Musings on the week

I'm afraid there is nothing much to report about this week. Apologies to those of you who think my life in London is glamourous and filled with constant excitement. A few minor highlights...

• Skype meeting with World of Chickens' Dublin producers on Tuesday. Will hopefully be meeting with them face-to-face in the next couple of weeks to make final script changes and to sketch out casting/financing plans.
• Some movement also on the other feature project, Happy. Response from a distributor in London who has met me a few times saying he wasn't sure if I was experienced enough. So I (rather cheekily) emailed him and have set up a meeting next week! Aims are to either change his mind about me and/or find out what he thinks I should do next. He's quite big-time.
• Haven't seen Rendition Monologues on Al Jazeera, will have to follow that up! Did get some further interest from a magazine publication though about the viral, Third Sector Magazine (focused on the not-for-profit sector in UK)
• Had a meeting with charity FilmAid about collaborating with them on a project. Meeting went well, they seemed very impressed with iceandfire and what we do.
• BEAUTIFUL weather here at the moment. 25C for the next 3 days and sunny. This afternoon I'm going to the park with Fliss and Pete (I'm also assuming Thea) and will have a few beers (it's legal here!) before going to see a play. Well, Felicity is going to a party but the rest of us will see a play!

That's it I think. Got the Amnesty International Media Awards on Tues night, which I'm actually looking forward to. I get to dress up and maybe do some shmoozing, not sure who will be there.

Playhouse problems

Today iceandfire had our show Rendition Monologues at the Southwark Playhouse in London and Al Jazeera were coming to film it for a news broadcast. I said I would meet AJ at the rehearsal at 2:30pm and arrange an interview with Christine... but when I arrived at 2pm Christine and the cast were still waiting outside the venue because no-one from the theatre was there to let us in! They were supposed to open up at 12, Christine arrived at 1:30, and by the time AJ arrived we were still locked out! Quite embarrassing for us, our first big TV broadcast. EVENTUALLY someone turned up from the theatre, but only after Christine called the artistic director 6 times (she wasn't answering) who then gave her the tech manager's number, who also didn't answer his phone!

Anyway, we got in sometime after 3pm (after Christine had been calling and waiting for 1 1/2 hours) and Al Jazeera filmed for just over half an hour. Hopefully they'll put the story online and I can put a link here.

Volunteer follies

Last night I hired a video camera for a vounteer job... from a boat! This guy had an office on a 1918 ship docked at Victoria Dock on the Thames. It was quite funny.

The job I volunteered for though was a bit of a nightmare. I was filming a show, a play being put on by an African youth group, which started 30 minutes later than it should have and ran almost 2 hours longer than it was supposed to! Ergh.

It's a pity I don't believe in God, because I would totally go to heaven.

The week that was

I've still been a bit crap with the blog. Oh well, a week's delay is better than 3 months!

The Barbican screwed me around a lot last week. First of all the woman who looks after the rosters refused to tell me when my shifts were, beyond my first one ("check your rota in your pigeonhole" is all she would say!) Turned out I had 3 shifts. Then I got a letter saying I was about to be fired for not turning up to shifts... which was untrue! It was quite a harsh letter as well. I found it a bit upsetting, even though my manager had no trouble believing that it was their error and not mine. I'm a good employee and feel a bit hard done by!

Saturday night it was my housemate's birthday (technically it was her birthday all day, but she had a party in the evening!) Our flat was filled with hip young French people smoking, it stank for a few says afterwards! It was fun though. I stayed up until 2am! Shock!

Lots of iceandfire work as usual. We sent out a press release on Monday, Al Jazeera are coming to film our performance on Sunday night! I had a meeting today with the producer of the prison film, who said I am now their drama director of choice! However they don't have any drama commissions at the moment. Poo. Also got a meeting on Friday with an organisation called Filmaid who I'm trying to organise a project with, in collaboration with iceandfire. If I can get more work through Inside Job Productions or Filmaid then I can quit the Barbican - hoorah!

Having a crap week

And it started with something shit that happened in the final few hours of my otherwise fun trip to NYC on the weekend. But I'll start at the beginning...

Arrived in NYC, had to spend more than an hour in the immigration queue. At one stage someone left a bag unattended and the immigration security guards walked along the queue demanding "Does anyone have a green bag? Do you own a green bag?" before taking the offending item away (presumably to be destroyed).

Was chatting to a woman (Trisha, from Hertfordshire) in the queue and she asked if I wanted to share a cab. I convinced her to take the subway (it was 6pm on a Friday night, traffic in Manhattan would have been hellish)... but then I got on the wrong train and so it took twice as long as it should have! I was a bit embarrassed. Don't know why she was even listening to me to be honest - she could have caught a cab, I was too cheap!

However, I did see Keanu Reeves on the subway (Taking the A Train) He was with an odd looking skinny girl with long greasy hair who was wearing pyjamas and maniacally biting her nails (even worse than me!)

Arrived at our hotel, halfway between Times Square and Central Park on 7th Ave. Ben was already there. We went out for some nice pasta but, even though I was starving, the time difference fucked with my appetite and I was full after about 3 mouthfuls. Disappointing though coz it was really good!

Saturday I just wondered around, mostly in the East Village/Lower East Side. Saw another 2 actors (this guy from Sex and the City, and some guy who I know has been in a lot of sitcoms. Don't know his name) Ben and I thought we might go see a movie that night. We didn't. Just like at home!

Sunday we went to look at some locations for Ben's crazy-arse film project (he's shooting a trailer of Othello in New York. With a budget of $0) in Brooklyn. We got lost and wandered along some godawful industrial estate for hours. Literally I'd say we walked for 2 1/2 hours, trying to look out for a taxi (none), somewhere to eat (nowhere) or a metro station (nada). Then we walked through the Hasidic Jewish ghetto and were almost at our destination (ie: civilisation) when we finally hailed a taxi to take us up the last few blocks. It was worth it, I was so sick of walking. I even got a bit sunburned (sorry Mum!)

Monday Ben had a meeting (his first ever meeting) with his DOP, Zelmira. She was very nice, I liked her a lot. I went and bought a week's supply of Swedish fish (these awesome lollies, like undiluted raspberry cordial in chewable form. Keeping you buzzing for ages!) Then I realised that, although we'd checked out of the hotel, I'd left my favourite coat (seen by my regular readers in many photos on this blog) in the wardrobe. The coat also had a new brooch on the lapel, which my lovely friend Anna had bought me for Xmas and which had traveled around the world and back again through some dodgy postal system, only to (fortuitously) arrive in Melbourne when I was there! But the hotel claimed not to have my coat. Ben went and checked in our old room (another guest had checked in)... it wasn't in the wardrobe. It has gone, along with the brooch and (as I discovered upon my arrival home the next morning)... my keys. For my flat and office.

A shite start to the week, which so far hasn't improved.

This website is cheering me up somewhat though.

Also the fact that the prison asked me to "add bed linen" to the prison cells in post production!! What the fuck do they think we're making, Terminator 2??

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet

Here is the video I made for iceandfire, about extraordinary rendition.

Please go to www.renditionmonologues.org for more information... and/or rate the video on Youtube!

I know I know I know

I'm a bad person. Or at least a bad blogger. I've neglected my duties for more than 2 months. Unacceptable.

My excuse is that I thought it was odd to write this while I was back in Melbourne (seeing as it is called Charlotte in London! I'm very literal minded) and since I've got back I've hit the ground running.

First things first. The prison film.

It was a low security prison, level C (the top level is A, the lowest is D, which is an "open prison" so prisoners are allowed into the community during the day but return at night.) Having said that, my cast and crew consisted of 4 murderers and a paedophile! I was pretty nervous the first day, when I had a rehearsal and met the inmates for the first time. I wasn't worried about my security, but the prison officer in charge of the filming had managed to give me the impression that the playwright and actors would be utterly unimpressed by my attempts to make their script more "filmic". I'd been given a play script so naturally I'd written it into a film, seeing as that's what we were making - turning some talking to the audience moments into voice over and cutting it down a bit (not much). When I tried to explain this to the prison officer she shook her head and looked unimpressed and said "Ooh no, they like doing the talk to the audience bit. I don't know about that..."

Consequently, when I met the inmates for the first time my leg was shaking, I had to concentrate to stop it from jiggling up and down! The author of the play had had a heart attack the week before and so we had to move to his wing, where he read my version of his script stoney-faced. No emotion at all. At the end of it though, he clearly approved, and instructed his fellow inmates to go along with the changes and follow my instructions. The playwright appeared to be something of a leader in the prison.

The shoot went remarkably well, despite some rather hefty obstacles. One was that we only had a day to shoot, and a small crew. And the day before I was told by the prison that the inmates would have to be locked up in the middle of the day for lunch, giving us 2 1/2 hours to shoot in the morning and only 2 in the afternoon! So only half a day in actual fact! Thankfully the producer called the head of security and got our cast a special dispensation to stay on the wing during lunchtime. We still had a lot to shoot, but we got it done exactly on time, even managing to get a bit of coverage. The camera operator was grabbing cutaway shots whenever he could.

All in all, it was an eye-opening experience. Three of the four men who had committed murder were very polite and rather charming, it was hard to imagine how they managed to do what they did. What it really made me think about was the girlfriends, wives and partners of these men. I find that I can't help experiencing a flicker of judgement when I see on TV partners supporting their loved ones in court, defending them, despite their obviously violent natures. But I find it easier to understand now how someone could fall in love with a man and have no inclination of what he was capable of, until it was too late. This goes for the paedophile too I guess.

Sadly can't put the film up on Youtube or anything to show you guys, due to victims rights laws (fair enough too - I wouldn't want to see the man who murdered my sister on Youtube making a film about diversity in prison!!).

Anyway, I'll write about my special weekend in NYC with Ben tomorrow... I promise!

PLEASE NOTE: My sister is not actually dead. The reference above is in relation to a hypothetical murderer! Please don't be alarmed. She is safe and well...!