Into Glorious Unknown Territory

Ah, Florence Foster Jenkins - glad to make your acquaintance, madam! For the uninitiated, she was an American amateur operatic soprano who was known, and ridiculed, for her lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, aberrant pronunciation of libretti, and overall poor singing ability. (Thanks, Wikipedia). And she is the subject of Peter Quilter’s (he of End of the Rainbow fame) 2005 play ‘Glorious!’, dramatising the tuneless diva’s later years in the 1940s as she engages the jobbing pianist Cosmé McMoon to accompany her  for her compellingly catastrophic chirruping. 

I had never heard of Ms. Jenkins or Quilter’s play (though I loved End of the Rainbow when it came to Cardiff earlier in the year) and was intrigued when I was approached by Cardiff Players to produce some video backgrounds for their production of it. So, borrowing a copy of the play, I read it en-route to my sister’s house in Aldershot... and got some very funny looks when I was helplessly giggling away to myself while reading it in Leigh Delamere services. It was really rather amusing. And from then on I was hooked.

I was over the McMoon to be invited to join the project and asked if I could be of any further assistance - for instance projecting the images on the night, perhaps. Little did I know what this would lead to; before I knew it I found myself painting props, hanging lights and just generally helping out in the pre-production. 'Glorious!' was proving to be one of the Players most ambitious projects in respect of props, furniture, scene and costume changes, as well as incorporating projected video on a custom made screen. Pretty daunting stuff that came with all manner of challenges, including one truly stressful evening when the digital projector decided it didn't want to be involved thank you very much and malfunctioned. This with only a few days to go before opening night. Luckily, a replacement was found very quickly and proved to be a much better projector with a much brighter image that wouldn't be drowned out by the stage lights. See? Things happen for a reason!

The two sequences that I shot with members of the cast and crew were great fun to do and the results were great, thanks to video capabilities of the Canon DSLR. As well as this, I also got the opportunity to research, incorporate and edit existing archive footage of 1940s New York and Carnegie Hall, create a title sequence (see below) in iMovie and become familiar with the capabilities of the Keynote program which proved invaluable, not only for cueing the video slides but also for creating some rather snazzy intertitles and credits (ultimately not used but were fun to create anyway).

Involvement with a theatre group was all virgin territory for me, but I learned a lot about theatre terminology during this time. For example: you know that flat thing that the actors perform on? That’s a ‘stage’!... ooooh...

Joking aside, the experience has been a steep (and very intense) learning curve for me, but one that has proved to be immensely rewarding. I guess I have never been satisfied just being a passive consumer of entertainment and have always secretly craved to be involved in its production somehow. Like a lot of things in my life, the opportunity came about when I was least expecting it. It also introduced me to some wonderfully committed individuals (that’s not individuals who should be committed) who made up the cast and crew of 'Glorious!' They have been so welcoming and encouraging, and really appreciated what I had created for them. And even though I never actually got to see the performed play (too busy backstage, finger poised nervously over the MacBook’s spacebar) it was a genuine pleasure to be involved in this most fabulous of productions.

To quote Cosmé's last line of the play: "Glorious!"


Here is the opening video, to the strains of the great lady herself singing Adele's Laughing Song from Strauss's 'Die Fledermaus'. It's pretty painful.

A Liaison In A Public Lavatory*

Ha! Gotcha. Never underestimate the power of a provocative title. Lets just see if this entry can outstrip the current holder of most viewed of mine so far.

The title is actually relevant (as well as being a being a bit of a troll for attention!) as it concerns the theme of a video project that I proposed to undertake when I first started study at the Newport College of Art and Design - as it was known back then.

Rewind... 1995.

Relocating from from Hull to Newport in South Wales, I was all fired up to connect with like-minded students who wanted to create new forms of storytelling in film, push boundaries, generate excitement, stimulate ideas, all that stuff. I was horrified on arrival to find that the majority of the students were 10 years younger than me (I was an old man of 28 at the time) and were all little Tarantino-wannabies (this was when Pulp Fiction was still fresh in their non-expandable little minds).

I was, however, resolutely undeterred and and determined to make a go of this opportunity to expand my limited knowledge of film-making. The first group project we were set was a short video, any theme or genre, with just the title given: 'Intrusion'.

The idea that formulated in my mind was perhaps a little racy for the innocent youngsters around me, but I thought fuck it - what's the point of being here if I can't produce challenging material? The scenario was simple and summarised thus:

A public lavatory. Five men stand at the urinal. The camera focuses on the man on the far left. The presence of the others makes him nervous and he has trouble urinating. He glances behind at the cubicles; they are all engaged. A voice-over expresses his anxiety. One by one, the three men in the middle leave after finishing, but the man on the far right stays. The man on the left looks behind again; the cubicles are still engaged. He begins to notice that the man on the right is taking his time there. They both glance at each other. The man on the left looks away instantly, embarrassed. The voice-over speaks of his growing anxiety but also hints at an implicit interest. The other man continues to look but remains silent. The man on the left’s anxiety grows more intense; the sound of a tap dripping constantly in the background grows louder and more rhythmic, signifying his discomfort but also his uncomfortable excitement in the situation. Just as it looks as if one of them is about to make a move, there is a sound of a lock being released from behind – a cubicle has been vacated. The man on the left glances behind at it, indecisive. Fade.

(I hasten to add this scenario wasn't extracted from experience. Honest, guv.)

I ran the idea past the tutor who thought it would make a good, atmospheric piece that explored the given theme in a fresh way.  Added to this Clarence Place, the large technical institute building that then housed NCAD had the most wonderful toilets with proper Victorian urinals, tiles, the works. It would have been perfect; filming could take place right there in the college without the need to take equipment out on location. Everything was there just waiting to happen.

Except...

The two guys that I was assigned to work with were clearly uncomfortable with the whole idea. To be fair to them, they were just out of school (heads filled with Tarantino) and had probably never heard of cottaging or had a clue that that kind of thing went on. Well, at least not without a lot of gunfire, swearing, bubblegum pop and someone's ear being sliced off.

So, for the comfort of these dear youngsters, the idea was dropped. Instead we used one of theirs,  about a woman seeking refuge in a church from her abusive spouse, who turns up to coerce her into coming back home. A potentially good idea, with some interesting themes that could have been explored. Except not the way did it. They spent a lot of time titting about in the church we were supposed to be filming in and dragging their feet in the edit suite, so I let them get on with it. It would have looked shit anyway.

Like all my ideas though, this one has not been discarded and currently resides in my ever expanding folder 'LIST OF PROJECTS, REAL, IMAGINARY, PROPOSED AND SOME THAT WILL NEVER EVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY' on the Mac.

And who knows? It may yet be made. Clarence Place still stands, the luxury apartment plans on hold as far as I can tell. Here's hoping those wonderful toilets still survive.

Diolch i chi am ddarllen!



*I was actually going to title this entry "Sex In Toilets', but I don't think Blogger would have been too happy with that...