31 August 2013 - Teaser Trailer 1

And here it is - my first teaser trailer for The Thrill of Love.

I wanted to keep it very simple, just using the manipulated smoke footage overlaid with the opening soundtrack compiled by Fred and finishing off with a dynamic visual to accompany the gun shots.

Unfortunately, I lost the first attempt at this - my poor MacBook Air was having a rather hard time with the rendering demands of Final Cut Pro - so had to recreate it from scratch on the iMac. And just as well - the resulting video was soo much better.

Here it is:

21 August 2013 - Night and the City

A British noir-thriller, set in 1950s London, one that I discovered when seeking out available movies set in the 'Ellis era'. A far cry from the high spirited and optimistic comedies from Ealing Studios, this 20th Century-Fox production is strictly inhabited by the seedier side of the capital, the place of shady drinking dens, prostitutes and underworld wrestling establishments.

According to website Film Noir of the Week, director Jules Dassin:

"wanted to present London as an urban nightmare with night for night shooting at a time when it was still difficult to generate sufficient light for extended night scenes, especially those filmed in long shot. Dassin, however, received the cooperation of many London businesses who agreed to leave their lights on at night so as to assist the filming. As a result, Night and the City is one of the strongest examples of film noir expressionism and it presents London as an urban hell - a world of dark shadows, desperate individuals and derelict buildings. Tourist landmarks such as Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, along with other parts of the city, were transformed into a consistent vision of urban hell, a perfect encapsulation of a dark, threatening world permeated by betrayal, fall guys and moral corruption".

http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2007/08/night-and-city-1950.html

Apart from being a highly compelling thriller with an intense performance from Richard Widmark, the details of the era interested me. In particular, the scenes set in the 'Silver Fox Club', which I can imagine being similar to one of the clubs that Ruth Ellis would have worked in, with proprietress Helen Nosseross (Googie Withers) instructing her girls on how to behave with the 'gentlemen' patrons. Interesting also that Helen's repellant and abusive husband Phil is exactly how I imagine Morrie Conley would have been - I wonder if perhaps the casting for this character was based on Mr Conley?

Night and the City is certainly one of the toughest films I have seen of this particular era, pulling no punches (pun intended or is it) in its bleak portrayal of post-war London. And it will help me when I start to compose the imagery that will form the projected backdrop for the Player's production of The Thrill of Love.

10 August 2013 - The Smoke Box

Amanda Whittington's 'The Thrill of Love' is set predominantly in smoky London night clubs - specifically, The Court Club where Ruth Ellis worked and The Little Club which she was given the opportunity to run by Morrie Conley. It makes sense, then, that the set for the play should be smoked to some degree - not possible at the YMCA Mike Barlow theatre unfortunately, due to regulations*.

So, how to create a smoky atmosphere without using actual smoke on set? Step forward the videographer! For the backgrounds to these club-set scenes director Jules requested some smoky images overlaid against the projected backdrop image. Unimpressed with YouTube smoke scenes, I briefly considered getting a plug-in for the video editing program Final Cut Pro which would render CG smoke effects of different configurations - for a price, of course (usually quite a high price too!). Ultimately I opted for the cheap, cheerful and low-tech approach -  create and video the smoke myself.

Actual cigarette smoke being out of the question (kicked that habit a fair few years ago!) I chose the next best thing - incense sticks, provided by Fred. So I spent that Saturday morning painting the interior of an archive box matt black, fixing it to a workmate bench in my landlord's garage and poking adjustable cliplights through the top for illumination. Setting the Canon DSLR frame-rate to 50fps, I lit the sticks and let them do their thing. I must admit I did get rather spaced out on the fumes...

The results were rather wonderful; the smoke rose in the most beautiful twirls and settled into a pleasing mist in the background as others appeared, picked out by the rays of the halogen light. Given that the aspect ratio of the screen is approximately 1:3 (ie. long and thin), the images had to be captured by the camera in portrait format (and would need further slimming down in post). Importing the images into Final Cut then allowed me to slow the motion of the smoke and adjust the contrast to reduce digital noise and refine the appearance of the tendrils.

I am so pleased with the results I am even considering using them in a video project of my own at some point. However, firstly I need to overlay these smoky images on a suitable background. Better start working on those next...

Here be images of the smoky genesis, taken with my trusty iPad Mini.

*Not entirely sure what brought this about - something to do with reckless use of a smoke machine at some point - allegedly.

7 August 2013: Sniffing Dollies or The Curse Of The Shower Curtain

'Glorious!' was the Cardiff Players first venture into the world of the projected image. The screen that the images were to be projected upon was fashioned from a white shower curtain, pulled tightly on a frame of piping and attached with bungees. It wasn't ideal - it proved very cumbersome to bring on and off stage as needed - but it served its purpose and worked well.

So well in fact, the role of projected images was ramped up for the next production, the Christmas panto 'Robin Hood'. For this, the screen would be in constant use, with projected images integrated into the scenery and providing video effects at key moments. Fred constructed a rigid wooden frame to which another shower curtain was firmly attached and it was mounted onto the set, flanked by flats, the projector (and me as projectionists) squarely behind it. (To this day, I have no idea how the panto looked.)

Seven months later and the technical demands of Jules's production of 'The Thrill Of Love' will push the boundaries of the projected image even further - and consequently a shower curtain will simply no longer cut it. The screen will form part of the background (and again be in constant use), but be in the unorthodox aspect ratio of 1:3 (i.e. long and narrow) and video inserts will have to be composed accordingly (more of that later...).

Therefore, a higher quality screen was in order - and Fred, through her tireless research, found the perfect one. She sourced a professional quality screen that would not only phase out any projector hot spots (the curse of the shower curtain) but render a bright image with a viewing angle of 120 degrees (essential given that the screen will be at a slight angle to the audience). It also is unaffected by ambient light, which was proved when I projected a test image onto it and it was bright and visible - and this was with the auditorium and stage worker lights on too. One of the problems of 'Robin Hood' was the stage lights bleaching out the image on the screen. No problem with that here, it would seem!

The material arrived in a very long cardboard tube and appeared to be a just an unassuming piece of grey vinyl type material with a very particular smell. Fred and I agreed that it reminded us of camping holidays, camp beds, etc. while Bella said it reminded her of the back of doll's heads. Which kind of gives an indication of her childhood obsession...

Being a large piece of material, it had to be cut in half for the required screen size. What followed was a harrowing fifteen minutes as Fred, with surgical precision, rendered the piece in two. But it was worth it, and the excitement when it was hung and the first images projected onto it was palpable. Oh yes, this is going to be a very special production indeed...

The first incision...

No turning  back now... 

The screen hung in position... roughly.

2 August 2013: Yield to the Night

Released a year after her execution, this stylised and highly claustrophobic anti-hanging film bears a high resemblance to the Ellis case - a link that was denied by the film-makers at the time. Watching it, and having read the opening chapter of "A Fine Day For A Hanging', it's easy to see the association; Diana Dors plays Mary Hilton, a young blonde woman convicted of murder and condemned to hang for murder by shooting a person to death... Sounding familiar? Also the murder was motivated by passion - although the victim here is female, love-rival Lucy Carpenter, the cause of death of Hilton's object of affection, Jim Lancaster.

Photographed in steely monochrome and directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Yellow Balloon), the film, while sometimes melodramatic, is highly compelling and increasingly harrowing, mainly set in Hilton's cell as she recalls the events that led to her incarceration. Thompson uses the image of the single, unshaded light bulb as a recurring motif throughout the film, which references the Ellis case; Ruth complained about the light to the wardens who kindly fashioned a lampshade out of card for her comfort (strictly against regulations!). The film also explores the relationship between Hilton and her wardens, particularly Matron MacFarlane (Yvonne Mitchell). The scene between the two women where MacFarlane builds a house of cards during their conversation only to destroy it at the end serves to symbolise Hilton's predicament; hope for reprieve, precariously built, can be so easily dashed.

The film also marked an acting departure for the young Diana Dors, hitherto playing glamorous roles given her 'British Marilyn' status, here dulled down and haggard in her prison scenes. She brings a steely-eyed intensity to her role, a side of her that I have never seen before, a performance she hoped would make her be taken seriously as an actress. The scenes which feature her in close-up, face directed to camera while her voice-over exposes her inner turmoil are some of the most effective in the film. Dors discovered she was pregnant when Yield To The Night announced, but she knew this would be an opportunity that she simply couldn't put aside; consequently, she opted for abortion and not for the first time either.

The film was released in the US with the the rather more sensational title 'Blonde Sinner" (and check out the promotional poster below), obviously playing on the overt sexuality of its star. The strap line 'The Man-By-Man Story Of A Lost Soul!' is somewhat misleading and I should imagine that stateside audiences may have felt rather disappointed by the intense prison drama before them, when they were expecting a blonde-fuelled raunch-fest.

Yield To The Night was nominated for three BAFTAs and the Palme d'Or for J. Lee Thompson at Cannes in 1956.

31 July 2013 - Tabula Rasa

Wednesday evening: my first proper techie meeting with director Juliet Lake and technical director Fred Skilton at the Mike Barlow YMCA theatre in Cardiff. The stage a blank space beckoning before us, all evidence of the previous production (Much Ado About Nothing) disappeared. Onto this blank canvas plans were drawn, set ideas discussed, obstacles and challenges noted and technical requirements announced.

Onto the black paint of the stage the outline of the main set was drawn in chalk, like some bizarre murder scene. Memories of 'Glorious!' were rekindled while raiding the hatch, of dangling precariously out of it, all in the name of entertainment. That former show gave us a good grounding in what was achievable technically on the stage. The Thrill promises to take all that a step further...

31 July 2013 - Let Him Have It

Working my way through Carol Ann Lee's excellent 'A Fine Day For A Hanging', I noticed mention made of the Derek Bentley case. Bentley, a young man with developmental problems, was hanged in January 1953 for the murder of Police Constable Sidney Miles during a bungled attempt to burgle a confectionery warehouse in Croydon. It was, in fact, Christopher Craig who fired the gun but, being only sixteen at the time, he was spared the death sentence. Unfortunately, Bentley who was just of adult age (despite being diagnosed of having the mental age of 10), was unanimously found guilty of murder and faced the rope. Similar to the Ruth Ellis case, this attracted numerous protests and calls to abolish the Death Penalty in UK.

I found among my numerous DVDs a copy of the forgotten 1991 film Let Him Have It directed by Peter Medak and featuring a young Christopher Eccleston as Bentley. The title refers to the words allegedly shouted by Bentley to Craig on the rooftop of the warehouse, when Detective Sergeant Fairfax demanded that Craig surrender his revolver. It was hotly debated whether these words meant "give him the gun" or "shoot him!" during the trial. Both Bentley and Craig denied these words were ever uttered.

The film, produced and shot in the UK, was originally offered to Alex Cox who planned to film it in black and white. Apparently the producers weren't too happy about this and it was subsequently offered to Hungarian-born Medak, who had directed The Krays the year before. It's a solid little low budget drama filled out with a great British cast including Tom Courtenay, Eileen Atkins and Tom Bell, and Eccleston is impressive in his movie debut. The film seems to have disappeared off the radar very quickly (well, it is low budget, British and pretty depressing - what do you expect), but for me it was interesting to watch again, in light of my research into the Ellis-era and highlighted the changing attitudes toward the Death Penalty in the 1950s.

I just wish they hadn't included the aerial shot at the close of the film - those distant views of early 1990s saloon cars kinda broke the illusion for me...