Hi GG, first of all what motivated you to make this video? And what was your aim?
Hi Moisés, I was motivated by disgust at the fact that a company in Brighton – EDO-MBM – is complicit in Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemen. The war in Yemen has led to famine and a cholera outbreak – a disease we haven’t had in Britain in well over 100 years. Both the MPs for Brighton are opposed to EDO-MBM but they’re still here profiting from human suffering. The aim is to raise awareness and keep up the pressure.
The video has an eerie soundtrack. How did you make it?
The soundtrack is in two parts really. The audio accompanying the footage of Yemen is all sound from the gates of the factory in Brighton – electrical signals picked up by a magnetic antenna and the sound of the metal itself picked up through contacts mics. I wanted to show how what goes on over here is connected to what goes on over there. A lot of this sound can’t be heard with the human ear but it is there. In that sense it is like the effects of weapons made in Britain – we don’t see the deaths and injuries because they happen on the other side of the world… but they do happen.
For the earlier part with the text I took a section of a spacey grime track that I made and slowed it down by 800% using this free software called PaulStretch. It’s a really cool bit of kit – you can run Justin Bieber through it and make it sound like Brian Eno.
What can a viewer do if they’re concerned with the issue raised in the film?
There are organisations they can get involved with. The biggest one is Campaign Against Arms Trade, which is very active. Check them out at caat.org.uk And there are sometimes protests at the factory in Brighton under the banner of ‘Smash EDO’. Hit them up on Twitter @smash_edo
Anything else you’d like to say?
As long as the arms factory is here in Brighton they’ll be people protesting against it. Help spread the word by sharing the film on social media.
Thanks for publishing this; I was completely unaware, as I imagine many in Brighton are.