Hmm, it’s irregular weeknote 002 a week after irregular weeknote 001. I may need to change the irregular title.
Week went fast, spent most of it in London after Sunday in Sheffield.
Sing Wild Seeds / Brian Eno Earth Percent thing I’m doing. Delivered our last workshop with brilliant singer Genevieve Dawson at Gut Level in Sheffield (brilliant queer venue). Trialling guided future visualisations and imagination methods x improvised singing circles. Turns out it’s quite powerful. More on that soon.
Spent some of the week writing up the project as a bit of a log of activity and reflective evaluation on what I observed in developing and delivering the programme alongside artists. Played with using page-less Google docs as a useful handover format, that you can tailor to look good.
Used tables and coloured the table stroke to same as background which made some nice column layouts. Will be using this approach again in the future.
UI/UX of digital experience on hold until we get confirmation that what we want will be technically possible, before delving into wireframes and content outline.
Film Stuff
It was THE week. I was selected to pitch my debut feature doc, Don’t Say Gay, at BFI’s Work in progress, sitting alongside the other films and directors who had a fair bit of experience was something special.
The format is a 5 minute clip, and it was great to see the sequence I’d edited on the big screen at Piccadilly Circus Picture House in London. That’s a BIG screen. It looked pretty great despite me having edited it and no grading/sound levelling professionally done yet. Then 5 minutes of Q+A. I focused on my story of finding out about the law later on in life then I read out a list of recent international laws brought in the past few years that mimic Section 28 in places like Florida, Hungary and Bulgaria. I was happy with the pitch and great to do it alongside my producer, Reece Cargan.
We were probably the least developed but we got excellent feedback and interest from folks. 5 people came up to me and said they cried, which in this context, is a good thing.
Talked to sales agents and festival programmers. Feedback included stuff I’m actively thinking about for the next block of filming so I was happy with it and confirmed we’re on the right track.
Main things are to see ‘me’ in the film. Whilst I’m not into making a BBC3 style doc where there’s a famous presenter in front of the camera (def not my style), my journey of finding out about Section 28 to meeting queer elders and other adults with the same experience, is the story in a way. So I’m giving myself October to plan the rest of the shooting with this in mind.
Others notes were, keep the comedy in it where you can, the film has much wider themes that will resonate with international audiences like protest in the 21st century and keep reminded people why fighting for rights matters.
Overall left (in a good way) a bit overwhelmed with the positive noises and guidance on aiming big with the film. Back to back meetings all Saturday were ALOT, but a good way to meet people quickly who wanted to talk about the film.
Funny how you spend the first part of your career making prototypes and showing them to people. Well, this is sort of the same in a way, showing teasers and snippets of your film to get feedback and investment.
Rest of the week I indulged in lots of films with my press and industry pass. You can go and see premieres before they’re ‘premieres’ at the festival from 8am to 4pm and some are on an online player. Notable watches;
Black Box Diaries: Journalist Shiori Ito investigates her own sexual assault, seeking to prosecute the high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case, exposing Japan’s outdated judicial and societal systems.
10/10, brilliant documentary. Took notes on her approach to filming. Moving, cried a little. Hard recommend to go see it when it gets released.
MOTHERBOARD. Over two decades, the director Victoria captures a life where breast cancer, absent fathers and depression are part of the package, but where life still wins every time. Brilliant, cried a little, joyful.
The Stimming Pool. Winding and bizarre but artfully done. Made up of clips envisioned and written by a group of autistic people with directors, but occasionally pulling away to show the process of co-creation. Thought it was beautifully, then realised Greg Oke (Aftersun) was the director of photography and shot it on 16mm. Nice when these kind of projects are given the budget to make them look good.
Others: had to go see Elton John’s new doc. Safe, but nice. Modern Film’s SEX, I got halfway through. Enjoying the format of long takes and conversations. Stylistically playing hard on realism approach. Haven’t seen ending so interested to see where they land the themes brought up.
Caught up with some lovely folks and Jennie who was an LGBTQ+ activist in the 80s and helping me with the film.
Listened:
Selected Ambient Works Volume II (Expanded Edition)
Watched:
BFI London Film Festival focused so all the films above and more on the player. Happy Meat, lots of animations…
Went to see Mike Kelley’s exhibition at the Tate Modern. Cool seeing an artist work from early art school to end of life.
Read:
Finished Future Shock. Chapter on Experience economy from 1970 made me chuckle. Was right on over 50 years ago.
Dread Magnificence: LSD, Selected Ambient Works II & The Psychic Death of Aphex Twin (Thanks Mark Hurrell)
“The distinction between the hip, metropolitan, fashionable, affluent, ecstasy driven capital and the weirder, more uncool, rugged, provincial acid head wild west is one that gets overlooked in most recent overviews of techno in the UK during its acid house culture phase”
Sport England. A presentation about the future isn’t enough. To create the conditions for 21st century services you need to build little versions of that future now. Case study and always delightful notes from Studio FF.
User-facing services vs Enabling platforms by Kuba Babartwicki
Moved:
2 swims, 1 run. Lots of cycling across London. Should run more.
