Nominated for the Mercury Prize 2012 (being held tonight, November 1st) for his album Ground Of Its Own, Sam Lee may be an outsider for the big prize, but his credentials as a modern interpreter of traditional English folk music is impressively showcased by this imaginative and theatrical visual interpretation of The Ballad Of George Collins by director Andrew Steggall.

“The Ballad of George Collins is a gift of a song, full of story and pathos, made yet more vivid in Sam Lee’s interpretation mixed by the legendary John Wood (of Nick Drake fame),” says Andrew. “I was given a free hand by Sam, bringing together a choreographer friend of his, Andrew Graham, and my own theatrical, arguably meta-theatrical, tastes to the story.

“Working with a tiny budget I focused the vision on three core elements, plastic, light and earth. The song’s themes revolve around sex, death and venereal disease (staples of a certain brand of folk music) and while wanting to resist an overly illustrative approach I was keen to tell a story, set within a kind of waking dream, an unconscious playing-out of a young man’s fear of the consequences of knowledge (the apple core beside the armchair, the morning after the night before).

“Drawn through layers of plastic, like veils of the subconscious, he moves from life to death via the whooping water nymph and the maiden of death, each framed by the red lips of temptation. Sam Lee is seen firmly as the impassive observer, the enigmatic story-teller only occasionally touched by the anguish of George Collins. Finally as he closes his eyes there could be a sense that the story is his own, a memory of lost youth and a recognition of the dark complexity of love and sex.”

Sam Lee
The Ballad Of George Collins
Director: Andrew Steggall
Producer: Katherine Hayes
Executive Producer: Ashley Cowan
Production Company: Us3 Productions
Choreographer: Andrew Graham
Art Direction: Andrew Steggall
Costume: Vana Giannoula
Editor: Ashley Cowan
Make-Up: Natasha Lawes
Colourist:Thomas Knowles
1st Assistant Director: Malcolm Davies
2nd Assistant Director: Natalie Gibbon
Director of Photography: Brian Fawcett
1st Camera Assistant: Thomas Fishwick
2nd Camera Assistant : Andrew Bradley
DIT: Dave Bridges
Grip: Paul Kemp
Gaffer: Howard Davidson
Spark: Damien Ansell
Art Department: Jim Harris, Luis San Martin
Costume Assistant: Anastasia Verzoviti
Runner/Driver: Jeremy Talbot,Nick Edwards-Tombs, Jennifer Patterson
Runner: Joanna Gulcz,Krystyna Stawicka, Laurel Pardue
Watch: here