
Frankie Shaftain-Fenner
(she / her)
Autumn at The Oak Tree Farm follows two retired farmers as they harvest and pack vegetable boxes for the farm’s many volunteers to collect. A unique insight is given to this community run farm, which is entirely low carbon, eco-friendly and chemical-free. The volunteers use only traditional farming methods, planting and harvesting crops by hand – they let nature do the rest. Filmed over one month and condensed to only twenty minutes, the film acts as a time capsule for the autumn of 2020. Frankie and Boom Operator/Sound Mixer Michael O’Shea had to adapt to filming in unpredictable weather during the filming. These changes in conditions sadly ended up in some interview segments being cut because the wind was too loud to hear them!
Frankie
This film was directed, shot and edited by Frankie Shaftain-Fenner. While she wanted to document the farm over a period of around six months, sadly due to COVID she was unable to return to the farm regularly. However, this gave her a lot of time to work with the footage she had already shot, focusing the film around that footage instead.
Still 1
Every week each volunteers receives a box of vegetables in exchange for working a few hours on the farm, the times of which are dependent on the seasons. The farms’ vegetable boxes are a focus in the film, as they are the main feature that attracts volunteers.