The Hedgehog Garden is a short documentary that holds a special place in my heart. Over the summer of 2022, I caught Covid-19. For my usual filming plans, this was a huge hindrance. However, by coincidence, a hedgehog family moved into our neighbourhood. Before this, I had never seen a wild hog before, yet alone young, that felt comfortable running over my toes. After a few nighttime filming sessions, I forgot about the footage I had captured and got on with my life.
About a month or so later, I decided to enter my Waders of Titchfield video into the Horsham Film Festival. But it faced administrative issues, meaning I couldn't guarantee permission to enter it before the submission deadline.
With only a few days till the cut-off date, I edited the hodge-podge footage together into a workable video. I got Hannah King to narrate it and I wrote the score in only a few hours. I even tried my hand at Foley again. The sounds of hedgehogs eating slugs is actually me squeezing a watermelon! Suffice to say you can't tell in the final edit.
Despite having a fairly expensive filming setup, my favourite shot was from my phone. I was sitting on a bench when one of the hedgehogs decided to look for food underneath it. This bench has gaps between its planks. By pointing my phone through this gap, I got a unique top-down shot that would have been unethical to film in almost any other way.
The Hedgehog Garden is a finalist in the Horsham Film Festival 2022 Your District Award.
Ethical Disclosure:
.Composite Animal Characters - I can't guarantee that there is a single hedgehog representing our main character. Instead of worrying about small identifiers on each hog, I edited this film together as if there was only one adult and one juvenile. I counted at least two of each when filming.
.Minor Disturbance - Whilst I didn't deliberately disturb the hedgehogs, they did come up close to me a few times. Once or twice, I moved in a way that spooked them, causing them to curl, hence the minor disturbance.
.Staging - I used hedgehog food not only on the plate, but also spread in the grass to encourage foraging behaviour.
.Composite Animal Characters - I can't guarantee that there is a single hedgehog representing our main character. Instead of worrying about small identifiers on each hog, I edited this film together as if there was only one adult and one juvenile. I counted at least two of each when filming.
.Minor Disturbance - Whilst I didn't deliberately disturb the hedgehogs, they did come up close to me a few times. Once or twice, I moved in a way that spooked them, causing them to curl, hence the minor disturbance.
.Staging - I used hedgehog food not only on the plate, but also spread in the grass to encourage foraging behaviour.
.Major Image Manipulation - To tell a complete story, I colour-graded some footage to look like it was night, when it was more late summer evening.
For more info on my ethical disclosure system, please read this.
Further reading will, this time, be a book. I found The Hedgehog Book by Hugh Warwick really helpful for researching hedgehogs with the little time I had. My copy was found in an independent bookshop, but I know this is the internet, so here's a link to it on the RSPB shop. No one has sponsored me to say that, I just think its a neat little book.
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