So it started with our final shoot up in London at One Love 9. Just to cover a little exposition, One Love is a gig/venue that is curated once a month by a man called Kilford the Music Painter (aptly named for his ability to see colours when he hears music.) One love involves up and coming bands playing a set whilst he paints their music alongside.
For our first Uni project we were tasked with making a portrait of someone in a short film. To cut a long story short we ended up choosing him for our project. The shoot on Monday was the last one we needed to do and turned out incredibly well. Its a tiny venue and very dark so i had a lot of anxieties about how well it would turn out. But, to my surprise it went far better than i could have ever hoped and we came away feeling completely satisfied with our efforts. However at the end of the evening, me being Director, i was left with little to no voice after shouting to be heard above the music.
Anyhow more on this project soon.
As if that wasn't enough for one week, i went to Secret Cinema last night in London. For those of you not in the know, Secret Cinema is an event put on every couple of months by a very dedicated team of film enthusiasts in London. Basically, you buy your ticket a month or so beforehand, and get told details of the location a few days prior to the event. You also get instructed to bring several items and dress in a certain way. The catch is that you don't know the film until you arrive. Last night was my first time at SC and it was incredible.
We were told to wear a dressing gown and slippers, and bring several other items along with us. When we got to the train station designated for the event, we were met by the 'men in white coats' who gave us maps and wished us luck. After a brisk walk through a few streets we arrived at an ominous old building where several more people in white coats handed us hospital like gowns and ushered us indoors. Once inside we bustled through crowded corridors, past hundreds of other people in dressing gowns. As we explored the building it got stranger, with actors dressed like patients and nurses. The patients proceeded to follow, stare, converse and stroke us, in between getting dragged away by the doctors.They had a canteen, where you had to buy 'prescription cards' to purchase food or 'medication' (alcohol). The menu was suitably bizarre - Calpol glazed doughnuts, lucky charms with ether milk, several types of chowder and boxes of Ritz crackers. There were rooms with oppressive writing on the walls, people playing dead on hospital stretchers, complacent tanoy announcements and even actors playing shrinks in side rooms. All in all a very disturbing, atmospheric and entertaining experience.
We had been asked to learn the words to Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sound of Silence', the meaning of which became apparent when a commanding voice ordered us to remain still for 'relaxation time'. Seconds later the song came on over the tanoy and everybody started to sing along, all after the cramped corridors had been flooded with water vapor, what few green lights there were flickering on and off repetitively. Shortly after this we ended up in a screening room, where everyone got comfortable and the film began. What else could it be but 'One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest'? The projection quality was admirable, and so was the sound. This was my first viewing of the film and i have to say it is an incredible piece of cinema. The emotions and moods that it leads you through are thoroughly entertaining, and enlightening. In summary, the film follows Jack Nicholson's charater McMurphy, a perfectly sane criminal claiming to be mad so that he can have an easier time riding out his sentence in a mental institution, instead of prison. The film is a must see, containing top notch performances, clever writing and a very valuable comment on the way modern day society views mental illness. To top all of the evening off, on the train we discovered that the building we had been in was in fact a closed mental asylum, creepy! I highly recommend anyone living near London give Secret Cinema a look, because despite the money and effort to get there it is an experience that will make you appreciate film a hell of a lot more.
