Ikimashou

Twelve days left to go, and that notebook I bought in Edinburgh two months ago is still blank, waiting to be marked come touchdown time in Narita. There's a few obstacles left to hurdle, but I'm in pretty good spirits just now. I've promised myself this blog will become more consistent, but it might take another six weeks until I get the bread for a new computer. In the meantime, wish me luck! Ganbatte!

April in brief

I haven't updated this blog for a while, and I'm sure this is the longest gap between posts since I've started it, but life has been fairly eventful, and between essays, exam revision, work placements and voracious reading sessions, I simply haven't found the time.
The biggest news since my last post is my acceptance onto the JET programme in Japan (teaching English), the levity of which didn't sink in for at least a whole week. When it did though, I felt thrilled and nervous at the same time, and am glad that my exertion learning kana has not been in vain. I'll fly out in late July or early August with 30lbs of luggage and a positive mental attitude. Soon enough I'll be able to call myself part of an ethnic minority for the first time in my life.
At the moment I'm staying with old friends in Edinburgh, occasionally pausing to admire the view of the castle from the front window while listening to a vinyl of Tom Waits' Rain Dogs.
My purpose for this visit is a work placement at The List magazine, at which my first week has gone well, culminating in a phone interview with the excellent Tina Malone from Shameless. She's got some mouth on her and gave a cracking interview, but the publisher seemed slightly nervous as to the sensitivity of its content so I hope it gets salvaged rather than slaughtered during the editing process next week.
Today has been relaxing though. I've decided I have put off riding a bike for far too long and so I submitted myself to public scrutiny this afternoon as I took to the Meadows on a borrowed (girls') bicycle. A few folk seemed a bit annoyed by my serpentine steering across the full width of the pathway, with consternated faces typical of the Scottish capital. Others were game though, offering the assistance of a push-along as I struggled uphill. Downhill on the other hand, was an exhilarating experience and made me re-evaluate how much of my childhood I must have wasted to Sonic the Hedgehog.
I also visited a lovely shop in Grassmarket called the Owl and Lion. It specialises in hand made notebooks, post cards and the like; I treated myself to one of a limited edition of 50.
It appears black until tilted to the light, where it reveals the image of several beautifully drawn crows. It was pricey but something to savour, and the plan is to put pencil to page on my first night in Japan. I also think it's endearing that it has a stamp inside it certifying its authenticity as a Scottish item. It'll make a change from keeping a journal on the internet all the time.
I'm off to watch a DVD now; my friend suggested Shogun Assassin, but I'm had my fill of old-school Japanese bloodshed after watching Golgo 13 the other night. It's between Marie Antoinette and Raging Bull right now. Decisions, decisions.

INDIENational podcast

This is the latest in a series of podcasts about cinema news by Colin and I which we created for our film magazine INDIENational. Hope you enjoy it.

In Prison My Whole Life Q & A - Marc Evans

Mumia Abu Jamal, a former Black Panther and current death row inmate, was incarcerated in the early 1980s for the shooting of Philadelphia officer Daniel Faulkner. There has been controversy ever since regarding what really transpired that evening, with claims ranging that the officer was attacking Abu Jamal’s brother in a race-related attack and that he was acting out of self defence.
On the same night the events transcribed, December 9th 1981, William Francome was born, and this coincidence sparked an interest in Jamal’s case as a boy. Francone’s apparent obsession in Jamal’s activism and growing fame has culminated in a new documentary project, In Prison My Whole Life, which was well received at last year’s Cannes as well as the London Film Festival.
The director of the film, Marc Evans (Snow Cake, My Little Eye) was present at a post-screening Q and A session with Cardiff University students, discussing his motivation for making the documentary.

What do you think the film is really about?

The line of inquiry with the film was to go on a journey, and ask questions and not to start off thinking, “well, we’re going to make a film about race, or the American justice system,” you know? I suppose essentially, and it’s a bit of a copout, but the film is about what Mumia represents, because in a way, he’s not quite Che Guevara, but he’s got that sort of mythical quality.
The journey for Will was to get to the bottom of who he was, what he means, and the repercussions of it. In a way, it does become a film about the death penalty, about race, and about potential solutions to social problems.

How did you get involved in the project?

Well to be honest, I didn’t know about the story and that was the point. Will is a computer geek of a certain age who has been spending a lot of time following the trials and tribulations of Mumia Abu Jamal online. It’s tinged with a bit of campaign and celebrity I suppose, inasmuch as it has Colin Firth as one of the executive producers on it, who I had worked with a few times in a few dramas, and he’s very political as a person and his wife (Livia Giuggioli) is very political, and they were at dinner with this kid who is a friend of a friend and Livia asked him what he was doing with himself, and he said he really wanted to do this Mumia film.
So she called me up and my initial reaction was that in this day and age of digital cameras, why couldn’t he go and make his own film, in the tradition of Supersize Me or similar personal odysseys. The truth of it was though that he wasn’t a filmmaker, he was just someone with an obsession and an interest in Abu Jamal for all the reasons stated in the film.

What appealed to you about Mumia initially?

I heard Mumia’s voice, and it’s not just the sort of voice and reaches out and grabs you and speaks to you, but also something that seems to me to have something heroic about it and something tragic about it as well. It felt like it was stuck in a timewarp – the sort of voice that belonged to Martin Luther King or the other great orators of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Did you find it hard to get people from the government or the prosecution to contribute their ideas to the film?

It’s a fair point and to be honest, it’s a campaigning film and Amnesty are behind it, so it would probably be disingenuous for me to say there was no bias there.
But from Will's point of view, from someone who isn’t a trained journalist used to penetrating difficult situations to get interviews in, we felt there was due diligence.
There’s a lot of Mumia fatigue (in Philadelphia), especially in relation to the death penalty issue, so on both sides there were people selected to speak about it, and we found some resistance from elements of his support groups as well as the “kill Mumia” factions. I feel there is just more to talk about from this side of things somehow. It’s the nature of opposition I guess.

Trent Sherwood is coming for you...

Get ready.

Grand Visions

Matt Johnson is a visual effects supervisor for Soho-based company Cinesite. He got his first break as a digital artist on the 1996 Michael Jordan vehicle Space Jam, and has worked his way up to become supervisor on films as diverse as V for Vendetta, King Arthur and most recently, The Golden Compass, which has now won both the BAFTA and Oscar awards for its effects. He tells me about his inspirations, aspirations and tribulations…

What inspired you to join the industry?

It’s kind of weird and a bit of a cliché but basically I first saw Star Wars when I was six and like many people, I can vividly remember going to see the film. I can remember going to the cinema with my dad, sitting there and coming out convinced I was either going to work in the film industry or become an astronaut.
My parents were very encouraging or indulgent, look at it how you will, and I was given a standard 8mm film camera when I was about seven and I started making little films with my Lego, making models and blowing them up.

What are the most impressive and most disappointing visual effects you have seen in the last 12 months?

I think the best visual effects probably just for technical accomplishment is Transformers. They just sit in very nicely and I know some people who worked on them. It’s tricky to say what the worst visual effects are because you don’t want to judge anybody’s work, but there was one particular shot, a matte painting shot in the Ang Lee film Lust, Caution that I remember standing out. I thought the film was terrific but I just remember that bit did take me out of the movie, maybe because I am looking for it more than some other people.

Do you think the human eye will always be able to tell the difference?

Well I supervised King Arthur, and that had at least 625 visual effects shots in it but the idea was that they didn’t really want it to be a big visual effects film. Some of the reviews said it was great to have a blockbuster that didn’t have lots of VFX.
It was shot in August in Ireland during the heat wave of 2003 and most of the time it was raining so every snowflake is CGI and the backgrounds are all ‘snowed up’ and CGI, as was the big frozen lake sequence - even the ground they are walking on is CGI. I think I prefer working on films where the audience hopefully won’t be aware of everything.

Could you explain a bit more about your new project Beverley Hills Chihuahua?

Sure. I discovered a shocking statistic the other day in TIME magazine which said that the American public spent 35.9 billion dollars last year on their pets. Now I’ve been to LA quite a lot and you do see these Chihuahuas and those kinds of dogs in elaborate outfits and Chanel dresses and jewellery, so this film essentially reflects that. Drew Barrymore’s voicing Jamie Lee Curtis’s pampered Chihuahua and I can’t give too much away but she is taken out of her Beverley Hills lifestyle and goes to Mexico, where she is helped by a German Shepard voiced by Andy Garcia. It’s one of those sort-of road movie comedy things…with talking dogs in.


Does it bother you when a project you’ve worked on receives a lacklustre critical response, such as Underdog or Eragon?

It goes with the territory. Like I said earlier, most of the films I personally enjoy tend not to have digital effects, so you know what you’re getting into. I mean, a movie with a talking dog [Underdog] is never going to win the academy award for best picture.
The films that we tend to work on with digital effects tend to be ones that are better received by the general public than by the critics at large, so it’s rare but enjoyable when a film comes along that receives both critical and box office success.

What is the most satisfying sequence you’ve worked on?

I think for various reasons it is probably the ice battle in King Arthur because it really was a sequence that was made for visual effects. It was shot in Ireland in the summer of 2003, and at the time stuff like that hadn’t really been done.
I think it was either Variety or The Hollywood Reporter that said it was one of the best cinematic fight sequences of history or something and it was just like, wow, you know, that there were these 275 shots done back to back, and literally everything involves visual effects.
It sounds a bit poncey but when I was at the premiere of the movie, it got a round of applause at the end, and there was just a lot of stuff involved in making it work.

What is your favourite film of yours to watch?

It’s terrible, but it takes me a long time to sit and watch them and enjoy them. I haven’t seen The Golden Compass yet for example. I’ll probably give that another 6 months or so before I watch it. V for Vendetta I quite enjoyed, and I was watching a bit of Shanghai Knights the other night and that was quite a fun film to work on as well.

Is the reason you get sick of seeing them because of the heavy workload involved?

Yeah, it’s very, very hard to disengage your brain. I was at the BAFTAS and I wouldn’t say it was painful - that’s too strong a word - but all the memories came flooding back, and I just thought I’d got over it and put it all behind me only to sit and have someone talk about it all over again. It’s just very hard to see something that you know so well, it’s nice to have a bit of separation.
I suppose it’s a bit like writing an essay at college or something; once you’ve done it, you’ve done it, and the last thing you want to do is read it again.

Regarding The Golden Compass, how do you split duties as a VFX supervisor on a project of that scope between yourself and your colleagues (Sue Rowe and Ben Morris)?

Most of the films I’ve worked on I’ve been the overall supervisor so I’m left in charge of everything but on a film like The Golden Compass, because it’s so huge they need a lot of different companies to get involved in the effects, so in that case Ben and his team would do the polar bears, and then we would do a lot of the environments and other characters and Rhythm and Hues in the States would do the monkey and things like that so basically we’re trying to play to peoples strengths and interests.

Do you do a lot of compositing?

Yeah, I used to be a compositor when I first started. But I mean, we would do [on The Golden Compass] everything from full creatures to fur shading as well as creating London and Bolvangar. I tended to do a lot of work with the environment stuff. I don’t know – I guess they thought I did ice for King Arthur so I could do it for Bolvangar.

Was the Bolvangar sequence the most complicated for Cinesite?

It sounds glib but they’re all complicated for different reasons. All the stuff with the demons in was complicated, just because there was so many of them and they involve technically complicated things like fur, but I think Bolvangar was complicated because we had to a) maintain the look and b) do background work that would then be given to Ben’s guys [at fellow London house Framestore CFC] to put the bear in and so the logistics of that scene were complicated and there were a lot of shots to keep track of.

Have you ever clashed with directors or got frustrated with production teams who don’t understand visual effects?

I think the thing about that is, they shouldn’t have to, as visual effects supervisor it is your job. If you’re doing your job properly you should be able to steer them and guide them towards what it is that they want, because at the end of the day you’re there to realise their vision and get it up on the screen.

Truths About Your Workforce

“See I was talking about it with a guy in work, you know, about doing the LPC, and he was suggesting IT, because they’ve got these training programs where they’ll pay your fees and all the rest of it. But then, even if I do my LPC, I’ve still got to get my training contract, and that just seems like a lot of work. In truth, I just want to level my dwarf. Please, just all of them, leave me the fuck alone and let me get to level 70.”

The commanding lyrics of Electric Eel Shock

Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide, yeah

Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll, yeah...



...give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll, yeah

Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll
Give me Suicide Rock & Roll, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah