In his interview with Wulf, Marcus Fair says that the ideas for Eternal Media were generated in 2012, from his prison bunk bed during his last term inside. And Eternal Media really kicked off when Marcus and his colleagues made the film Flipped It! Here’s the story about the making of the film, taken from Marcus’s words on Eternal Media’s Vimeo page showing the film (Written in 2019). [I have slightly modified the original.]
‘I managed to convince Simon Shaw, the then Assistant Chief Constable of North Wales Police, to commission me to make a film for him and his force proving that recovery from drugs and alcohol wasn’t just possible, but the positive ripple effect upon communities from one addict getting clean is just as far-reaching and impactive as the negative effects ever were when we were in the hell of our addictions.
What Simon didn’t realise was that I was fresh out of rehab after a 25-year addiction to Heroin and Crack. He also didn’t realise that I didn’t have a camera, a microphone, a tripod, anything to edit on, or a clue how I was going to get any of the kit I needed to shoot the film that he’d hired a cinema out to screen it in.
With an invited audience made up of services, their clients and the great and the good, I was feeling the pressure. I’d basically walked out of rehab with the same carrier bag of clothes which I walked in with from being homeless and hopelessly addicted.
Simon also didn’t realise that I wanted three of his officers, Rosie, Gemma and Gina, as part of my crew plus Mold Police station, a myriad of cop cars, of which one we broke in a chase scene, a prison truck outside Wrexham police station and dozens of police staff all mixing it with my film crew who were equally involved with law… just on the wrong side of it for decades!
During filming, I met BAFTA winning Peter Norrey. Pete loved the story behind how and who was making Flipped It and he agreed to help and sent an edit suite up from London to my bedroom, where with Pete’s guidance and Cora his wife putting lots of hours in too, I spent months editing it. 4 years on, Simon and Peter are still heavily involved with Eternal as trustees along with Rachel, Jo and Jill with Cora continuing to support us also.
We made Flipped It on a shoestring with begged borrowed, and definitely NOT stolen, ropey cameras and mics. The quality is what it is but it was made with a lot of heart and love by dozens and dozens of people and we absolutely still love it! Martin’s drone was the only proper bit of kit we had….
… Simon thought he was getting a run-of –the-mill police training video, what he got was ‘Flipped It!!’