Documentary Description
Dark Days is a documentary made by Marc Singer, a British filmmaker.
The film follows a group of people living in an abandoned section of
the New York City underground railway system, more precisely the area
of the so called Freedom Tunnel. When he relocated from London to
Manhattan, Marc Singer was struck by the number of homeless people he
had seen throughout the city.
Singer had befriended a good number of New York’s homeless and
later, after hearing of people living underground in abandoned tunnel
systems, he met and became close to a set of folks living in The
Freedom Tunnel community stretching north from Penn Station past Harlem.
After living with them for a number of months, he decided to create
a documentary in order to help them financially. The film’s crew
consisted of the subjects themselves, who rigged up makeshift lighting
and steadicam dollies, and learned to use a 16mm camera with black
& white Kodak film.
Singer himself had never been a filmmaker before, and saw the
production of Dark Days as a means of gaining better accommodation for
the residents of the tunnel. The post-production process took years, as
financial difficulties created delays, as did Singer’s insistence of
creative control to protect the tunnel residents.
The film features music by DJ Shadow, including excerpts from
Endtroducing… as well as his album with U.N.K.L.E. Melissa Neidich was
the editor of the film. Cinevision, a New York City camera shop,
supplied Singer with cameras for the two-and-a-half years of filming.
When Singer ran out of money for film, Kodak supplied free damaged film
for the project.
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amazing watched this several times :)