Views from the composer

I met with composer Alexis Bennett this evening in "The Wellington" pub in Waterloo. My now standard half an hour late, we discussed numerable ideas about the latest cut and where we would go from here, based on my ideas and what Alexis had sent me a week ago...

"Clowns and music... a long and complicated history. Damien's film brings forward a variety of different possibilities for a composer. A good starting point for me is Bonzo, who has an interesting struggle on his hands between trying to make a living out of being funny while suffering from alcoholism. So musically, what I hope to achieve is that same tension. For me, musical ideas can start with the sound of particular instruments, and Bonzo suggests various things to me, and because of his character these instruments don't necessarily go together very often: tuba, hurdy gurdy, piano, cello. I did also think of a fairground organ sound. At the moment I am throwing ideas around with these instruments in mind. At this point I also have to think about if and when we might have a recording session, and where this may take place."

So, we sat down and watched the film on my Iphone (whilst supping a couple of beers) and will now work out a deadline so we can hopefully get something to Cannes for the March deadline :-)

Pickup Shots.

On sunny Sunday mornings I usually prefer to sit in bed, preferably in a patch of sunlight and read the film news over tea and toast. Today however I was up and about early to meet Damien and Azul so we could shoot some pick up shots for Clowning Around.

It took forever to get the coin to roll in the right way and land where the camera needed it to be, but when it did we all smiled together, knowing how it would make the film work better. Other shots had their bugbears too, in a busy supermarket who wanted their checkout back our Jack-in-the-box wouldn't work properly, and to find a spare bit of pub floor to film on when there's a Tottenham/Arsenal match on and you're in Islington is just ridiculous. We got there though. And those shots will give us what we need to stimulate the rest and make it work easily.

Here's a couple of videos from before and after the shots from Damien and Myself just explaining what we were doing..