This is the story of a homeless pencil - who desires a diamond - and its journey through a "day" which is symbolic of its troubles. The pencil hopes the diamond will be patient and still be there after it cleans up its act.

What sex or race is the pencil? Well I wanted it to be non-specific although it did end up leaning in a certain direction...you can decide for yourself.

I've recently engaged with a couple of homeless people and that was partly an inspiration for this video - they seem to exist in a different time frame while the world goes by relentlessly. The song's music and lyrics conjured up the story you see. It's a dark tune but has moments of hope in it.

I feel that we are somewhat - I say only somewhat - desensitised to images of people in the media, and in real life, who are in trouble, suffering or lost in some way. I wanted to explore a way that would encourage people to think and react to such people perhaps from a new perspective. Graphite and diamond are both made of the same thing - carbon - so at the end of the day the pencil is an equal to the diamond.

I'm doing my MA in screenwriting at Huston Film School at NUI, Galway in Ireland although I'm from South Africa and have worked as a TV editor and documentary filmmaker. I had a lot of fun shooting and editing this over the last couple of weeks and this proves to me I don't have to have a video camera to make a video - my stills camera was mostly all I needed. They'd be exclamation marks in this text if my number one key worked right now. This is a GREAT way to have inspired me to do something creative and thanks to everyone who helped in their own way.

Credits:

Thanks to: Matt Burke from the Socs Box at NUIG for the loan of the tripod. To Val from "The Winding Staircase" for the use of their shop window. To Kerrin and that guy from Fahy Photo for helping me with technical advice. To Victor for sawing pencils for me. To Jen Klotz for being my prop girl, encourager and tea-maker. To Conor for help on St Patrick's day. To Jenny Rouche – I’m sure the MA course helped me with the story-board. To those construction workers who prevented me from getting run over when I was lying in the road. And thanks to Vicky and Matt for encouraging me from across the seas. And lastly thanks to Theresa for being a superb PR lady.