Screening’s tomorrow. Today’s like christmas eve. I want to see everyone’s work. If it’s like last time, I’ll be surprised, in a good way. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own project and assume that no one else is working as hard as you. Obviously that’s not the case, and I think that the screening is one of the most educational parts of this whole course. You get to see what other people did with similar subjects, what sorts of documentary styles proliferate.. and I think you really get a better sense of why a film works or why it does not. You watch so many films, and you start to find patterns — the best docos had certain common elements.. or the bland docos were unengaging because of the following… etc.

How do I think our film (now titled Beyond Explanation — look out for it) will stack up? I think our approach will be refreshingly different. I can’t really say anything without watching many of the other docos, but I think that ours will be more.. ‘atmospheric’. Rather than create an informative documentary on a certain topic, we’re dealing with personal stories and personal belief systems, in an abstract, fairly eclectic sort of way. Yes, it’s constructed, it’s contrived, it doesn’t look “real” as such. But I do think we’ve constructed something that augments Gitta’s real story. Rather than heading out into “the real world” to get the inside scoop on something, we retreated into darkness.. into quiet, controlled environments where we could set up lights and project imagery. It’s not “raw” or “edgy” or “down to earth”, but it has allowed us to create something that’s visually polished and aesthetically charged. It’s less about “truth”, or about learning anything particular.. and it’s more subjective. Some parts of it are polarising — you’re either captivated, or you dismiss them as contrived or unnecessary. I’m fine with that. Strong reactions are better than no reactions, I feel. Last semester’s film (Straight to Video) technically worked.. it was well executed, but it lacked guts. It wasn’t daring.. we were afraid to take a specific direction.. was it drama? action? comedy? You get what I mean. I’m immensely pleased that this semester, I’ve been able to work on something that has some definite affect. No matter what you think of our visual style, Gitta’s a very captivating person to listen to, and to watch, I’d argue.

So yes. I’m pleased. Maybe even “proud”. But pride’s dangerous in this industry. If you’re proud, you’re content, and at risk of becoming complacent. But at the same time, you need a sense of confidence, a sense that you know what you’re doing, that your production is actually worth something. Without that, you have no drive to continue. And that’s pride.

Whatever. This post is devolving into a semantic debate. We’ll just see what happens at the screening. That’s the only thing that counts.

voice on the verge #40: evy for the kill

visit Evy For The Kill on Myspace

It’s always a relief to go to a gig where the support act shines through and grabs some of the limelight for themselves, not just persevering through a 30 minute set for people probably not there specifically to see them but really using the opportunity to woo over an unsuspecting crowd. Some time ago, Wears The Trousers caught Dutch singer-songwriter Gitta doing exactly that at an intimate London show supporting Kelli Ali. Even with a few feedback problems on the night, her earthy, gripping vocals and intimate guitar ballads offered insight into her sweet yet shadowy world and a welcome detour from our own. Last year’s self-released debut EP Confusement Park [hear select tracks here] proved that Gitta’s talents translate just as well in the studio as they do on stage.

Adding another string to her bow, as of this past April Gitta has reinvented herself by revisiting her old-school goth/punk roots and evolving her sound into the full blooded, slightly grittier outfit Evy For The Kill. What we’ve heard of this fledgling project to date indicates that Gitta has successfully managed to keep hold of the wonderfully poetic and intimate feel of her solo work while powering through like all great bands should. Though she’s currently ensconced back in Holland for the time being, we’ve been assured that Gitta/Evy will be back on these shores soon enough. And regardless of which personality she visits us with, we think the best is yet to come from this spirited lady. Get to know her, courtesy of our trusty questionnaire…

* * *

What’s your middle name(s)?

My full name: Birgitta Fenna Theodora de Ridder

What was the last good book you read and how did it affect you?

The last book I read was ‘Alice In Wonderland’ – I love this funny silly world! I think the poetry in it is brilliant, and I wish I could write something like it. I’ll work on it, I promise!!

What is your most loved item of clothing and why is it so treasured?

Do shoes also count as clothing? I think they do!! Well then, it would be my big furry boots!! (I have more pairs that look fairly similar) Especially when it’s summer and people think I am crazy for wearing them, but I LOVE IT!!! (Stinky feet are not so charming though, but fuck that!!)

What’s your earliest memory?

That’s quite a story, but here goes: I haven’t a clue how old I was, but I could talk, and I would always say “noohoo” in this really annoying, whiny tone. It annoyed the shit out of my parents so my dad said, “If you say that once more you’ll be in trouble,” so I wisely kept my mouth shut. But my lovely sister imitated me when my parents could not see us but only hear us, and I got in trouble for it. It always makes me smile thinking of it, because it’s so stupid! There might be some earlier ones, but they’re not as vivid to me….

What did you listen to when you were growing up?

Like most young girls, I listened to whatever was popular in the moment. Seeing as I grew up in the ’90s it wasn’t the best pop music (think boy/girl bands and cheesy pop songs…or even worse, the whole hardcore scene that was huge in Holland). Thank god for my Dad’s music taste though; I remember some Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Jethro Tull…wow, too many to name because he is one of those music collector geeks.

Which female musicians have most inspired you?

From past to present: Gwen Stefani, Skin, Róisín Murphy, Courtney Love, Regina Spektor, Ane Brun, Joan As Police Woman, PJ Harvey…more more more more.

Who was the first person/band you saw in concert?

I think it was when my mom took me and my sister to go see The Backstreet Boys, haha! Before that it was seeing my grandpa and dad on stage singing opera.

Who was your childhood idol?

Peter Andre (haha, I was so little. Please don’t judge me). After that it was Gwen Stefani.

What were you like at school?

Little short round girl with blue/green hair and dog collars round her neck wearing Marilyn Manson sweaters and Nirvana shirts, spending her time playing songs instead of doing homework.

What would you tell your 18 year old self if you could go back in time?

To work harder and not waste so much time!! Live is too short to just sit around dreaming, just DO IT!

Do you have a tattoo?

Yes, I have three of them. I want more, but just DOTS, because I like ‘em. I have some fairy flowery business on my lower back, a lotus treble clef thing on my left underarm and a treble clef hidden behind my left ear (my favourite actually).

What’s the worst job you’ve ever worked and what was so bad about it?

Depends on what you consider bad, but I’ve done quite a lot of work in shops, and cleaning jobs. But being a musician in London I think I would have to do the same to get food on the table anyway. Just for a while, ’til things start rollin’.

What’s your top household tip?

When frying eggs, put a lid on the frying pan, makes it go faster! (When you wanna keep the yellow bit nice and runny…but not have the bottom all black). And a second one: use scissors to cut the chicken. Do wash them afterwards but it is so much easier!!

What did you want to be until you decided to become a musician…if you ever did ‘decide’, that is!

When I was a young girl I said to my mom I wanted to be a bus driver because I didn’t want to go to school… (I thought you didn’t have to go to school to be a bus driver. Please don’t hate me, I was tiny.)

What would you be if you weren’t a musician?

DEAD.

How would you describe your new project in 10 words or less?

Honest, real, intense, dark, bright, loud and quiet and AWESOME.

What kind of person would have sex to your music?

People that listen to good music?! (OMG what a bad answer!) Dude, I wish I knew if anyone has already had sex to my music, I’d find that a very strange thing, hahaha.

What’s your funniest studio memory?

Farting during recordings (good thing you cannot see my face now, it’s turning red). Oh, and saying ‘12′ in a stupid Dutch-sounding way because I was confused! My bandmates still tease me about it. I think, though, it can only be funny if you were there…so don’t expect any laughter from my answer.

Have you ever written a song that wasn’t in English?

I tried writing in Dutch, but it’s rubbish! Been writing in English since I was 12. You should see my first bits and pieces; it sucks it does!

If you chanced upon Aladdin’s lamp what three things would you wish for?

I’d wish for a life filled with the joy of playing music and being able to make a living out of it. Also: No hunger, no fucked up people killing each other, all of that… (sounds like a beauty pageant!!). Oh well, politics…sigh…

* * *

Léigh Bartlam

Today was weird. We were shooting. But it wasn’t like anything I’ve shot before. Just cutaways upon cutaways… images, imagery, no overt meaning, no dialogue.. no audio whatsoever. We’re all talking through the takes, rolling the camera on anything remotely interesting. (this doesn’t mean we’re creatively-challenged.. when you’re shooting on DV tapes, you may as well shoot as much as humanly possible).

So we’ve plunged Gitta’s house into darkness, setting up a horrifying matrix of tangled leads and power cords. I’m on camera, using this flimsy tripod, tethered to the field monitor by a short and temperamental video output cord. We’ve set up three dedos. One bulb dies minutes after it’s switched on. Dawn’s adjusting the lights as needed, Emma’s keeping an eye on us all and talking with Gitta. And so we embark on this ultra-spastic shoot in which we trek around Gitta’s room, meticulously shooting small objects and spotlighting different parts of the house. We have no particular direction, just a sense that we need to cover everything. Hence we tie ourselves up in knots.. leads tangle with other leads and wrap around furniture as we change positions too rapidly to think. It’s the equivalent of brainstorming, with cameras.. and you shoot as you go. We had vague conceptions of what we wanted, but when you get into a specific location with specific lighting conditions and placement of objects, you’ve got to improvise.. negotiate with the environment.

Once we started projecting images onto walls, everything became really messed. At one point we had Emma operating the projector, handheld, mounted on her shoulder, firing images onto picture frames. Dawn followed her around as visual DJ — operating the laptop, selecting new images to project from youtube and a DVD I made.. Tim kept an eye on framing in the monitor, and I traversed the dense forest of leads and furniture, trying to find clean vantage points to shoot from with my sub-par tripod.

The result? apart from the initial grain-problems? Brilliant visuals. Really abstract, really strong and interesting. *But* I have no idea how we’ll integrate them into the holocaust story we’ve cut together… we’re going to need an awesome soundtrack to set the tone.. we’re going to need to cut it together amazingly, making everything stylistically cohesive. And we don’t have long.

I’m thinking that even if our overlays make no sense, they’ll stay in people’s heads. They’ll walk out of the final TV2 screening going “remember that one? you know, the one, with the intense images everywhere? yea. can’t remember what it was about, but it looked sickk”. And so on.
That’s an awful thing to say, since the story is everything, and no amount of eyecandy will make up for it. But at least it’s something different.. not your run-of-the-mill documentary.

Anyway take a look at some stills

Maybe we should give up our documentary and use the footage to make a crazy music video? Probably good thinking..

The edit suite is quickly becoming a place of unpleasant revelations.. moments where you realise that your film is hardly as stunning as you think it is, that your footage is uglier than you think it is, that your participant’s story is less personal and more generic than you thought it was. It’s the crucial stage of our documentary production, and we’re learning that the narrative, the core of our documentary, is generic, impersonal, and needs restructuring. And also, we need to shoot overlay footage in Gitta’s home next monday, and it has to be vaguely cohesive once we’ve put it together, and match the feel of the piece in its entirety. There’s very little time to construct our own projected material, so the majority will be taken from youtube. This means we can’t vignette it, we can’t desaturate it or enhance it, and the quality will be highly variable, depending on compression codecs. Not a massive problem, but not ideal. Now while I was in an IM2 tute, the rest of my group brainstormed up some great visual material, and corresponding urls to the footage on youtube. Some of it’s awesome, and my philosophy at the moment is “the more the merrier”. A problem in post is the worst kind of problem because there’s nothing after post. After post there’s a black hole, a vacuum, the end of the universe as we know it. So we should prepare for this coming chaos and arm ourselves with as much visual material as possible.

So yes. We’ve got quite a lot of potential footage, and I may shoot a bit more on the weekend, if I get time. The more pressing question is: where do we project all this? Yes, we’ll do it in Gitta’s house, obviously, but after visiting, I’m thinking it may be difficult to find good projection-points. The walls are flat and white, but there are lots of large paintings on the walls that may make our projection shots look too convoluted. We need a blank space, a tabula rasa, somewhere in the house that i’m yet to find. We’ve also got to establish that we’re projecting within Gitta’s home. We’re going to start with naturalistic shots of Gitta’s house, various bits and pieces, fairly dark and atmospheric, but perceptually ‘normal’. Then we start fading in projected material within this space, and establish that these eclectic, dream-like images permeate the space of Gitta’s home, her everyday life. (This is sounding very IM2.. bachelard-esque.. no?).

But anyway. The main problem is that we’ve got all this material, and nowhere to put it. Perhaps we’ll have to resort to making a space on the wall, but I’d rather not, since we don’t want to be disruptive. Even if we did this, we’re not going to project all the images on the one surface, I don’t think. That would become boring, irrelevant, I don’t know. Certain things can be projected on the ceiling, in corners of the house, across the hallway perhaps. But we need to convey three-dimensional space, play with depth and visual texture… hopefully it all comes together.

I’m thinking that we should get static cutaways of Gitta’s house first, and then move on to the projected material. Otherwise we’ll be obsessed with getting the projections right and neglect the more ‘normal’ visual material. Just making a mental note of that, so that when we arrive on monday there’s some kind of concrete plan to follow.
That’s all for now.

I can’t figure out whether we’re in a good position or a bad position for our TV2 production. On the one hand, we’ve got a fairly solid story with some strong, emotional statements from Gitta, in a fairly logical order. As long as our hard drive doesn’t explode, we’ve got the core of our documentary in pretty good shape. There’s a story in there, something to follow, something to listen to.
But on the other hand, we’ve now got to match this strong story with a set of visual overlays.. and possibly a soundtrack of some kind. Visually, we need to show things that are in some way connected to what Gitta’s talking about. Yet at the same time, we can’t make the visuals too literal or contrived. Shots of barbed wire fences, nazis, combat boots, concentration camps, starving people, etc… it’s all been done to death, it’s going to seem far too cliche and heavy-handed. But what else can we do? Gitta lives in Caulfield, far away from Bergen-Belsen. How do we create visuals that augment her stories of concentration camps by filming her washing the dishes in Caulfield? She does a lot of gardening, perhaps we could shoot her gardening. But again, how does this relate in any way to what she’s talking about?

Tim came up with the idea of shooting cutaways of Gitta’s home, little details that say something about our participant. She reads a lot, and has a massive bookshelf. Her walls are covered in paintings, she has an impressive garden outside, she keeps shelves full of VHS tapes, etc. this sort of thing. I think that’s definitely a good start, while we’re establishing Gitta as a character. But once she starts talking about emotionally intense material, I’m not sure how well this will all fit.
“Why don’t you just let Gitta talk, without any overlays, when she’s talking about something emotional? Won’t the emotion on her face be more powerful than any overlay you can think of?”
Yes, of course it will. But we’ve cut Gitta’s dialogue to pieces, and people will see that if we let the piece run without cutaways. This isn’t the sort of doco where jump cuts will look acceptable. We’re going for polished and atmospheric, not raw and edgy. Hence we’ve got to find something that works.

Right now, it might be best to shoot every possible cutaway we can think of, and see what works. Emma wants to get Holocaust-related imagery off youtube and project it in Gitta’s home. It might be contrived, but then, the projection-element might make it more interesting, more abstract/experimental than it usually is. So we should gather the footage, get the projector, and see how it works. Being closed-minded at this point will get us nowhere.
I also want to use projected footage, but I’m thinking more about abstract textures… thinking about visual projections as if they were a form of music, something atmospheric, rather than relating to the holocaust as such. We’d start with shots of Gitta’s home, without any projections. Everything’s fairly dark and quiet. And then, as the conversation with Gitta becomes more emotional, strange shapes and textures start to rise out of the darkness and move across the walls. Rather than projecting “things”, I’d rather project images that cannot be explained with words. Still, just as Emma’s holocaust imagery may seem contrived, my abstract textures may seem completely superfluous.. arthouse wankery that means nothing and only serves to confuse the audience. Point taken.
And then, we could do away with the projector and film more of Gitta’s home, Gitta doing things in her home, something more naturalistic and understated, and we’d rely on a soundtrack to colour the doco, to give it a certain feel. I think Tim’s in favour of this method, of shooting Gitta in her home somewhat more naturalistically. This probably makes the most sense, it’s the way documentaries usually work and people will understand what we’re doing. I’m just wondering whether it will be enough to take us through the entire 7 minute documentary.. just more and more footage of Gitta in her home. i feel like we need to go somewhere visually, and without projected visual material or something equivalent, our shots will seem random, and won’t progress.
This feels like the most difficult part of the documentary so far. Up until now, it’s been all well and good to talk vaguely about making something ‘experimental’, something unconventional and interesting and aesthetically pleasing. But now we’ve got to conceptualise what this actually entails, and making a bad decision could wreck all of our efforts up until now, effectively cheapening what Gitta says…

so yes. we’re getting there, we’re probably ahead of a lot of TV2 groups right now. But at the same time, we’re on thin ice.

I’ve just realised that despite posting numerous blogs about colour grading and ripping still shots of our interview, I haven’t actually reflected on our 1st interview with Gitta on the whole, in its entirely.

Am I happy with how it went? Absolutely. Gitta was extremely nice and accommodating and understanding, allowing us to shift things around and set up lights and run cables all over the place, etc. We had a great lunch break, courtesy of Emma, awesome catering. Interview-wise, we got plenty of content to work with. It started off slow, our first tape is mostly long anecdotes and tangents, but we needed to go through all that in order to get to more intense subject matter, and it worked. Emma and Tim did a great job, asked some really difficult questions. We’ve got some very deep statements.. I feel that if we pull this off, we’ll have a very.. substantial documentary.. something emotionally charged and existential rather than something purely informational.

I think that doing the test shoot was invaluable, in that we’d already tested a lighting setup, and once we arrived at Gitta’s house, it was easy to simulate that setup in our new surroundings. It came together quite quickly. We pulled Gitta’s chair away from the walls, set up the Kino in the corner of the room, set up two dedos behind Gitta, one as a backlight, the other was used to illuminate the flowers next to Gitta. I really like the contrasting colour temperatures.. didn’t realise at the time, but the Kino tubes must have been over 5000K, much colder than the 3200K dedos. I used a custom white balance on the Z1, so that the key light was still slightly cold, and the backlight was bright orange. If we’d used a sheet of paper, we wouldn’t have gotten as much contrast as the key would’ve looked wamer.
Only problem with our lighting setup, I realised, was that Gitta’s glasses sometimes reflected the kino light.. but I don’t think it’s a massive problem. It’s a rectangular chunk of whiteness on her glasses.. and for people who haven’t used a kino before, it should look sufficiently nondescript. Besides, the reflection only appeared occasionally, as Gitta turned her head slightly.

Oh yea. And audio-wise, I think Dawn got us the cleanest audio I’ve ever heard. Strong levels, and Gitta’s voice is extremely well-separated from any background noises of traffic, etc. It’s unfortunate that Gitta had to wear a neck brace, as it creaked as she moved, but there’s nothing we could’ve done about that, and if it becomes too much at any one point, we can use the boom mic track alone, cutting out the lapel, which picked up much more of this creak.
(only problem here is that I think we’ve ingested the footage in FCP as stereo… and so far I haven’t been able to select one audio track without selecting the other, they seem hopelessly connected.. even when I went into the sequence settings and changed it to ‘dual mono’, which is what it should’ve been on in the first place.. damn.. I guess I’ll take a look at the manual, see if it’s possible. Otherwise we’ll have to do something ghetto, like mute the left channel and centre the right channel, and boost its levels.. hmm).

Anyway. Our first shoot couldn’t have been better, I can’t think of anything we neglected.

Oh wait. I didn’t record colour bars and tone on our tapes.. which came back to bite us in post when the tape deck couldn’t pre-roll, hence we couldn’t ingest the first 15 seconds of our tapes.. not that we missed anything at all crucial. But yea.. I forgot that colour bars actually served a purpose. I’ll know for next time.

I guess it always happens, at least once a semester. I’m not sure where my energy’s gone since last week. I think it has to do with the fact that we’ve now shot the bulk of our documentary content, and post-production for doco is far more daunting than editing in drama. For drama, it was simply a question of fitting shot 1.1.1 with 1.2.1 with 1.3.1, and so on. Every shot had a distinct purpose, and happened at a certain point in the story of the film. You had a set of instructions on how to construct your film in post. God I miss that. Doco editing.. there’s so much disparate material, discrete parts that are interesting but are difficult to meld into a singular, coherent exploration of anything in particular. I’m feeling like we needed more focus in terms of what we wanted out of Gitta, what we wanted to emphasise in our documentary. But then I guess that letting Gitta talk about all sorts of things allowed her to open up, and we got some great reflections out of her, absolutely. It’s now just a problem of what exactly we’re trying to say.. in what order do we want to say it.. do we save that bit for the end, or would it make a good hook right at the start to intrigue an audience?

It’s a difficult exercise. We’re wrapped up in our documentary, we’ve spent a fair bit of time with Gitta. We’re going to find what she says more interesting than other people will. Hence we’ve got to be incredibly brutal, because this doco has to reach out to *other* people, hook them, make them question, make them feel.. and people are slack. They’re not going to concentrate as hard as the filmmakers themselves, they’re not going to bother to understand unless it’s intensely fantastic. And even then, they’ll only mildly like it.

What do I think we should emphasise? Suffering. Dehumanisation. Dealing with pain. And then turning your life into something positive, trying to counteract that poisonous effects of the Holocaust.
Now I know, this can become one-dimensional, or vaguely cheap, in that anyone can make a holocaust horror story, a list of tragedies that just get worse and worse.. but we have to have *some* element of that in there, if only to trap our audience at the start. We have to start with something sinister, because, to be brutally honest and ultra-critical, I’m not interested in hearing about the curious life of a charming 86 year old woman named Gitta who likes gardening and authors and poetry, this alone is not enough. There’s no drama in any of this. The drama we’ve got to go with is in the holocaust, in her memories of these harrowing events. Only *after* we’ve been through Gitta’s hellish past, can I become interested in her life and philosophy in the present. Sounds like I’m being an impatient dickhead, but I honestly think that this is how an audience will think. We need Gitta’s intense experiences right from the start, a hook to suck in lazy audience people.

“Josh, why do you hate your audience? Surely good filmmakers are those that allow their audiences some respect, some capacity to analyse and find interest in the subtleties of their work?”

Yea. Most likely, that’s true. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket. I think we should suck in the audience, treat them as idiots to start with, and give them freedom once we’re on solid ground, once we’re confident that we’ve got their attention.

Sounds good to me.. but physically achieving this in the edit suites.. that’s another story.

Forget film theory. Forget camera mechanics. We’re shooting this tuesday, and the success of our documentary hinges on getting great reflections from Gitta. It’s all about our relationship with Gitta, the environment, “the vibe” in general.

Hopefully, we’ll be allowed to come back for a second shoot with Gitta later on, for abstract projection setups and other overay material.. but only if this first interview is mildly pleasant for Gitta (and we’re screwed if we don’t get this second day..)

Luckily, I’m not at the forefront of establishing a good relationship with Gitta and talking with her about difficult questions in a tactful manner. We’ll be leaving that to Tim and Emma, and no doubt they’ll be awesome at it. But I’m not off the hook. I’m the one with the camera, the one who has the potential to transform a “friendly conversation” into a “contrived, recorded interrogation”. I want to turn all the house lights off, potentially shift furniture, make Gitta sit in a chair with strange lights surrounding her on all sides, and make her stare down the barrel of a camera… I’m the bad man.

“Josh, why don’t you just keep all the house lights on, switch on the camera and leave it there recording, and leave it as natural as possible so that Gitta will forget she’s even being filmed?”

Well, that’s definitely an option.. the safer option. It’s possible that after we shoot, we’ll look back and I’ll hate myself for plunging the house into darkness and surrounding gitta with kinos and dedos. But the result will be so bland and naturalistic otherwise.. so at odds with the abstract, atmospheric piece that we’re setting out to create.

I don’t think we need to choose the easy option. I think that this semester, we’re all up for a challenge.

I’ll try to set up the camera from a distance. This will hopefully make the camera setup less obtrusive, and over time, it will be forgotten about.. hopefully.

I’ll try to set up the lighting from a distance. I don’t know what the space of Gitta’s home will be like, but hopefully it’s spacious enough that Gitta won’t suffocate in a sea of equipment. You can focus the Dedos, so setting them up at a distance should be alright. And you can alter the intensity of the Kino as well, so moving it further back can be counteracted by boosting it slightly.

I’ll try to light from the side, rather than front-on. Based on our equipment test, the Kino can be quite uncomfortable unless it is almost completely side-on… 90 degrees. I quite like the effect of a side light, but it might not be incredibly flattering on an 86 y.o woman.. and it does leave half the face plunged into darkness. We either leave the massive shadows as they are, or introduce a new, semi-front-on dedo light with a blue gel. Not sure how this would look, we didn’t use a gel during the equipment test. And I’m also not sure of how uncomfortable it would be for Gitta (you could dim it until it became comfortable, of course).

Most importantly, we have to know what we want. We have to be set up quickly, packed up quickly, efficient at every stage (without seeming like soulless robots). Production always involves lots of waiting, lots of setting up, technical difficulties, aesthetic problems, sound pollution problems, etc. We’ve got to minimise this, thus maximising our chances of getting permission for a second day of (potentially more disruptive) shooting.

I’ve got to make a shot list, and get it ingrained into my head. The lighting/camera setup is already memorised, and i’ve just got to apply it to the space we’re shooting in. But yes, a concrete list of shots… is essential, and will appear here in the next 24 hours.

Gitta

Fine settimana ancora con il freddo, ma confidiamo in un miglioramento per sabato. Se non avete ancora le idee chiare su come trascorrere venerdì, sabato e domenica, ecco una piccola guida per il weekend, con alcuni dei numerosi eventi in programma. Gli altri, come sempre, nella sezione concerti di Campania Rock.

Venerdì: Festa rock and roll a 5 euro al 54 Music Club du Manocalzati, Avellino, con Feeling Of Love, The Boilers, Capputtini I’ Lignu e Number 71 Band con djset di Vinyl Gianpy. Al Jah Bless in versione “cantautoriale” arriva il singer dei 24 Grana Francesco di Bella, mentre il rock al femminile delle Delirious Luminal è di scena al Mamamu, così come al Black House di Avellino con le Roipnol Witch. La band (ad Avellino per il Female Band Festival) prende il nome dal potente medicinale che (psicofarmaco) che quasi ipnotizza chi lo assume, ed il loro è un rock tra Hole e  Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Direttamente dall’Olanda, la cantautrice Gitta si esibisce sul palco di Fabbricaria (domani al Mamamu), a Trentola Ducenta, al Doria 83 di Napoli ritornano per l’occasione i Mamasan, rock direttamente dalle vecchie ciminiere dell’Italsider di Bagnoli.

Sabato: Per la rassegna “iSabato” organizzata da Freak Out al Duel Beat di Agnano, due protagonisti dell’indie rock americano: il progetto Publicist con Sebastian Thomson degli storici Trans AM, con Ian Svenonius, già nei Make Up e Weird War. Risultato: un mix di rock, funk, elettronica per non stare fermi con il djset Hard To Pronounce. Biglietti a 8 euro.

All’Iroko di Salerno con la Aut Aut è “Saturday Rock & Disco”: in concerto, vista anche la vicinanza con il St. Patrick Day, ecco Il Pozzo di San Patrizio, storica band salernitana che mescola il folk irlandese, un pizzico di elettronica ed il rock. L’ultimo disco della band è Hard Folk Cafè. Apre la serata Joe Petrosino e la selezione reggae di Frizzy Pazzy.

Pozzo Di San Patrizio

Dalle 22 sul palco di Pompeilab (via Astolelle) ecco gli Epo, capitanati da Ciro Tuzzi, che si esibiranno in una dimensione acustica con sprazzi di elettronica. All’attivo hanno due lavori: Il Mattino Ha L’Oro In Bocca e Silenzio Assenso, entrambi premiati dalla critica, entrando anche nel circuito MTV. Meritano però molto di più.

Epo

Atmosfere simili anche al Rifrullo di Eboli con Il Cielo di Bagdad, mentre per chi segue il punkrock doppio appuntamento: al Sudterranea con i Peacebreakers e al Tempo Rosso di Pignataro con ODDCPP, Madhouse  67, Kymaera, Nicotina.

Infine, per gli amanti del darkwave, Christobel Dreams live al Cellar Theory di Napoli e i romani Nastro al Club House Europa di Frattamaggiore (organizza La Scala Privata).

Domenica: “La primavera dei sordi” è il titolo dell’ultimo lavoro dei Pennelli di Vermeer, atmosfere rock, prog, e folk. Stasera al Rising per Live Box.  Ancora Darkwave ed ebm al Koesis di Napoli con il djset di Whip, mentre al Black House di Avellino serata country con Eugene Chadbourne.

In attesa di Battiato, lunedì al Teatro Gesualdo di Avellino (la data al S.Carlo di Napoli è saltata, dicono, per una richiesta troppo esosa da parte del teatro partenopeo).

R’n'r

Luigi Ferraro

Kelli Ali / Louise Latham / Gitta / Annalie
Live at Soho Revue Bar, London •••½
December 11, 2008 

What was originally intended to just be a Kelli Ali live review has, by virtue of circumstance (i.e. we didn’t know they were playing), been extended to cover the other three women performing the same night at the Cameo Sessions, a regular live showcase of new, undiscovered or budding acoustic acts on the circuit.

As we entered in from the freezing cold of Soho’s fabulously sleazy back alleys, we ventured upstairs to the cabaret bar to find the night’s opening act, Annalie, already warbling away on the piano. With Christmas crackers and mince pies all over the place, it was easy to forget about the cold and embrace the group-hug spirit of the evening, despite Annalie’s all too eager quest to become the next Regina Spektor. Her attempt at quirky half-spoken, half-sung anti-rhyming couplets and disjointed chords was something of a false start as we settled into our relocated cinema seats at the back of the bar. Songs based around fairytales and nursery rhymes are something of a prerequisite for offbeat singer-songwriters these days, but mashing together ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘Humpty Dumpty’ with gobbledigook lyrics essentially saying “Humpty fell down because he was just an egg whose legs were too small for his body and affected his centre of gravity” were simply funny for all the wrong reasons.

Although a talented pianist and a solid voice for, say, a wedding reception, Annalie’s delivery simply lacked the necessary individuality to attempt this kind of material. This could have been overlooked, but removing her jumper to reveal a T-shirt with her website emblazoned across her breasts and constantly repeating “I’ve a CD for sale!” tarnished any hope of taking her more seriously. Needless to say, Regina won’t be losing any sleep over Annalie anytime soon. Next up was Dutch singer Gitta who, after taking to the stage with a quiet confidence, unleashed a wonderfully expressive voice and a surprising knack for lyrics. Earthy and cutting, but not without the ability to coo and soar, Gitta’s genuinely heartfelt performance was a definite highlight, and certainly worth writing her Myspace address down correctly for further research. (She recently released her first EP, Confusement Park, I later discover). Louise Latham took to the piano next, with her sister on backing vocals and guitar, working up some uplifting balladry that put her somewhere between Jewel Kilcher and ’90s Stevie Nicks. There’s no doubt the Latham sisters are very good at what they do, it’s just a bit dated and ‘Dawson’s Creek’.

Finally, Ms. Ali’s band (comprising a cellist, flautist and guitarist) start to set up as the chipper host reads a brief biog. A few toots of the flute and a coo down the mic and the undeniable awww factor of warm ditty ‘Dancing Bears’ washes over the crowd. A few fans with old-school Kelli logo T shirts were a welcome reminder of her artistic pedigree among the rest of the crowd who seemed to never have heard of her; either way, the response was genuinely appreciative. A spine chilling version of ‘The Savages’ and beautifully poetic new song ‘Butterfly’ gave all three of Kelli’s talented musicians a chance to shine and play with the mood, complementing her delicate, ethereal voice and new-found folk direction very well.

Album milestone ‘One Day At A Time’ is possibly the lightest track of the evening, and is one of those songs that is so angelic and tender it could either captivate or lose an audience. This time it prevails with the former. Dressed in a floaty dress and clashing red kitten-heeled ankle boots – an adorable style ensemble that puts her somewhere between Pocahontas and a cowgirl – Kelli’s soft calls to the audience between songs were another step closer to a group-hug atmosphere. However, things turn sharply as the mood changes with a damn right spooky cover of ‘Willow’s Song’ from ‘The Wicker Man’ that sets our hairs on end. Letting her cellist lead the way with a deep, single bass note as her flautist takes flight and guitarist lends some order to the chaos, last song ‘Rocking Horse’ – the title track of her latest album – brings a surprising amount of balls and guts to the set as it builds, really letting its hair down as Kelli sways back and forth and eyeballs the crowd intently. It’s a powerful number, and one that leaves its lyrics ringing in your ear after the musicians finish on a sudden drop: ”Happy ever after / hear the devil’s laughter / who will be your master? / Rocking Horse.”

A brief chat with Kelli afterwards reveals that she’s selling an exclusive tour CD-R called Butterfly, ten songs including new band versions of some Rocking Horse tracks and several new songs including, yes, tonight’s ‘Butterfly’ and her cover of ‘Willow’s Song’. This entirely self-funded release (not under the One Little Indian umbrella, just her own name) I was told, “is paying for the tour, and is a taste of what we are doing live. It’s definitely it’s own little world away from the actual album, but still a good companion to it too.” There’s that independent, modern artist again. In the three weeks since we first met for a chat, Kelli has certainly put her money where her mouth is and delivered on all fronts. One of the most important things on her current agenda under the umbrella of the Rocking Horse release was to just play. Anywhere. Anytime. Tonight, in a tiny cabaret bar above a drag club in Soho, we got to see her do just that.

Léigh Bartlam
Myspace pages for Kelli Ali, Gitta and Cameo Sessions here, here and here.

   Los señores Dª. Ingrid y D. Paco de Hamburg, en compañía de sus amigos de Luxenburg Dª. Gitta y el Sr. Raymond, pasaron de visita por la Destilería de Julián Segarra de Chert para comprobar el sabor de los licores destilados de las plantas naturales.

or how Gitta’s attitude to death is still influencing me.

To listen to this post in French, click below

I don’t write much in the blog these days, too lazy, but Ronni’s post, And When I Die…where she also announces the death of Olive Riley, the Australian blogger who died at age 108, got me to remember.

Gitta was scared, I think, of anything relating to death, to the point that she considered it bad luck to even talk about it.
If you spoke badly of a dead person, which I enjoyed doing, just to rile her a bit, she’d do her spitting three times act, to ward off bad things.

Pooh, pooh, pooh! she would go! You don’t speak evil of the dead!

If I sat on the floor, which in my youth I loved to do –wish I were nimble enough to do it–, that was bad too and she’d grumble until I got up. It took me years before I understood that to her, sitting on the floor was wrong because of the expected behaviour of religious Jews, who will not shave or sit on a chair for a certain amount of time after a death in the family.

She firmly believed that cemeteries were not places for children and I had to fight her to go to my beloved grandmother Lea’s funeral, even though I was far from being a child when she died, since I had reached the ripe age of 16!
As for writing a will, the only reason that made her accept it was that she felt that thanks to that will, she could still control her children after her death.

I have told my daughter jokingly that when I die, she’d better make sure to keep my blogs online or else, my angry ghost would come and tickle her toes at night. I have even told her the general idea about my funeral –very general, mind you, as I don’t intend to organise anything myself. I hate organising parties, much less funeral parties!

And in a very remote corner of my limbic brain, I can hear Gitta whispering that it would indeed be bad luck to write a last post, while I am still alive.

Mais Maman, I won’t be able to do it once I’m dead!

and I can hear her say:

–Pooh, pooh, pooh! You don’t TALK about these things!