Sainsbury Centre
The Brief
What happens when art escapes from the walls of a museum and ventures into the world?
Sectors: Culture | Art
Services: Film | Direction | Editing
An Overview
That’s the starting point for Day Release, a new collaboration series from Meantime video agency and the Sainsbury Centre, and directed by our very own Joe Murray. These short films give artwork space to breathe, travel, and speak back to the world it once knew.
Episode 1 follows Francis Bacon’s 1957 Study for Portrait of P.L., No. 2, as it returns to Soho’s infamous Colony Room Club. It’s a place rich with history, memory, and tension; where Bacon once drank, debated and fell in love with Peter Lacy, the man captured in the portrait. In this reimagined setting, the film brings Lacy face to face with a young man grappling with how to express love in public. Between them, a quiet conversation unfolds about shame, tenderness, and how far we’ve really come
A Connection
The kind of story
only film can tell.
Deliverables:
- Short Film
- Cut Downs for Social
At the heart of the project is a simple but radical question. What if we treated artworks as living things? With opinions, feelings, memories? What if we let them leave the museum for a day and reconnect with the world outside?
For Meantime video agency, this was a dream collaboration. The idea of moving world-famous art across the country, to working in a recreation of one of Soho’s iconic bars, the process demanded extraordinary trust, energy and care. It brought together a team of brilliant collaborators including producers, curators, stylists, directors, sound technicians, art handlers, all working in sync. A real act of creative alchemy.
For Joe, directing this project meant far more than leading another film. As a boy, Joe spent his weekends slowly working his way around the Sainsbury Centre; fascinated by the art on display from a very young age. To become part of this groundbreaking project meant investing his entirety into it.
“Francis, I remember, found his own way of expressing what he was feeling – of telling us who he was……And then I was hung on a museum wall.
The way people would talk at me…”
Production
Collaborating to create something groundbreaking.
None of this would’ve been possible without the extraordinary team who poured their talent, time and care into every frame. The film was written by Beatrice Prutton and Joe Murray, with story support from script consultant James McDermott, and directed with real heart by Joe himself.
Annu Kolthammer kept the whole ship sailing as producer, with Jago Cooper as executive producer and brilliant project support from Caroline Mayers and Beatrice Prutton.
Behind the lens, Isaac Hargreaves led the camera team with 1st AC Jay Burgess, alongside Ben Lambert as AD and Gea Eman recording impeccable sound. Jessie Campbell brought the Colony Room back to life through costume and props, Jasmine Meisell handled hair and makeup with a deft touch
In meantime video agency HQ, director Joe Murray led the post production, working alongside Luke Billing who shaped the film’s sound design with precision and soul.
On screen, a remarkable cast including Peter Straker, Melvin St James, Charlie Harris, Ewan Bailey, Joseph Greenwood, Nikki Claire Durrant and Will Turner brought emotional depth to every beat. Huge thanks as well to the whole crew behind the scenes, and to everyone at the Sainsbury Centre for making the impossible feel effortless. This was art, filmmaking, and collaboration at its very best!
What’s Next
Two more episodes in the making
At the heart of the project is a simple but radical question: What if we treated artworks as living things? With opinions, feelings, memories? What if we let them leave the museum for a day and reconnect with the world outside?
This idea sits at the core of the Sainsbury Centre’s Living Art philosophy, and it’s something our video agency wholeheartedly believe in too. When art moves through real locations, and real lives, it stops being a static object and becomes…. something alive.
And this is just the beginning. Episode 2 will follow…….
Credits
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