TEL AVIV began as a concept driven “six short songs about spring”. In 2011, inspired by the fresh buds of Spring and challenged by the micro-blogging model of Twitter, Shane Beales set about writing and recording in his home studio in Hackney. The challenge was to condense a set of songs into a miniature album in much the same way that Twitter users are challenged to limit their messages to 140 characters. The six songs of TEL AVIV clock in at just 15 minutes and tell a heartfelt season based narrative of journeying from disappointment to hope.

Released digitally on iTunes and Shane’s own website in October 2011, TEL AVIV earned critical acclaim, with The Guardian praising its “yearning, electro-flecked and melodic songsmithery”. BBC6Music also featured music from the album praising its concept as well as its brevity.

Initially set to be released online as individual episodes over a six week period, Ross and Shane began shooting in September 2012. The shoot expanded to include a variety of locations including Epping Forest, Cheddar Gorge, Cornwall and Tortworth lake, Gloucestershire. As it progressed capturing footage became more and more ambitious, featuring woodland, mountaintop, boat, beach, underwater scenes and a (slightly dangerous) raging fire!

In the end, the shooting spread out over 3 months and early edits soon showed that something much more substantial than the original 6 webisodes idea was emerging. What started out as an exercise in miniature has grown into a vibrant and ambitious 20 minute short-film about journeying out of the ordinary and into the unexpected.