Friday 14th September
Obviously this is being typed up a month later – not due to blogging tardiness but down to the fact that my crackberry didn’t deliver the original text to Sinead for posting. An hour making my thumbs numb and for nothing. Grrr.
Anyhow, why this Friday? Two reasons – both musical. In the morning my colleague Dan and I went to see one of the final recordings for the excellent new HD music series Sky Arts is doing with the splendid people at Eagle Rock. A back to basics, stripped down music series called From the Basement. No host, no audience, just great music – and with Nigel Godrich (producer of Radiohead) at the controls. In the can so far are The White Stripes, Thom Yorke, Beck, Jarvis Cocker, and Sonic Youth but today it’s the turn of the wonderful Super Furry Animals. Dan and I saw SFA frontman Gruff Rhys at the Hay Literary Festival doing a performance/radio interview around his superb solo album Candylion. This morning the SFA are in the basement studio (not all TV is a lie) of The Hospital in Covent (swanky media club and TV facility). It’s early and the crew and band are milling around setting up. There’s a certain irony about today given that Dan was due to film the Super Furries yesterday for our Friday Night Hijack but they unfortunately had to cancel due to rehearsals for a show they were recording on Friday morning… Doh!
Despite admitting that they’re not exactly a morning band, the SFA take their places, cameras roll and they rock. They perform half a dozen songs (a few takes here and there – Mr Godrich is a perfectionist) including one new, as yet unnamed, track, which they close with. Those of us not actually working stand at the back and try and keep out of the camera operators’ way but everyone gets into it with the crew bursting into applause between numbers.
Jose Gonzalez is up next but we have to get back to sunny Osterley so say goodbye to Andrew and Will from Eagle (who I’ll be seeing at MIP in a few weeks).
A different musical collaboration to end the day – as part of the South Bank’s Early Music Weekend there’s the first public screening of The Full Monteverdi, which Sky Arts is involved with. Inspired by Monteverdi’s fourth book of madrigals this HD films follows the simultaneous break-up of six couples taking the audience on an intense emotional journey. I’ve got to say a few words at the screening which, in a moment of last minute panic, I decide to re-write on the train to Waterloo.
Anyhow, why this Friday? Two reasons – both musical. In the morning my colleague Dan and I went to see one of the final recordings for the excellent new HD music series Sky Arts is doing with the splendid people at Eagle Rock. A back to basics, stripped down music series called From the Basement. No host, no audience, just great music – and with Nigel Godrich (producer of Radiohead) at the controls. In the can so far are The White Stripes, Thom Yorke, Beck, Jarvis Cocker, and Sonic Youth but today it’s the turn of the wonderful Super Furry Animals. Dan and I saw SFA frontman Gruff Rhys at the Hay Literary Festival doing a performance/radio interview around his superb solo album Candylion. This morning the SFA are in the basement studio (not all TV is a lie) of The Hospital in Covent (swanky media club and TV facility). It’s early and the crew and band are milling around setting up. There’s a certain irony about today given that Dan was due to film the Super Furries yesterday for our Friday Night Hijack but they unfortunately had to cancel due to rehearsals for a show they were recording on Friday morning… Doh!
Despite admitting that they’re not exactly a morning band, the SFA take their places, cameras roll and they rock. They perform half a dozen songs (a few takes here and there – Mr Godrich is a perfectionist) including one new, as yet unnamed, track, which they close with. Those of us not actually working stand at the back and try and keep out of the camera operators’ way but everyone gets into it with the crew bursting into applause between numbers.
Jose Gonzalez is up next but we have to get back to sunny Osterley so say goodbye to Andrew and Will from Eagle (who I’ll be seeing at MIP in a few weeks).
A different musical collaboration to end the day – as part of the South Bank’s Early Music Weekend there’s the first public screening of The Full Monteverdi, which Sky Arts is involved with. Inspired by Monteverdi’s fourth book of madrigals this HD films follows the simultaneous break-up of six couples taking the audience on an intense emotional journey. I’ve got to say a few words at the screening which, in a moment of last minute panic, I decide to re-write on the train to Waterloo.
I’m cutting it a bit fine when I meet the lovely Hazel Wright – who used to run the BBC’s Classical music sales for WorldWide and knows everyone and everyhing there is to know about classcial music and opera – and the film’s producer Greg Browning who is also celebrating his 30th birthday tofay. An interesting way to celebrate – showing your film which has taken years to get to the screen to the public for the first time. We find the film’s driector John La Bouchardière and then we’re inside the Purcell Room.
The Purcell Room is much bigger than I remember it – it seats 365 people (I checked on the website afterwards) and it’s full and I’ve now got to stand uyp and say something. Greg’s up first. He talks about the difficulties of getting the film produced and how it’s taken a few year’s to get to this point. I’m bervously looking at my notes seeing if I can sub them in my head before Greg finishes. No time. I’m up. Try not to look at the sea of faces and remember to talk clearly. A laugh – and in the right place. Confidence boosted, I mention that this was one of the first proijects I became involved with when I joined the channel – Artsworld as it was – and how it’s also one of the projects that I’m most proud of. Then introduce John the director and get off stage. John’s relxaed, funny and has the audience in the palm of his hand. We take our seats as the lights dim and I realsie that the last time I saw this it was in an edit suite so this is the first time I’ve seen the whole film in the right order…
A couple of walkouts early on – this worries us – but become engrossed once again by the film. It’s over before you know it. The screen fades to black. Silence. A beat. Then a huge roudn of applause. A huge sigh of relief from John and Greg and, when the lights go up, people coming over to them to congratualate them on their achievement. I meet Marshall Marcus who’s the South Bank’s Head of Music and we agree to meet to dicuss any other ways we can collaborate. The director of the event reassures us that the walkouts were nothgin to worry about and happen at a lot of similar events…
Outisde, Greg’s off to celebrate his 30th at the bar but I’ve got to leave to get ready for my holiday tomorrow (taking son on plane for the first time so will need all the rest I can get tonight). Congratyulate Greg and John on their achivement and agree to catch up with Greg at MIPCOM.
here’s a review of the screening that took place – the film will be shown on Sky Arts in 2008
This astonishing film, here screened in public for the first time, is based on John La Bouchardière’s collaboration with I Fagiolini, and charts the emotional progress of six failing couples through the deeply moving music of Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals. This remarkable, intricately constructed film is aesthetically beautiful in every aspect: masterfully shot, sensitively arranged images, utterly glorious singing, impressive operatic acting, and a terrifyingly involving narrative flow. This encounter between yesterday’s music and today’s medium can’t help but deliver Monteverdi’s masterpieces to a new and deeply appreciative audience in a thoroughly spectacular fashion.”
Edward Lewis - Classical SourceThe full review can be found here… http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_features.php?id=4952
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