24th November 2013
Two weeks ago I composed a compendious round-up of links about Gravity which included Neil Young’s essay Satellite of love – Jonás Cuarón’s Aningaaq. In this Young writes about the short by Cuarón fils that shows the other side of the radio conversation that astronaut Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock) has with a man who turns out to be the eponymous Inuit fisherman (above):
Aningaaq the short fills in the gaps of the strangers’ extended conversation – a precarious affair relying on the most tenuous of technological links – chiefly for the viewer’s benefit. In Gravity, the character Aningaaq is simply a voice crackling over the ether, with a background of howling wind, husky-dogs and occasional baby-cries; but in the film that bears his name we get to see his face, his clothes, his environment, his family (wife and child), his dogs. And we see nothing of Stone.
Thrillingly, Aningaaq has now been made available online, and I embed it here. Across the jump, there are lots more links about television, film, performance and digital media, with thanks for tips to @pabinkley, @polyg and @DavidjHendy.
read more »
21st November 2013
The RSC has posted a 5-minute extract from Richard II Live from Stratford-upon-Avon on YouTube and elsewhere, and I am delighted to embed it here. This is part of Act IV Scene 1, the deposition scene, and it gives a strong sense of the ‘look’ of the live broadcast, although inevitably it shrinks the experience from the big screen and cannot do justice to the sound mix. Below I am just starting out on a discussion of the very particular screen language of this live presentation.
read more »
20th November 2013
Last week, as Richard II Live from Stratford-upon-Avon unfolded, there were several moments when I thought of my English teacher at school, the late Brian Jones. Mr Jones, as he was to us in our mid-teens, was a cool poet who had even been on television. He was also, as I hope we recognised then, a gloriously inspirational teacher, and his classes contributed hugely, vitally, to my love of our language. Which, give or take a twist or two, runs right through to my work with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
I lost touch with Brian after school, even though, as I chronicled in a blog post back in August 2009, I tried to find him again when I produced a film of The Waste Land in the mid-1990s. My post was written after I’d read Paul McLoughlin’s Guardian obituary, and remarkably the comments to it (which are still archived on this site, even if the formatting is a bit awry) became a small memorial to his influence on many, many others. So now I am delighted to highlight the news that a new edition of his poetry, for so long out of print, has been published. read more »
19th November 2013
Last night saw the first round of Richard II Live from Stratford-upon-Avon Encore screenings. Which meant that I woke up to another round of wonderfully enthusiastic #RSCRichardII Twitter responses. The RSC has had a brilliant response to its request for feedback of all kinds, including the online survey here. Some of the most detailed accounts of what people thought and how the experience might be improved are on personal blogs – and these reports are invaluable to us. Below I have linked to and excerpted from nine of those that I have tracked down so far. (You can also find a full page of review and resource links here.) It can be quite hard finding blog posts like this – they tend to be a long way down in Google searches – so if there are others out there, do please let me know.
Update: in advance of the US screenings Entertainment Weekly has posted a 5-minute ‘teaser’ extract from the broadcast.
read more »
18th November 2013
Each time I return grumpily to the topic of today’s post I feel the need to apologise to regular readers. I know that I have taken on several times before the vandalism represented by forcing 4:3 archive footage into contemporary 16:9 frames, but Saturday night’s Benjamin Britten on Camera (available on BBC iPlayer until 28 November) cries out for attention. This is an intelligent programme about the relationship between the composer and the BBC during the late 1950s and ’60s and it features a wonderful selection of gems from the Corporation’s archives. read more »
17th November 2013
With the RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon broadcast on Wednesday, it’s been a busy and fairly intense week. One lovely and sort-of-related online offering this week is the full audio track from the RSC’s Midsummer Night’s Dreaming event with Google back in the summer, which is now available on SoundCloud. Which gives me an excuse to showcase the image above from a recent Radio 3 blog post which is a detail from a publicity image of a 1937 BBC television production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And what else can I find in scrabbling around among its online ruins? Across the jump is a selection, including some for which thanks are due to @stevenbjohnson, @matlock, @drszucker, @KeyframeDaily and @ProfShakespeare. read more »
15th November 2013
‘A while to work, and after holiday.’ So today was my holiday after Wednesday’s Richard II broadcast (there will be more posts about it next week), and in glorious sunshine I drove towards Canterbury, visiting a couple of churches on the way (an occasional pastime of mine) and seeing my Aunt Jean and cousin Jonathan, and intending to spend the night in the cathedral city. I wanted to see Fiona Shaw’s production with Glyndebourne Touring Opera of Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, from which I’ve just come. And splendid it was too – clear, direct, intense, powerful, finely sung (particular plaudits to Andrew Dickinson and Claudia Huckle) and beautifully played by a small band under impossibly young-looking conductor Jack Ridley. I also wanted to see the new Marlowe Theatre, which opened in the summer of 2011 but which I’d not previously had the chance to visit. Me and the Marlowe go back a long way. read more »
14th November 2013
Slowly trying to make sense of last night. In many ways the broadcast was immaculate – it looked great and, in the OB truck, it sounded great. There were no significant problems in Stratford but I know that a small number of cinemas around the country had local difficulties. A very few screenings were cancelled and one or two other cinemas had problems with the sound. With the RSC’s distribution partner Picturehouse Entertainment we are investigating where we can. But in most venues it seems to have been a bit of a triumph. Through this evening I aim to draw together some of the reactions and add a few first reflections. read more »
11th November 2013
This is the post I’m using to chronicle events up to Wednesday evening; you can also follow how things are unfolding via @livefromSuA, @TheRSC and @Illuminations.
6.11pm
Everyone is returning and we’re about to do a final check on the insert films and the top of the show. I think I’ll sign off now – and wish everyone a great show!
6.04pm
I’m almost alone in the OB truck. Everyone else is at the spicy chilli. How worried should I be with less than 45 minutes before we start transmitting? At some point I’m going to stop Tweeting and start “producing”, although I’m not entirely sure that I know the difference between the two activities.
5.55pm
And, gentle readers, this is me – in the latest production diary, filmed on Monday… many thanks to James Oprey and his RSC colleagues for this and all the other excellent diary pieces, as well as tonight’s two insert films.
read more »
10th November 2013
If you see just one thing in the cinema this week, make sure it’s the RSC’s Live from Stratford-upon-Avon Richard II on Wednesday. But your second cinema visit has to be the astonishing Gravity, with Sandra Bullock (above). (Apologies to readers abroad; your chance to see Richard II will come soon, and in the States at least Gravity is so October.) Among the excellent reading available (but experience the film first, and in 3D) is the following:
• Gravity – a review: a good introduction by Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com.
• Why Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón will never make a space movie again: a very good Wired interview by Caitlin Roper.
• Gravity – Alfonso Cuarón talks creating space epic: another useful interview, with Anne Thompson at indiewire.
• Drowning in the digital abyss: J. Hoberman hymns the film for The New York Review of Books.
• Gravity and the power of narrative limits: Jason Mittel at Just TV on just how unconventional a mainstream movie this is.
• Two characters adrift in an experimental film, part one: Kristin Thompson on the film’s links with the avant-garde and its minimal plot (with a second blog post on the way).
• The hero’s journey of Dr Ryan Stone – children, visual storytelling and miraculous rebirth in Gravity: Christopher Dole on just what the film shows us.
• Gravity – vfx that’s anything down to earth: Mike Seymour with an article for fxguide that is full of great details about how it was all done.
• Gravity – a 3D movie about 3D movies: Hsuan Hsu at Avidly offers a rich range of comparisons for the way the film treats 3D.
• Satellite of love – Jonás Cuarón’s Aningaaq: at his Film Lounge Neil Young writes about the semi-unofficial ‘companion-piece’ made by Gravity’s co-writer (Alfonso and Jonás are father and son).
• Managing Gravity’s workflow: … and this one, from Nick Dager at Digital Cinema Report, is for the techies, and is fascinating about file sizes.
Below the fold are further links about film, Shakespeare and more, with thanks to @mia_out, @KeyframeDaily, @lukemckernan, @TheBrowser and @petermarkadams. read more »
