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Weather the Weather Concept

King's College London
September, 2019
Experience of the weather back in 1816 or a future world in 2080 as you step inside this meteorological time machine. Created by artist-in-residence Inés Carama-Leret and Senior lecturer in Geography George Adamson at King’s College London. This film helped secure funding for future iterations of this concept.
Director & Editor - Patrick Hoelscher
Producer & Photographer - Max Leighton

The Brief


Weather the Weather required a short film to share their work. Imagined by Spanish artist, Inés Cámara Leret and King’s College London, the installation is a time machine for weather conditions past and future:

  • 1816 - Tambora, Indonesia erupts, blocks the sun causing the worst famine of the 19th century and inspires Frankenstein, Turner’s orange skies and Dickens white Christmases.
  • 1904 Swedish scientist Svante Arrehnius demonstrates carbon dioxide changes climate and we understand weather with meteorological instruments.
  • 1990 the politically chosen baseline for carbon emissions spearheaded by Thatcher targeting coal mine closures through environmental stewardship.
  • 2080 the upper temporal limit for a realistic global climate model projection from the UK’s MET Office.

The Solution


We proposed a film to showcase the design and construction of Weather the Weather, interview the people behind the project and capture the first participant reactions at Being Human Festival 2020.

Weather the Weather is simultaneously a magical time machine and modified greenhouse that uses scientific data and cultural knowledge to simulate heavy rain, directional wind and high humidities; a multitude of conditions to plan for whilst filming.


The Outcome


We produced this short film covering the conceptual underpinnings and design, construction and the team involved along with the Being Human Festival showcase.

Inés “enjoyed how [we] interacted with the audience. Sometimes filming can be intrusive but [the ION team] were all highly sensitive to not disrupt.”

“The [ION team] were a joy to work with and incredibly professional, despite the difficult conditions we were all working under.” - Dr Adamson.

We are happy to have joined forces on the first step of the Weather the Weather journey and are excited to see where it goes…


The Footprint


Our environmental footprint was significantly lower owing to local travel to the centre of London in an electric taxi.

We were zero-waste and did not require much production equipment.

We did not opt for accreditation and verification of emissions equivalences for a shoot this size. We worked out the usage below and doubled the total CO2 equivalent to be offset with Trees for Cities.

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Last, but by no means least, we are always striving to improve our methods so do get in touch!