Filming Log: Candid Cabaret

First of all, how awesome are the MA Musical Theatre students? Wow. I knew they were good but their performances over the two days I filmed blew me away; occaisionally I had to lock the camera off I was laughing so hard. They're funny, engaging performers who can also smash the glassware with their belting music. I'd struggle to choose a favourite act, but special mention must go to the rendition of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" complete with crazy-eyed gyration.

But onto the filming bit. On Sunday my role was to get shots of the audience using the PD150, a cute little camera which I'm rather fond of since it's one of the first I ever used. My main job was to not disturb the audience while filming them and I think I did alright; I also used one of the tips David Liddle gave us while he was here, keeping on eye on the viewfinder and the other on the audience so I could spot when people were having interesting reactions. It's a tricky image to process but I think I got used to it by the end of the night.

As for the taxi nonsense afterwards and the exciting tale of how I got home, there's a short film in there.

The next day we had to do everything ourselves, without guidance from Ray. To be honest, I quite enjoyed it, as I got to use the bit of my head which obsessively makes lists schedules things. We all worked together well and managed to set up and do some tricksy cable hanging all in good time. We learnt some of the rules about that (for instance, I knew that cables which could be a tripping hazard need to taped down but I didn't know that the tape had to be white). The shoot itself went well, and I got to practice more on the 570, which I do need.

The taxis even worked!

Get outta there

Hollywood needs to learn some new dialogue:

Stagecoach (1939)

Westerns aren't generally my thing; say "space westerns" and I'm there but I associate the genre far too much with the same old story: good guy vs bad guy, innocent dame looks on. Visions of Calamity Jane flash before my eyes. But then it's the same as when I say I don't like musicals, the reality is that I just don't like bad musicals, because there's a good few westerns which I've watched and enjoyed.

Stagecoach, happily, falls into that category. That must partly because Ringo, played by "it must be a Western" John Wayne, is no clean cut hero - he's a wanted criminal, but no less of a hero for it. The others are equally well developed, and I especially admired that the alcoholic Doc Boone, while he stepped up and delivered the baby, didn't undergo a radical Hollywood-schmaltz-induced character shift. It feels truer to reality - bad people can do good things.

The look is fantastic too, with the scenery and wide open spaces. You can really feel the danger the landscape posed to the pioneers, even if the cavalry did tend to arrive at a convenient point.

John Ford, one of the three masters (we all know that the other two are Ford, John and the elusive "JF") is truly a master of the camera, and he builds scenes shot by shot, and then builds the scenes up into a seamless narrative. I thought it flowed very well, from action scenes to more introspective ones.

So, I found Stagecoach to be a pleasant surprise and well worth a watch.

I agree with Nick

My main feelings about the election and the way it has been conducted are despair, nausea and apathy.

The BBC is shackled by its requirement for balance, meaning that it can't express any actual opinion on what happens, theoretically so we can make up our own mind, but really just making them bend over backwards not to truly probe anyone. The other networks are plagued by quite the opposite problem, especially Sky News, the official channel of Rupert Murdoch and his best friend Dave. The introduction of televised debates invites squabbling among the smaller parties and allows Nick Clegg to be named most popular man in Britain simply by not having a face that has either melted or is in the process of melting.

It's an American conceit, and it transfers poorly to Britain in my opinion. In America they talk about lofty abstracts, while here we discuss the minutae of OAP's bus passes. Both are important, but majestic oration looks a lot better onscreen.

My least favourite things of all are the rampant visual metaphors: explaining politics in terms of three piglets named Gordon, Dave and Nick doesn't make you accessible, it makes you stupid. The graphics are an improvement on the last election, where we were treated to hideous computer modellings of the three leaders sprinting down a virtual Downing St, but are still overly complicated and flashy.

I think what people really want to know is what each party stands for, and their previous records. I'd also love to see some more passion in the way politics is covered - is no one else angry and disillusioned? When Gordon talks about his excellent record as Chancellor, why does no one challenge him and point out that he's lying through his teeth and has been for over a decade?

The media is as part of the dance of politics as the MPs in Westminster, and while they talk about the desire for change in Britain, they do nothing to help it.

I'm looking forward to Channel 4's "Alternative Election Night" which promises to at least be a laugh.

I'll be voting tomorrow, but I don't hope that any party who wins will be any good. Tragic to see such cynicism in one so young.

Reflection on content origination

I've decided to switch up how I do my reflective blogging, since I'm sure we can agree that "On Monday I did this, and on Tuesday I did this (except you already know, you were there)" got old fast. So now, I'll reflect when I actually have something to reflect upon, such as after a shoot, or, as now, when a class particularly gives me pause for thought.

Adam's classes on content origination are great, and we all leave enthusiastically thinking about how the next thing we write will surely be genius. Lately we've been talking about mobile content, and it's a field which appeals to me especially since I've been on the consuming end for a long time.

As is usually the case, Doctor Who was my first real experience of web content. When it was rebooted it came with a shiny new website and all manner of tie-ins and what-nots. A quick raid on my bookmarks throws up the dalek game, the bad wolf website and UNIT's own website. More recently they have a make-your-own-trailer application and a make-your-own-comic section. Very cool. Makes me wish I was thirteen again. (Except really not, no amount of cool internet stuff is worth that.)

Battlestar Galactica did the webisode thing very well but then it would, wouldn't it?

The big new thing being talked about now is Project Canvas and it's very exciting. I'll be waking up on Friday praying that the Tories haven't won simply so that we'll still get it, although I think a far better name would be "Project Sandpit" because I believe that is what it gives television the potential to be.

Thinking of a show as a sandpit of ideas is hardly new, it's just not usually done in any official capacity. What it does is opens up all those avenues of storylines you can't pursue in a standard drama; the interesting secondary characters, the non-essential but enjoyable backstories, that bit of character interaction you cut from the script because it went over 60 minutes.

This is absolutely the least structured bit of reflection I've done, but it's more a sort of percolation of ideas about the class and what I think can be done with mobile content.

Agora (2009)

I had an uncanny feeling that I had made this film myself and then forgotten all about it. You couldn't actually find anything closer to what I care about.

The story concerns the city of Alexandria shortly after the legalisation of Christianity, following three characters fortunes in the societal upheaval that brings: a slave, a member of the elite, and Hepatia, a brilliant physicist and philosopher.

I want to talk about Hepatia, played by Rachel Weisz, because she really is an example of a strong female character in a modern film, and after what we've been discussing in class it bears discussion. She's intelligent, self-motivated and the bravest character in the film. They don't even end up copping out by saying that while all that cleverness etc is all very well, what she really needs is a husband and children. She does wind up punished - brutally, too - but since this is historical fiction you can chalk that up to reality rather than the writers, since Hepatia the Philosopher was indeed stoned to death and then carried through the streets naked.

The encompassing argument of the film is about the role of religion in the state (ie: it's a very bad idea, and tends to get people stoned to death) and the danger of dogmatic religion full stop (ie: if you can't tolerate heathens, then you end up destroying their libraries and all the brilliant things they do). Equal weight is given to both the outgoing pagans' brutalities and the identical brutalities committed by the even more self-righteous new christians. It lampoons hypocritical, political religion when the elite converts en masse to maintain their power in the new order, and quotes some of the less fun bits of the new testament, namely the bit about women being second class citizens (that's what gets Hepatia stoned to death - her intelligence makes her a witch, apparently).

It's a brilliant film - well written, well acted, and surprisingly well CGI'd. I expected it to look a little bit more low budget but the sets and the CGI accompaniments are very well done. Oh, and Rachel Weisz's costumes are beautiful.

It's such a pity then that it was buried in the graveyard screen, only screen twice a day and given virtually no publicity. If it's still on, then I encourage you go and see it. If not, I know I'm going to get the DVD.

Iron Man 2

And, because I know not everyone leapt to see this at the first possible opportunity, this is a spoiler free zone.

I really did see Iron Man 2 at the first opportunity: I woke up early on Thursday morning when we didn't have class to see the first preview at 10am. Flick? Voluntarily giving up morning sleep? It must be serious. I was surprised to find a queue outside the cinema, and so was an ordinary member of the public who just wanted to see The Blind Side and found themselves surrounded by disreputable geeky types.

The problem with any film you're looking forward to is that it can let you down painfully, so I'm very glad to report that I enjoyed it. Very much. In fact, I had a fixed grin throughout the whole, only excepting the sad bit which I won't elaborate on but which is heartbreaking, mainly because of what a genius performer Robert Downey Jr is. Yet again he balances the inherent arrogant bastardness of Tony Stark with his heroism. The action scenes were very good, there was sufficient Tony-inventing-stuff and I continue to hope that someone will invent a computer like the one he has because wow, that is cool. Almost as cool as the suitcase armour.

On thing which irritated me was that Jon Favreau gave himself a bigger role in 2 than in the first, because while I adore him as a director (Iron Man and Elf? What's not to love?) as an actor he gets on my nerves for some indefinable reason. Still, it's a very little thing.

It made me very happy that every single person in the cinema stayed during the credits expecting a bonus scene and that there was a cheer when you saw the SPOILER GOES HERE.

On Saturday me and Harry went to see it in the imax and while I still enjoyed the film, I wasn't particularly blown away by the cinema experience. It was big, yeah, but not all that much bigger than cineworld's screen 3 (where it's screening anyway) and it's a whole lot more inconvenient. So, not really sold on imax.

Hot or cold?

A cold open (also called a teaser) in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening ...


The best example of this is Star Wars, where you get no titles or credits, launching straight into the backstory and then into Leia's ship, confronting Darth Vader. It couldn't be done any other way. Another would be Resevoir Dogs, where it begins with the team discussing Madonna songs in a diner (among other things) and then walking iconically down a road.

Personally, I like this kind of opening - it gets you directly involved with the action and there's no messing about beforehand. Beginning with credits feels rather too close to the old films (such as The Best Days Of Our Lives).

But there are still films which start with listing all the who-did-whats with a meaningful graphic behind it. Dr Strangelove did it, and so did Centurion more recently (this was what sparked my thoughts).

So people, what do you think? Do you prefer a hot or a cold opening? (And yes, this is a blatant attempt to encourage you to comment.)

Oh, and if I got my details on films wrong, do correct me - I'm doing this entirely from memory.

Doctor Who

I love Doctor Who. Love it, and know far more than any one person ought to about it. In fact, my study of all things Who went a long way to teaching me about television, the way it's written and made, and got me thinking about the possibility for expansion in television. I'm glad I was dropped into the serious business end of the fandom, more interested in analysing the themes of Paul Cornell's writing than the finer aspects of how hawt David Tenant is.

In the first four series of the relaunch, a few things became very clear, and the clearest was that Steven Moffat is a brilliant writer. He wrote the best two episodes of season 1 (The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances), one of the best of season 2 (The Girl in the Fireplace), the best of season 3 and one of the scariest of all time (Blink) and while his contribution to season 4 didn't wow me especially (The Library) that is only in comparison to his other work, as a part of the whole season it was very strong.

He writes brilliant, lovable characters: Captain Jack, Sally Sparrow, Madame de Pompadour, River Song.

He uses the inherent premise of the show - timetravel - in interesting ways, and incorporates imaginative technology: microscopic robots which create clones of one person, a ship trying repair itself using organic components cannibalised from the crew, meeting someone at various points in their life while for you it's only been minutes, creatures which can only ever move when you don't look at them, leaving messages in the past for people in the future.

And most of all, his stories are scary as hell. Who can forget the armies of gas-masked clones, or the smell of "barbecue" in the Madame de Pompadour? I know that for weeks after Blink all my sister had to do was freeze making a grimace and I would be sent into a panic.

So imagine my glee when I heard that the replacement for Russel T Davies would be none other than Steven Moffat. Whole seasons guided by his brilliance. Oh my.

From here on in, it's gets SPOILERY, so beware ye who enter.

I was actually rather anxious to watch The Eleventh Hour because I had such high hopes for it. What if it didn't live up to my expectations? What if I hated Matt Smith, what if Amy Pond turned out to be a cold kipper? Added to which, I couldn't watch it during broadcast, being too busy driving tractors and fending off feral ponies with nothing more than a sharpened stick.

My fears were in vain, however, since it was magnificent. This is perhaps not the level a film student should be speaking in, but I loved it, every bit of it: I love Matt Smith, I love the Eleventh Doctor, I love Amy Pond, I love the plot, the timetravel cleverness, I loved the fish custard, the giant toothy eel thing, the stop motion effect they used, the new costume, the new TARDIS, the long term arc they seem to be on, the dialogue. Everything then. Especially the bit with all the Doctors, yay geek moment!

Its success rested a lot on Matt Smith and I'm very glad I got to see his episode of The Street, because it showed that he is a very good actor. I like his character: sometimes unpleasant, sometimes charming, and usually oblivious to wordly conventions. Thank goodness, he manages to appear older than he looks - I was rather put off by how young he is.

The second episode, The Beast Below, while it was still doing some introduction had more freedom to go do something plotty and it did not disappoint. The idea is the kind of thing which I adore: it's dark, relevant and manages to be depressing and still have an uplifting message. SPOILERS, again, you have been warned! The people of Britain, all bundled into a starship to escape Earth, are secretly powering their vessel by exploiting and torturing a giant alien creature. They live in something akin to a police state, with so called worthless citizens going missing. Every five years they have a choice: to vote to object to this state of affairs, or to have their memory wiped. Almost everyone chooses to forget and live happily, and those who don't are killed.

This is a kid's show. And it's saying that democracy is a joke, we live off the backs of others' suffering, humans are self-interested jerks, and most of them are fascists.

Absolutely fantastic.

And tomorrow, it's Daleks. I can't wait.

Easter Hols

Another term, another big catch-up write-up to cover what I've been doing these past couple of weeks. Well, for part of it, I was far out in the depths of Dartmoor and thus couldn't get to a cinema without hikacking the tractor and making a daring getaway; I only got as far as the next field, unfortunately, as the feral ponies foiled my plan. However, I do have a few things I can talk about:


American Gods



It's hardly surprising that a geek like me is a Neil Gaiman fan, but I've actually only dipped my toes in his writings, a few library copies of Sandman here and there, the odd book, most notably Good Omens which I swear I will adapt one day. However, I picked up a copy of American Gods during the tragic Borders closing down sale and finally got time to rip into it as I enjoyed the solitude of the Devon countryside. 


It's an engaging mixture of the mundane and the supernatural, incorporating mythology into modern-day America. The premise is this: when people came to America, they brought their gods, but quickly forgot them, leaving them to live ordinary lives as best they can. The story is about the conflict between the old gods and the new, with plenty of twists and turns and a whole array of characters, taking mainly from the minor European pantheons (is it possible to have a plural of "pantheon"? Is it by definition singular? Hmm) and from Africa.


Anyway, s'a good book and worth a read if you have some disposable time.


Clash of the Titans


Apparently no one on earth - no one I know anyway - has even heard of the original. This makes me sad, because I love the original with its stop motion animation and its craziness. At least it got a nod when Jake Sully Perseus finds a clockwork owl in the weapons room.


The trailer for this film had me pretty excited, and it didn't really prove a let down. The trailer does, by the way, give away most of set pieces, but that's how you sell a film! 


The story is classically structured, but then what would you expect? It was nice to see the narrative unfold neatly with its mid-points and crisis-points, its protagonist and its themes. It didn't go in the direction I hoped it would, and which the tag line almost-but-not-quite hinted - Damn The Gods. It's a shame because they set up a strong line throughout the film that the Greek pantheon (yet again with the pantheon business) were a bunch of bastards 90% of the time; Zeus and Poseidon are both explicitly stated to be rapists, in addition to which they quite merrily go around killing people and stabbing each other in the back. It was all going so well, but then, at the end, Zeus is let off and they all share a laugh. Shame. 


Also on the negative side is that Gemma Arterton's flat as Kansas voice insisted on being there. She's very pretty, I'll grant, and not a bad actress, but her vocal expression is nil and sounds always looks as if it were dubbed with expert attention the lip sync but with no concern given to the performance. Good to see she'll be rocking the toga again in Prince of Persia. 


The rest of the cast were very strong, with plenty of recognisable names and faces: Pete Poslethwaite, Sam Worthington*, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes*, Hans Matheson, Polly Walker*, Tony Nicolas Hoult and Effy Kaya Scodelario. Oh, and there were flying ponies. Gotta love that.


My last word on the film is this though - I could not get over a small giggle every time they said "Argos". Curse you, retail outlet, for spoiling the name of an ancient civilisation!


*all of them thoroughly typecast as, respectively: a hero, a deformed villain and an amoral woman.








I was going to write about Doctor Who here, but I think I need a post of its own to contain the outpouring of love I have for Steven Moffat et al.