Posted on May 9, 2003
Baljeet, a friend of mine from yesteryear, sent me an email today with the subject line “Be Happy Today”. It was one of those ‘chain mail’ jobbies that tries to draw you out of your cynical self and ‘spread a little happiness’ amongst your email friends. It worked!
…
There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey,
not a destination. So work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never
been hurt, and, dance like no one’s watching.
…is how the last paragraph ends … ahhhh!
The only problem is that I’ve always danced like there’s no one watching; even if there had been anybody watching they would soon have stopped. In fact, they may even have been tempted to take out a court injunction against me forbidding me to dance anywhere near a built up area… but I digress.
Actually it’s not just because of that email that I’m feeling happy today – it’s just that today is a good day. Not only is the weather in beautiful Brum, (and I’m not being sarcastic, you cynics), bright and mild, the world at large seems just that little bit better. India and Pakistan are sort of talking to each other, (how long before an Indian Cricket team plays in Pakistan I wonder – that’s the real test), there’s the chance of some sort of movement in the Israel Palestine road map talks, (it’s easy to get cynical about it’s likely outcome but I shall resist). A well recieved report about Asylum Seekers came out yesterday and despite the media hysteria, succinctly pointed out by soliloquist, it does seem to be an honest appraisal of the problems and thus a step towards a resolution, (perhaps… ooooh! that little cynic in my head again… evil imp begone!)
Even more good news, my nephew, Ismail, was four yesterday, (I gave him a football … well I say football it was more like a beachball… well I say beachball it was actually the size of a minor planet but he loved it anyway). His [my nephew's] mom passed her driving test today, (hurray!), so not only do I get some mishti this evening I shall no longer have to be the one to rescue my brother from garage forecourts when his car won’t start, (not that I minded… really!).
But the ‘clincher’ for this joyous day, for me at least, was the letter of confirmation from Screen West Midlands, telling me that I am officially on this year’s Digital Shorts Training Placement scheme.
I’m happy… hope you’re happy too.
Posted on May 7, 2003
I was called into a production meeting with Matt and Nick yesterday…. at O’Neills on Hurst St., (now that’s the kind of production meetings I can handle!).
I was given the task of persuading Eunice, (the ‘Yoda’ of Black Country Elvis impersonators), that she should appear on the documentary and regale us all with tales of her spiritual encounter with ‘The King’.
I was also assigned the role of Sikh Elvis procurer… in chief! I have put out the word and wait to hear from Sunandon, who was on the commissioning panel for First Cut and seems very helpful to us ‘newbies’ despite running his own production company – Endboard Productions. (I’m not namedropping here – honestly! just ‘bigging up’ where ‘bigging up’ is due.)
Another person from Screen West Midlands, who is just as approachable, is Jane, a Production Liason Officer. She was on a panel of four people who asked various questions at an informal interview I was at yesterday morning. I think it went well but am still waiting to find out if I’ll be involved in some capacity with the Digital Shorts productions this summer.
Anyway, after the O’Neill’s meeting we re-located to the offices of a costume hire company just down the road, at the Jubilee Works, and I was fitted out for a Native American Chief’s costume, (ahh! now it becomes clear why I was asked to the meeting). I found one that fitted and will feature in the documentary as an approximation of the spirit of ‘Blue Mountain’.
It could have been worse, somebody’s going to have to dress up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz!
Posted on May 4, 2003
Nick, the Producer for Matt’s “Things to do in Wolverhampton when you’re Dead”, needed someone to drive about in search of a trampoline!
In the whacky Matt World it all makes sense but Nick as Producer, (and I as Asst. Producer – hah!), had to find him a trampoline. Nick had sourced one in Telford, (a small town just north west of Wolverhampton)… well actually there was more than one, anyway we needed to recce the location.
So, we piled into my Fiat Panda and chugged our way to Telford. Once there we hooked up with the guy who runs the local Trampolining Club and he was happy to help, in fact he was very happy to help – I imagined him ‘dining out’ on the story for the next two weeks.
It’s interesting how different people react to the prospect of their ‘fifteen minutes of fame’. Andy Warhol said it all!
Posted on May 2, 2003
The Local Council elections yesterday have provided a few interesting results – the Conservatives, (our so called official opposition) won 35% of the votes, Labour and the Liberals won 30% each and all this on a dismal turnout of about 30% of the eligible electorate.
Two items I thought interesting were the collapse of the Muslim vote bank in Birmingham and the success of the British National Party in Burnley. The former resulted in Labour losing control of the Council in Birmingham for the first time in about 20 years and the latter has propelled the BNP into the position of being the second largest party in Burnley.
I debated these issues with Khalid about a week ago where I suggested that tactical voting by Muslims could be fraught with difficulty and would result in success for the BNP.
In reality, the Muslim tactical voting resulted in success for the Liberal party for the relevant council seats in Birmingham but it looks like it was the collapse of the traditional white working class votes in Burnley that lost Labour those council seats. So the one didn’t directly affect the other but both taken together were symptomatic of a more general malaise.
Blair’s New Labour is rapidly losing the plot and the impoverished intellectual and moral state of the official opposition party means that Iraq isn’t the only country that may suffer from a post war political vacuum.
Labour’s Shaheed Malik asks us to ‘put things into perspective’ by citing the statistic that the BNP has won only 16 out of the 22000 local council seats available in the country. That’s just not the point! – I imagine that the BNP are, to many working class whites, starting to look like a credible opposition.
I can almost understand these people like you or even me!
Posted on May 1, 2003
Yesterday and today were shooting days 2 and 3 of Jackie and Nikki’s, “Whips, Chains and Rubber Tips”.
As I’ve mentioned, elsewhere it’s part of the Carlton/Screen West Midlands’ First Cut 2003 series and I got a bit of good news from Screen West Midlands during the shoot… more on that later.
You know, it should be a matter of concern to me that spending two days in the company of assorted S&M aficionados along with their eye-watering paraphanalia doesn’t seem to bother me. I suppose I’m getting used to it and besides they’re all ‘very nice people’.
Paul, the shaven headed and gottee’d leather kilt wearer from the Cobra Club was interviewed today and it transpires that he’s an Income Tax Inspector! We interviewed a nurse yesterday in MetroFox, a Fetish clothing store in Wolverhampton where one of the shop’s managers turned up to be interviewed wearing a very shiny, skimpy metal gladiator outfit.
The best bit for me was the chance to work not only with friends, (‘Jimmy’ from Light House was there as well as Jackie and Nikki), but also to work with the professional’s – Vera (camera) and Oliver (sound – who I knew from the runner’s job I did in March). After I managed to kerb my usual tendency to ‘jabber’ away without having anything important to say, we were in thrall to Vera’s and Oliver’s anecdotes from their work in the industry.
Back to that piece of good news! … two of the commissioners from Screen West Midlands popped by and just had a quick look-in and chat. At first I didn’t say much, I didn’t want to come off as pushy although I was dying to ask them what was happening with the Digital Shorts selection process. Eventually they did reveal that the short list hadn’t been drawn up yet, that the proposals had been sent to independent readers and that a short list would be forthcoming. I don’t expect much from this because I’m not sure that my ‘The Barry Tapes’ script has been submitted by Toshi and Phil, (besides it’s not that good!). What I was interested in and was told that I had been successful with was my application to be one of the trainee placements. Yipeeeee!
Apparently I’ll be contacted soon with details of what I’ll have to do as one of the placements in one of the eight production teams for whichever successful Digital Shorts makes it through. I can’t believe it! By the end of the year I’ll have broadcast credits from at least three different productions.
Now all I have to do is get paid more often!
