“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.
This stock footage clip pack documents a 16-hour winter night in the English countryside. Filmed entirely on a 50mm f/1.4 prime lens, these assets reject the artificial brightness of modern cameras in favour of deep shadows, authentic grain, and the claustrophobic reality of hiking into the void.
Clips:
The Transition: Leaving the car, walking past silent English cottages and streams in the darkness, leaving the light behind.
The Headtorch Aesthetic: High-contrast scenes of hiking through the dark, where the light beam dictates the frame.
Wild Ponies: A rare, unscripted encounter with grazing wild ponies, illuminated only by torchlight.
Shelter Life: Detailed sequences of rigging the tent in pitch black, reading under torchlight, and the vigil of staying awake.
Campfire Cooking: Shots of preparing pizza, and minced beef noodles, steam rising against the cold air, and drinking coffee to wait out the night.
The Bonus License
Exclusive to this pack: While the 37 individual stock clips are provided as silent, high-bitrate video files for your own sound design, this purchase also includes the full "insomnia" short film with its original immersive soundscape. You get all 37 clips, and have access to the film “insomnia”.
Technical Specifications
Clip Count: 37 Individual 4K Clips
Total Runtime: 12 minutes 29 seconds
File Size: 4.89 GB
Resolution: 4K UHD
Audio: Clips are silent; Full film includes audio.
You might also like:
Wild Camping Stock Footage – A huge collection of genuine, beautiful, and occasionally, brutal, wild camping stock footage.
alone. – A dedicated clip pack focusing on loneliness, solitude, and the psychology of isolation.
Long Mynd Wild Ponies - 181 Amazing stock footage clips of the Shropshire wild ponies.
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