“insomnia.” - The film and stock footage
In the UK summer, the night is a blink. The sun dips, the sky stays blue until midnight, and by 3 AM the birds are singing. It’s barely a pause.
Winter is different. The math changes. Six hours of grey light. Eighteen hours of darkness.
You don’t just sleep through an 18-hour night in the hills.
My latest film, "insomnia.", is a documentation of that specific duration. I didn’t want to film a camping trip. I wanted to film the darkness.
The Shoot: 50mm into the Void
Most night footage you see online is fake. It’s "Day for Night" grading, or it’s lit up like a football stadium.
I wanted the truth, no AI BS. I shot this entire project on a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens. No wide angles. No distortion. Just the claustrophobic, human-eye perspective of walking through the Shropshire hills in the pitch black.
It was cold. It was long. But it wasn’t empty.
There is a specific texture to the English countryside when the lights go out. The fog rolls in and sticks to the lens. The silence rings in your ears.
And sometimes, you get lucky.
Halfway through the night, in the middle of the murk, I bumped into the wild ponies. No script, no setup. Just them grazing in the fog, illuminated by nothing but starlight and my headtorch. It’s a scene I couldn’t have planned if I tried.
The Assets: Now in the Archive
I have processed the stock footage from this trip into Clip Pack #322.
It contains the wild ponies, the dark hiking, the shots of cooking in the tent, and the heavy atmosphere of the vigil.
Get the Insomnia Stock Footage Pack here (Includes the full film audio)
This pack sits alongside (alone.), my previous study on isolation. Where (alone.) was about the psychology of being solo, insomnia. is about the endurance of the environment. Both are available now for commercial licensing.
The Wider Library
This shoot adds another 12 minutes of 4K optical reality to the archive. But it is just one night in over a decade of shooting.
If you are an editor, director, or creative looking for more than just one trip, I have structured the library to give you better access.
1. SELECT This is the curation. I have gone through terabytes of footage and pulled the absolute best shots—the "Hero" clips—from my entire career. It cuts out the filler. View SELECT here
2. ULTIMATE (The Master Key) This is the endgame. The Ultimate 4K Library gives you access to my entire archive. Every clip. Every trip. Every mood. Crucially, this includes Free Lifetime Updates. When I upload the insomnia. clips? You get them. When I shoot the next film? You get those too. You buy it once, and your library grows as I shoot. Get ULTIMATE Access here
Watch the Film
We are drowning in artificial content. We need more grit. We need more darkness.
You can watch the full film, "insomnia.", on YouTube now.
Chris