End of an era ...

Last weekend Tim and I headed over to Nene Valley Railway for the very last data 'harvest' from our time-lapse camera there - attached to their station awning as part of our Almanac project. You can see Tim up the ladder here disconnecting the external camera as a train comes in. Each of the five cameras are placed at film location sites in East Anglia ... there's a wide choice of both TV series and films shot at NVR, from 'Jim'll fix it' to 'Octopussy' and 'Peter's Friends'.

Many thanks to all the staff at the Railway for their patience with the project - especially to Gary who has had to live with the computer end of the system in his flat for the last year! Originally due to be installed for one calendar year this one was actually in place for 2 years by the time we took it down. In that time half of the station platform area has actually been rebuilt and the 500 images captured each day show every detail of the changes from blooming flower beds, to the 'turntable' for trains (I'm sure that's not the technical term) coming to life.

Posted Friday 21st April, 2006 at 12:05 pm by Nina

Somewhere - the shield of export!

Plans to launch a Czech / English subtitled version of our film Bata-ville next month are taking us down some bizarre alleyways. Last week I sold a bit (more) of my soul for some funding, by attending an 'Export' course to encourage me to see our new 'product' as financially viable.....

For an artist, being on a Department of Trade & Industry course and pumped with business & management speak for two days is actually rather exotic and fascinating. Judging from my blase classmates though, for the average business person it's a bit of a busman's holiday. Nevertheless, we had a laugh arranging the 49 steps of 'market entry' for any new export product (ours was 'golf holidays for European visitors" - incredibly relevant for my projected DVD sales), and I even managed to get a business man to the point of giving up his deskjob by simply describing my average working week attractively. Lunch was pretty lavish considering, so I really couldn't complain.

The most complicated exercise was coming up with a 'shield of export' for your proposed product and company. The pressure was on for me, what with my profile within the group as the 'arty one'. As it was, the only distinguishing factor of my effort was the sight '3D' effect of my drawing. The men that were launching shower enclosures in Dubai and the man that was marketing steam-boat trips (I'm not making this up) did rather well, though a globe in the shields' centres became a shortcut to articulating 'world domination' as ones ultimate ambition in life. I thought 'world domination' was a given in any business scenario, so had downscaled my own ambition (having been coached for 15 hours on realism - not my specialism usually) to getting Bata-ville in to cinemas, TVs and into the media.
I'll leave you to decipher the rest!

Posted Sunday 16th April, 2006 at 7:15 pm by Karen

Uncle Mike, the Mayor and Me ...

Many thanks to (Uncle) Mike Ostler for organising and introducing the Grays Bata-ville screening on Monday night. Despite the spooky Thurrock jinx screening glitch and unplanned interlude, I had a wonderful time. There was an excellent local turn out, Mike did a great job on the introductions, the cinema is lovely, the Mayor (who's also in the film) came along, the B.R & R.C put on a special display, I sold some DVDs, AND I got given our T.O.S.C.A award ... what more can a girl ask for of a night out in Grays.

Actually I almost forgot the fish & chips I had during the screening was also excellent!

Posted Wednesday 12th April, 2006 at 5:15 pm by Nina

Check out our T.O.S.C.A

Hey Karen take a look at our T.O.S.C.A (AKA Thurrock's Own Special Cinema Award) presented to me by international man of mystery Mike Ostler (Bata-ville passenger and cinema fanatic) on Monday night. I'm going to place it next to our certificate from the four "Worlds Biggest Liars" in the Somewhere trophy cabinet!

Posted Wednesday 12th April, 2006 at 5:08 pm by Nina

Coming soon ... Somewhere the Shop!

Many thanks to Joanna Clark & Ellie Clark for their assistance with the compulsory photo shoot! Seen here modelling the two remaining TV swansong kids T-shirts ...

Posted Wednesday 12th April, 2006 at 10:41 am by Nina

Wild man of Orford ... & Unknown White Male!

Just wanted to quickly flag up quite an interesting "Long View" programme on Radio 4 this morning & repeated tonight at 9.30 (or of course on listen again) abut the Wild Man of Orford and contemp. docs on "extraordinary people with extraordinary bodies"!

Anyway it's always nice to hear about Orford our favourite Almanac site and Oysterage ... not to mention the link across to the amazing Orfordness ...

Enough links in one posting, I'm also hoping this picture will encourage the arrival of spring.

Actually I have one more and it's not even related! I just missed the opening night of Unknown White Male a doc. I want to see ... having realised I missed the launch I looked at their film site blog and forum. If (like us) you are distributing your own film the highs and lows they are experiencing will be very familiar! Right I better get on with organising our next screening ...

Posted Tuesday 4th April, 2006 at 10:07 am by Nina

And the prize for most remote screening of Bata-ville so far goes to...

...the enterprising Oxen Park Cinema Club, started by a group of cinephiles in a remote hamlet here in my adopted homeland, the Lake District.

I have screened a short with them before and this time was invited to screen Bata-ville with a Q & A session afterwards, in the same remote church hall that Grizedale Arts had hosted a memorable evening with the venerable Ken Russell last summer. After Lisa and I had sat outside the wrong venue for 15 minutes chatting, I powered up my laptop and discovered in fact we were meant to be at an even more remote church hall - with 10 minute to go!
The rain was streaking down but by driving at 80 mph down country tracks (a speciality of mine), and ringing up Adam for directions from home (knowing that noone at the church hall would be getting a mobile signal) we made it - just in time to prevent the waiting audience from watching the lamentable directors interview on the DVD to fill time.

The dozen or so people there were most forgiving, and presented me with a lovely framed film poster they had made for the event - which was really touching. As I have watched the film countless times, I snuck back through the mire to my car for 90 minutes, passing the time on my laptop and feeling strangely moved that here I was in the middle of nowhere, with an audience for my film that outnumbered many we have had in cities. Next time I feel despondant and cut off out here in the sticks I must remember Oxen Park Cinema Club, and the energy and dedication of its members.

PS
To continue the charideeee theme from Nina (below) - the Club is also hosting a further Bata-ville screening to raise money for the Coniston Water Festival (in which Nina and I did another of our Knock Out performances)
It's at the John Ruskin School in Coniston on Thurs. April 13th at 8pm, where we'll also be joined by a group of Czech orienteers who are staying at the school - giving us another dimension no doubt (and some better beer?!) to the Q & A at the end....

Posted Friday 31st March, 2006 at 2:10 pm by Karen

All for Charity ...

I'm not sure I need to plug it here as Mike is already doing a great job of selling tickets, but there's a Thurrock screening of Bata-ville coming up:

Thameside Theatre,Grays, Thurrock Essex
Monday the 10th of April 2006 at 7.45pm
Tickets £3 (concessions £2) Box Office 01375 383961
This is a charity screening presented by Thurrock Heritage Forum in support of
Bata Reminiscence & Resource Centre
Free tickets for any Bata-ville passengers attending!

In addition Karen's also hosting a charity northern screening this week with
Oxen Park Cinema Club.

Posted Tuesday 28th March, 2006 at 11:45 am by Nina

Terror Hound of Bata-ville

Back home and back to Bata-ville (as the Thurrock Gazette is now apparently calling East Tilbury, in last week's headline "Terror Hound of Bata-ville"). Last Saturday was the Bata Resource and Reminiscence Centre open day where I joined Bata-ville old comrades (as 'uncle' Mike Ostler calls them) for a get together.

As usual Fred had lots of new material to show me, but not as much as our new Bata-ville friend Felix (as mentioned in the previous open day entry) the collection pictured opposite is a fraction of the items acquired since we last saw him (!) The viewmaster 3D images of Zlin were particularly good.

There was also a stall in the library run by Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation, which was very interesting. Not least as they confrimed that no actual plans have been passed for East Tilbury as yet and any that one sees or hears about are in effect just proposed bids from different developers. The final detailed master plan for East Tilbury is yet to actually be drawn up.

Posted Tuesday 28th March, 2006 at 11:26 am by Nina

Summercamp! & Kentwell

We wrapped up our SXSW stay with one of our festival highlights Summercamp! (which sadly I can't track down a website for, as it had a lovely animated credits sequence I was hoping to see on the web). The directors Bradley Beesley & Sarah Price are obviously friends of SXSW, and had apparently run a development session about the film at a previous conference - which sounded interesting.

Anyway they and the film received a warm reception, including the rather goofy intro they did leading the audience in a camp song! The film is really nicely shot, and you feel very close to both nature and the kids portrayed. I won't give the plot away but let's just say of the 100 kids there they picked two of the best to follow - especially the heart breakingly quirky Holy Stevenson.

We were especially interested in the film as it's obviously a 'walled city' doc in the same way as our film about Kentwell will be - or indeed as the Bata-ville bus was. At the final Q&A we were all ears for how they'd dealt with parental consent (97/100 kids parents agreed) working with the camp hosts etc. Anyway an enjoyable film - if it makes it to the UK go along and transport yourself back to cubs/brownies.

Sadly our day went rather down hill once we departed on a delayed flight from Austin, I won't bore you with the details but let's just say American Airlines will not be the future Somewhere airline of choice. We eventually managed to crawl back to London via Chicago & Manchester just in time to unpack our Tudor costumes for the first Kentwell open day.

This is where everyone who wants to attend this years main re-creation event has to go along to Kentwell for the day and queue! For lunch, costume checks, Tudor nicknacks, and the infamous interviews with Patrick - head of the 21st century Kentwell Hall. These interviews dictate both your acceptance and your role - and no one is excused - hence our decision to detour to Manchester rather than miss the event.

So we made it, and it was fun to see everyone we met last year ... Somewhere is still on schedule to shoot the crazy 'Kentwell Summercamp!' that is the Tudor re-creation.

Our Somewhere @ SXSW film festival snaps are now available for the curious in the background section of the site.

Posted Wednesday 22nd March, 2006 at 12:13 pm by Nina