. The film is the second collaboration between Harald and filmmaker Jason Bradbury with an original score by Siri Schippers Skaar.

The Film

The film is set in a fictional world where subterranean farmers take great risks when entering deep caves in order to reach crystal fields where they harvest precious minerals to be traded in the nearby city. As one man is lost to the mines another has to step into the darkness. Son follows father and the cycle continues. We meet a young man just at the initiation into this life of hardship.

The Crystal Farmers was intended to take a more abstract approach to a fashion film; both Harald and Jason have no interest in fashion film that is an extension of a catwalk show or a moving photo-shoot. They work to the belief that film is at it’s most powerful when used to tell a narrative or create a mood, however abstractly that may be done.

Through a unique use of voices distorted and transposed until sometimes only a faint association to something human can be made, Siri has created a score which colour the gloom with feelings of sadness in a mother’s hopeful humming, the weight of thousands of tonnes of rock above echoing caves and tormented screams from the destinies lost in the depths.

a film by Jason Bradbury
designer Harald Lunde Helgesen

realisation Harald Lunde Helgesen and Jason Bradbury

models: Tom Davey and Rich Cole

cinematography Adam Scarth
production design Rhoslyn Butler
score Siri Schippers Skaar
sound design Jason Bradbury
still photographer Fergus McDonald
catering Mend Alusi
runner Callum McColm
location thanks to Rav at Spaced Up
special thanks Marte Brauter, Michał Prawdzik and Daniel Hever