This commemorative film tells the story of Ash to Art, from the day of the fire through to the auction.

We open on a line drawing of the Glasgow School of Art catching fire and smoke billowing out of the windows. We hear sirens and clips of TV news footage, describing the devastation that is unfolding infront of us.

We cut to inside the building – it’s a blackened shell. Through a transition we see a singular piece of charcoal come into focus.

Next we see a series of three famous artists – Grayson Perry, Joseph Kosuth and Alison Watt – we hear them talk about their art whilst we see very fluid transitions between drawings of them and their bespoke artwork.

We end on seeing the Christie’s auction and the results, before unveiling that the whole film was made using the actual charcoal salvaged from the fire.

The film was made entirely using charcoal salvaged from the Galsgow School Art fire.

Stop motion animation requires each drawing to be filmed for 2 frames then erased and redrawn. The erasing process does not entirely remove the previous frame, so there is a ghosting effect with the previous drawings still visible as the animation advances. Approximately 600 individual frames were drawn in the making of the film.

Unlike commercially produced artist’s charcoal, the charcoal salvaged from the Glasgow School of Art fire varied enormously in texture, and colour, presenting particular challenges. As the charcoal was chipped from the charred timber, small harder pieces were put aside for delicate line work, which was drawn using tweezers.