written, directed, produced, narrated and edited by Dylan J. Kershaw
St Albans · 2:59 · Watch on YouTube
The film
What is it?
St Albans is a short documentary essay about the city I made home after leaving London. It follows an ordinary week there, from Sundays in the park to Friday nights with friends, and matches it shot for shot with Verulamium, the Roman city underneath it.
It's a film about layers: the same streets, the same pleasures and the same kinds of people, two thousand years apart. And about what comes after us.
After it came out, St Albans BID licensed it for St Albans Roman Day, and for their events, marketing and social media.
Same city, different time.
A week in St Albans
Every day of the film's week has its Roman twin. Drag across a frame to go back two thousand years.
Sundays, in the park
NowThenMondays, buying comics
NowThenTuesdays, around town
NowThenWednesdays, comedy night
NowThenThursdays, at the movies
NowThenFridays, with the friends
NowThenSaturdays, sightseeing
NowThen
All great civilisations come to an end.
And so does ours.
…and the city waits once again. To see for what, watch the film.
Production notes
How it was made
The modern city is real: handheld footage of a real week. The Roman scenes were generated, each prompted and re-prompted until it answered its modern shot, grounded in what's known of Verulamium but told poetically rather than as a reconstruction.
St Albans
- Format
- Documentary essay, short
- Running time
- 3 minutes
- The modern city
- Real footage, handheld on a Sony FX3
- The Roman city
- Generated with Kling, image to video
- The last shot
- Google Veo 3
- Edit, colour and compositing
- DaVinci Resolve
- Voice
- Dylan J. Kershaw
- Licensed by
- St Albans BID, for St Albans Roman Day