Director's notes

The inspiration behind GARBAGE WARRIOR

After leaving school I trained as a product designer at Central St Martins School Of Art in London. For the next 12 years I worked in the feature film industry as a prop and model designer, and then moved on to head the department. This involved much creative work designing, drafting and building one-off props and model sets for films such as Star Wars, James Bond, Tombraider, and Judge Dredd. As head of department, I drafted in crews of up to 50 skilled artists and makers to satisfy the ongoing demands of directors such as Tim Burton and George Lucas. For me the glamour of working on such movies was always countered with the impossible task of being able to safely dispose of the films’ toxic waste after wrap, or an unsettling guilt from chartering huge cargo planes to deliver hundreds of tonnes of sets and props to locations such as the middle of the Tunisian desert. I became increasingly aware of the negative impact that the high budget feature film industry had on the environment, and I wanted to find an area of film-making that was ultimately more productive.

My concerns for the environment had been triggered during my first years in London back in 1990, during my second year at college, after reading a
ten-page article in the Independent magazine which highlighted burgeoning
man-made environmental crisis around the globe.

I was then inspired to write my college thesis on people's changing states of consciousness before and during the industrial revolution. During this time I was inspired by Fritjof Capra's book ‘The Turning Point’, and Carl Jung's study of Alchemy.

I met Mike Reynolds in May 2003, when he and his crew arrived in the UK on a two-week visit to build a prototype Earthship house in my home town, Brighton. I was inspired by Mike's apocalyptic view of the future, and by the urgent means by which he and his crew were preparing for it.

Damien works on a wall during Tsunami relief