Final musings?

Things I’ll miss about Adelaide….

The Southern Cross – you can’t see it from UK.

Andrada’s blogs. A constant source of insight and wit, delivered regularly and as reliable as The Times of London used to be.

The work ethic and sound of the altos. (ok, ok, ALL the choir really….)

The absolute stillness of the water under Glenelg jetty on a moonlit night.

Kerri’s constant cheeriness and willingness to cover for my helplessness.

“That will be that for today”

Works of art depicting eccentric characters on Kangaroo Island.

Sophie’s deceptively gentle (but actually brutally destructive) table tennis style.

Half  bananas with Matt V.

The food at The Star of Greece.

Eddie being tickled by the word “feck”

Carrots pulled from the scr…. (thanks Matt C for that indelible image!)

The whooping warbling of the Ozzie Magpies outside my bedroom window.

Bear-headed violinists playing sentimental songs.

The coast road to Port Willunga.

Quentin’s excuses for NOT coming to choir… (I never had him down as a wuss!)

Paeans to the musical output of Doris Day.

Cornet solos in Bach cantatas.

Technicolour walls of fruit produce in the Central Market.

Lessons in  the Australian art of sucking coffee through a chocolate biscuit (thanks, Bryan!)

The roaring of swells of undulating water ripping beneath Glenelg jetty on cloudy nights.

Sonya’s sweetly soaring soprano sound….  (we missed it at the church!)

Miso soup in that Sushi place on Jetty Street.

Producers playing piano and singing songs penned by their writer, and singing in their own two part harmony on the recording.

Film guru residents of France cycling along the Adelaide highways. (Occasionally….)

The  graceful unflappability and organisational genius of Rebecca..

The extreme stereo spread in the sound of the waves breaking at Glenelg.

SAFC lunches – although in truth we needed MUCH more rhubarb…

The endless eucalyptus trees. Every street, every garden, every park and public place. Everywhere.

Vaunting proclamations of  Kingship at Table Tennis… (you know who I mean, Matt B.)

Everything but everything that was Filmlab.

FilmFab.. And everyone who was on it.

So, an aul Irish song of farewell for yiz all…

 

Kind friends and companions come join me in rhyme,

Come lift up your voices, in a chorus with mine,

Come lift up your voices, all grief to refrain.

For we may or might never all meet here again.

So here’s a health to company, for all things must pass

Let’s drink and be merry, all out of one glass,

And if e’er I should meet you by land or by sea, 

I will always remember your kindness to me.

 

Good luck labsters,

Much love

Paddy

Presentations -1, and counting…

Short singing session today, due to the immense pressures of the schedule, about which more below… But… I felt that the alto section has worked so hard through all the choir sessions that as a special treat, er…, I made them work harder. But as ever they took the new harmony line of SOtB in their stride, and made an utterly beautiful sound with the sopranos. I know it was beautiful because the tenors and basses sat there in dewy-eye thrall – some moved to write poetry and some to sighing private regrets over past misdemeanors… Well done the girls…

And well done the whole team when it comes to the Bach, the Germanic text is now sounding much less manic and much more German.

We’re so close to the end now. Culminations and fulminations abound, but everyone has settled down and prepared for tomorrow’s session. This afternoon (i.e. “this arvo”) was spent looking at the basis of the presentations, and one observation came up repeatedly so I thought it worth sharing here. It is the need for a relaxed but formal introduction – usually from the producer – which simply gives the basic details of who the team is and what they’re about. When this happened we in the audience felt reassured by the careful presentation of the necessary facts, and also felt secure that we were in the safe hands of someone who recognised our needs in that situation. We relaxed and looked forward to the next piece of information. Getting the presentations off to a good start is priceless, and it’s worth bearing in mind how much information you’ll be asking the panel to absorb over the course of the day. So engaging courtesies and a steady, well considered flow of key details will render your project more digestible. Making it easier for  the panel to draw what could be very useful conclusions about your own work.

Good luck to everyone!

Breakthrough!

Today we broke new ground. ALL the Bach sung through, in German, and mostly accurate 4 part harmony, withextended piano phrases to throw everyone off guard now included as an added extra. Wundershoen!

Ok it wasn’t the greatest rendition ever, and I’m not the best person to teach anyone how to pronounce German phrases, but weeks of intensive rumination and repetition have paid off. From here it’s a much easier step to polish the work up. We know how to do it, what it’s about, how the harmonic and melodic elements work with each other, and all it takes now is singing in – getting used to it, and making it better through practise and refinement.

Just like the project work  really. The teams’ ideas are similarly on the closest point of realisation yet. 

A push now in the last few days and everything should come together…

Musings on flights of fantasy.

Most of yesterday evening was spent mulling on the presentations. And on Sophie, Bryan and MattC’s film in particular. And on the sheer magnitude of the task they undertook.

After the screening and discussion I managed to get a few moments with Matt to say that I thought it shed a great deal of light on the film they actually want to make. It was clear what the acting style really needs to be, with the performers able to “be” and not just “do”. But that is easily achieved through a process of development and rehearsal with the cast. Considerations about written and improvised scenes were also clarified, and the team can have the best of both, for example by following Kubrick’s rubric of getting the scene safely shot and then allowing the actors to re-run it as an impro for the camera… What was most important yesterday was that the team are now in a position to see their film’s needs more clearly, and address them more easily.  This is the real success of their endeavours.

It’s ironic that in a film dealing with time, the clock was their most oppressive opponent, but to their great credit the team jumped in and got on with it.

They made me think of test pilots.

People who willingly put themselves at risk and get into a plane before there are any real guarantees of safety. These are the people who improve the safety of planes for the rest of us. They know the techniques of flying, but the specific ideas they’re testing are new and untried; and if these ideas work, or can be refined through the experiment, then the next version of the plane will be better.

We regularly get in planes without ever considering the bravery of those who flew them in development. 

Hats off to all test pilots….

Presentations v2.0

They did it again today.

Enough work for a month prepared in a week and delivered in the lecture room. As varied in style as the participants themselves, as unified in quality as their talents.

We had a studio theatre piece on character, a 23 minute film, a tour around conceptual art, a violin playing bear, and a snooper’s guide to audio surveillance. I meant it when I said that we should do this every Friday and admit a paying public. They would certainly get their money’s worth.

Next week has rushed upon us so quickly. The process will culminate in five working days.

The last push starts now…

Wisdom at last!!!

Found this today when researching something else. It’s by Kurt Vonnegut, from his I Love You Madame Librarian.

“Do you realize that all great literature–Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, The Bible, and “The Charge of the Light Brigade”–are all about what a bummer it is to be a human being?”

Perfect!

Mmmmm…

Been thinking about Butterfly Kiss ever since today’s screening…

I was most impressed with its bravery. The personal and professional bravery of the actors was stunning, but the bravery of the writer, Frank Cotterel Boyce was the most impressive for me. He invented characters that had undeniable life and energy- that were ordinary but spoke the poetry of the possessed. No kitchen sink realism here, the talk was of God and chunks from the bible, the story of Judith… simultaneously personal and mythic. The characters had a credible supernature to them. They were active – they did things, and the things they did were riveting.

I’ve been thinking about this as the participants beaver away at their own projects. I hope they can all go to the tougher places inside them, the way Nina Simone did to sing about  the devastating truth in her life, the way FCB explored the difficult terrain of Butterfly Kiss.

My favourite novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, once said “No art is possible without a dance with death.”  I love this idea, because if there is no dance with death then the work is, at best, an entertainment. Now there’s nothing wrong with entertainment. But there’s everything right about taking oneself to the darkest places and illuminating the kind of thoughts and feelings that really matter to us all. That make us understand our own humanity.

So that’s what I’m wishing for everyone one the course at the moment – total bravery.

Doo-doo, da doo-doo!

Another day of joyous musical sounds…

We went over the rainbow in two part harmony. The guys sang for the girls who reciprocated. The whole thing culminated in a glorious feast of improvised harmony and hand waving. The harmonies were on the mark and loud. The waving was definitely waving and not drowning… We learnt the rule of the big finish, and hammered it home in some style.

Then Matt and his song. He thrumming away on the guitar – hissing the tune like Nirvana unplugged. Two part backing vocals, backbeat knee slaps, lounge piano sound – the sheer bloody class of  Sara singing and the girls backing her up. Everyone contributed positively and with such grace. It’s a very good song. Record deal must be imminent. I’m afraid that Matt may have to face up to his stated fear/ambition of being some kind of rock star.. 

And then

JSB.

Ok we didn’t get to sing in German – but we will. Instead the 4 part harmony flowed well and Ashlee played us out with her regal cornet voluntary. (There was nothing voluntary about it, this being Filmlab – she was compelled to do it, but she did it beautifully). I’m looking forward to getting the Bach finished very soon. The whole thing. In German. 4 parts and now with added cornet solo at no extra cost to the South Australian taxpayer

Watch, and listen to, this space…

Bach

The spirit of the great man filled the room today.

It could be heard in the notes, the harmony and the dedicated efforts of all those who sang. We worked in a way that honoured his genius!

Tomorrow we’ll sing in his language!

Those presentations….

I’ve been mulling over last Friday’s presentations, waiting a few days so as not simply to express a heat of the moment enthusiasm for what was done. So this is a considered opinion, matured in the cellars of what passes for my brain… No gushy besottedness with the immediacy of the work. Not a simple knee-jerk reflex of elation mirroring their passion, commitment and bravery. Most certainly not the outpourings of the chair of the participants fan club, who might see every small step as a creative leap for projectkind. This is emotion recollected in tranquility, considered in the same way the participants considered their work and kept it to the point. Obviously not as brave as they were in standing up before their peers and baring their mindsouls.  But as clearly as concisely as possible….

They were fab.

All of them.