I had a dream about the phrase ‘Hidden Fortress‘ last night, where some kindly person was sightly annoyed with me for using the phrase because it had militaristic overtones. I think it’s also a Kurosawa movie.

Anyway it strikes me as a resonant phrase, and I’m thinking of it in contact with the material I’ve been storyboarding for a return to Whistling Copse. The material I’ve been working out on paper will use photography of the woods but also use it as a springboard for other things- kind of using the woods as a map to other places. When I have the sketches handy  I’ll scan them in.

I like the thought of a hidden stronghold. The idea of one world inside another is what intrigues me. I’m dimly imagining the storyboard material morphing into some sort of more or less literal fortress imagery; though the point is not the literal imagery, but the leap from one world to another. One world within another.

I’ve now read a brief synopsis of the plot of the Kurosawa movie via the link I posted above. Since this would probably be the strongest reference for most people from the title phrase, I’ll find a way to engage with some of the movie’s themes.