GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL HOW TO MAKE A MOVIE (AT A MUSIC FESTIVAL)
Making a feature film in four days is no mean feat; doing it amid the craziness of T in the Park is even more impressive. ‘It was really invigorating, because you know you can’t spend too much time on any one thing, so it’s all new stuff, you’re not doing the same thing over and over,’ says David Mackenzie, director of You Instead. The film is a rock’n’roll romcom that follows two handcuffed-together rockstars Adam (Luke Treadaway) and Morello (Natalia Tena). Here are Mackenzie’s tips on how to make the ideal festival film. If you’re filming outdoors in Scotland, make use of the weather. ‘You have to know that your story will be able to function in all conditions. There was a scene with mud in the script, and we were worried we were going to have to fake it, find water to pour down and churn it up and so on, but thankfully it was supplied naturally.’
Make sure you have your own extras on hand . . . ‘We had hoped that we could get 1500 punters to be in the background of one of our stage shots, but there was another performance on at the same time, so everybody just wandered off. Happily, we had about 50 extras who stayed loyal to the film throughout.’
moments where people looked at the cameras and messed up the shots, and we’ve put some of that stuff over the end credits. There were also a couple of people who made it look like the actors were being stared at because they were famous musicians, rather than because there was a bunch of cameras around them, so that worked nicely.’
Make something people can get excited about. ‘The really important thing for us is that the film is out at the cinemas before the festival season kicks off. We want people to go and see it to get them in the mood for going out to a festival. Even for me, having been involved in making and editing it for some time, it makes me want to go out to a music festival. If that’s what it does for people, that’s a great thing.’
Cast musicians. ‘Luke Treadaway and Natalia Tena both have musical experience – Luke’s first movie called Brothers of the Head involved him and his brother [twin Harry Treadaway] playing in some proto-punk band, and Natalia’s got her own band called Molotov Jukebox who are very good. Two of the songs in the film were both written by them.’ (Interview by Niki Boyle). the pair of
. . . but include the people who show ‘There were a few up anyway. You Instead, Cineworld, 7 Renfrew Street, Fri 25 Feb, 7pm & 9.15pm.
GLASGOW MUSIC AND FILM FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
WET SOUNDS This year’s Glasgow Music & Film Festivali
is bringing a concert of avant-garde compositionsi to a swimming pool. Neil Cooper packs his trunksi
The last time Wet Sounds floated into view was in Leith Baths in Edinburgh in July 2008. This time around, curator Joel Cahen has enlisted the skills of site-specific specialist Eric La Casa and electro-acoustic composer Adrian Moore to add a different element to the set-up, with audience members in Glasgow’s North Woodside Leisure Centre swimming pool experiencing music from two different sound- systems, one above water, the other below. ‘The event on Saturday will be pretty similar
to what we did in Edinburgh,’ says Cahen. ‘But on Sunday with Eric and Adrian we’re going to have the whole place lit up differently, so that that becomes part of the experience as well as hearing different sounds depending on whether you’re underwater or not. The mixer allows us to route the sound anywhere we like,
so it’s actually a split composition in two parts.’ Since Cahen began Wet Sounds in 2008 it has become a global operation, capturing the imaginations of novelty-seeking swimmers as well as more serious-minded avant-garde music buffs. ‘You normally only get to hear electro-acoustic work in an academic context,’ Cahen points out, ‘so to get Eric and Adrian inside a swimming pool is a real treat. I think we’re lacking in venues for listening to things that aren’t just concert venues for bands, but where you can go to listen outwith a purely social context. I like the possibilities of using the pool as a total art space, where it becomes a completely different world you’re experiencing.’ ■ North Woodside Leisure Centre, 10 Braid Square, 276 1510, Sat 19 Feb, 2pm & Sun 20 Feb, 5pm.
18 THE LIST 17 Feb–3 Mar 2011
Brian Reynolds, music programmer for the Arches, picks out the music events you won’t want to miss
‘As someone with indie Glasgow sensibilities, Mondo Morricone’s the event I’m most excited about. I first saw it ten years ago at Stirling’s Cowane Centre as a penniless student. Eugene Kelly and Isobel Campbell played with Duglas [T Stewart, of BMX Bandits] and Davie [Scott, of The Pearlfishers]. I bootlegged a copy of that gig, which I listened to loads. Then about eight months ago I approached Duglas to ask if he’d put the show back together, which he has done for the GFF.
Getting Goblin to come over is also pretty exciting. We had them booked last year, but they split up and we had to cancel it. We got in touch this year to ask if Claudio Simonetti [keyboards] would come over on his own, and they were like, ‘Actually, we’re back together again.’ So we’re flying them over from Rome, and one member from Toronto. We’ve borrowed a high-power projector from the GFT; that’ll be screened in the main arch. Opening for Goblin will be a new project called OV [Iain Cook, ex-Aereogramme, with p6, aka Phil from DeSalvo] where they’ll score films by Derek Jarman and David Lynch.
It’s good to have Zombie Zombie back. I love that band. When I’d asked them last year to do a tribute to John Carpenter’s films, they weren’t keen at first. But they changed their minds and did it, and it led to a record being released. They loved the process, and this year are doing the Battleship Potemkin score.’ ■ See page 62 for more GMFF previews, and listings from page 66 for information on events.