Just watched some more films that we are screening later on tonight. The vast majority of the films that we have are great. It’s weird how people receive films. Tastes. This whole thing is one of the most accurate tests of that. When the back of the van is packed(ish), it’s a good film. When people cross the street to come and check it out, it’s obviously an interesting film.
There are way too many mundane films being made. Luckily for us we don’t screen them.
Is a film still a good film if no one watches it?
... 20:08pm
The three of us are sat outside a McDonalds using the WiFi.
I have noticed that the tarmac has the words 'McParking' painted onto it.
Jeez.
It's cool...
we're out of here in a moment to show more films to the unsuspecting public.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
20th May 2007, 16:37
Have been without net for a bit. Connection here rubbish.
France is one of the first countries to have moved into a new special and super speedy internet connection and yet I see no sign of it.
Last night was our first proper total utter glorious success. We didn’t cock anything up. Nothing broke. A fairly large crowd emerged. People sat down and watched.
More clapping from the general public.
Right now Si is outside cutting up flyers in the sun. Andy is inside opposite me, tempting fate and wiring up a Playstation2 to the whole deal, so as to allow for another disk drive. This would allow us to cut down on the time it takes for us to shift from film to film inside the van. In aspiration of making the whole thing as seamless as possible.
Hopefully it will work. Time will tell.
Yesterday was fast paced as hell. I had the pleasure of playing a fine selection of punk very loudly (really, don’t underestimate the sound system) at people who looked a bit serious, which was total joy. The Culture show came down to film us. We will be on the telebox on Saturday. Their crew were lovely. I think they know how good they are. Which is fair enough. We were also interviewed by someone from the Times Online. Who asked me a question that I jibbered some shit out to, and Andy quite usefully saved it and gave a good stern answer.
Which was better than “umm”, which is a word I seem to specialise in.
I have not had much chance to train out here, karate and all that jazz, but I was talking to Si about it as a subject earlier and I am under the impression that he believes that I would loose in a fight to Big Daddy, whoever he may be. This is probably a fair statement, seeing as the dude is called Big Daddy, which being the most disturbing of names, probably makes him as dangerous as AIDS on a stormy night.
Anyway, enough of that. May the 36th Chamber protect me.
Si also managed to get us invited to a boat party. The party is on Monday night.
On a boat that “we can’t miss” if we go looking for it.
So says the Partner of a film financing company who invited us.
There is a lot of money here.
People may as well just staple dollars to their head and walk around.
The sign of the mega-rich? Ferrets. Watch day two of the video diary.
France is one of the first countries to have moved into a new special and super speedy internet connection and yet I see no sign of it.
Last night was our first proper total utter glorious success. We didn’t cock anything up. Nothing broke. A fairly large crowd emerged. People sat down and watched.
More clapping from the general public.
Right now Si is outside cutting up flyers in the sun. Andy is inside opposite me, tempting fate and wiring up a Playstation2 to the whole deal, so as to allow for another disk drive. This would allow us to cut down on the time it takes for us to shift from film to film inside the van. In aspiration of making the whole thing as seamless as possible.
Hopefully it will work. Time will tell.
Yesterday was fast paced as hell. I had the pleasure of playing a fine selection of punk very loudly (really, don’t underestimate the sound system) at people who looked a bit serious, which was total joy. The Culture show came down to film us. We will be on the telebox on Saturday. Their crew were lovely. I think they know how good they are. Which is fair enough. We were also interviewed by someone from the Times Online. Who asked me a question that I jibbered some shit out to, and Andy quite usefully saved it and gave a good stern answer.
Which was better than “umm”, which is a word I seem to specialise in.
I have not had much chance to train out here, karate and all that jazz, but I was talking to Si about it as a subject earlier and I am under the impression that he believes that I would loose in a fight to Big Daddy, whoever he may be. This is probably a fair statement, seeing as the dude is called Big Daddy, which being the most disturbing of names, probably makes him as dangerous as AIDS on a stormy night.
Anyway, enough of that. May the 36th Chamber protect me.
Si also managed to get us invited to a boat party. The party is on Monday night.
On a boat that “we can’t miss” if we go looking for it.
So says the Partner of a film financing company who invited us.
There is a lot of money here.
People may as well just staple dollars to their head and walk around.
The sign of the mega-rich? Ferrets. Watch day two of the video diary.
19th May 2007, 13:00pm
Yesterday evening.
Cannes in a Van reaped Cannes. Then we went to a street party, of sorts.
The police continued to completely dig our stuff
(though they may not be the target audience).
People came down. They watched. They clapped. Important looking guys took flyers.
It was, once again, a complete success.
It continues to be a success. The women here are not all ugly.
Andy and I nearly had an aneurism when we pulled up on the Croisette (which I realised is not spent with a Q) due to a four hour equipment check earlier in the day where everything was great seemingly not helping at all. We parked, banged on A Brief But Triumphant Intermission by Against Me (excellent band) to set up to, and then we suddenly had no sound. Luckily it came down the fact that we hadn’t turned it on.
I know, it doesn’t make sense, but what can you do.
There is an obscene amount of neon in Cannes. Everywhere. It’s quite good.
Apparently we went out on TV last night, and it was not too horrific. Which is also quite good. It hit us that being somewhere so far from London with no television is the best way to be when that kind of thing happens.
It’s too hot to write, there is someone playing a trumpet, badly next door to us and the campsite in which we are staying has a swimming pool.
Which is not hot, or next door to the same tune sixteen times played rather indecisively.
Right. Swimming pool.
Can’t write and swim, because I’d probably kill everyone in the pool with some narly electric surge. Too bad.
Cannes in a Van reaped Cannes. Then we went to a street party, of sorts.
The police continued to completely dig our stuff
(though they may not be the target audience).
People came down. They watched. They clapped. Important looking guys took flyers.
It was, once again, a complete success.
It continues to be a success. The women here are not all ugly.
Andy and I nearly had an aneurism when we pulled up on the Croisette (which I realised is not spent with a Q) due to a four hour equipment check earlier in the day where everything was great seemingly not helping at all. We parked, banged on A Brief But Triumphant Intermission by Against Me (excellent band) to set up to, and then we suddenly had no sound. Luckily it came down the fact that we hadn’t turned it on.
I know, it doesn’t make sense, but what can you do.
There is an obscene amount of neon in Cannes. Everywhere. It’s quite good.
Apparently we went out on TV last night, and it was not too horrific. Which is also quite good. It hit us that being somewhere so far from London with no television is the best way to be when that kind of thing happens.
It’s too hot to write, there is someone playing a trumpet, badly next door to us and the campsite in which we are staying has a swimming pool.
Which is not hot, or next door to the same tune sixteen times played rather indecisively.
Right. Swimming pool.
Can’t write and swim, because I’d probably kill everyone in the pool with some narly electric surge. Too bad.
Friday, May 18, 2007
...can't think of a title. Brain is hot by sun.
There are a few typing errors around the place in the last three postings, but I can't work out how to change them, because as I mentioned before, my computer has gone all a bit French. Bloody interweb.
Please ignore them and guess at the words.
Dress up as you do it and make a game of it.
You should probably start with paper hats.
15:30, 18th May, 2007
So we are here.
Actually.
Updating this blog is seriously hard, seeing as I don’t speak, or read French and for some reason all of the uploading stuff has turned all French. Argh.
We arrived two days ago. In the dead of night, or early morning. At our campsite. And made a total fucking ruckus of a noise.
It was pretty funny.
Cannes has come to us and we have come to Cannes.
We are not lost (which is good), because we spent a lot of time being very, very lost.
We still have no logo for the van but hey, last night we hit up the Quasette and showed the films tat we be packing.
In the middle of the street.
We tried it earlier on, on a side road and there were major technical hitches. The moral of the story is probably don’t do anything low-fi. If you’re going to do something this stupid, do it loudly.
Last night we had London Tonight following us around. We are the show tonight at 18:15pm. TV people are pretty odd, though quite sound.
As I just said, last night we screened things, people loved it, damn, even the police loved it. Everyone loved it. People actually stopped all their official crap and watched.
I have never been to L.A., or Hollywood, but I imagine that this is a hell of a lot cooler.
There were many ubiquitous celebrity folk around the place. Mostly looking smug.
Amongst other things, the highlights so far have to be:
i) getting here alive
ii) stuff only slightly going really wrong
iii) A helicopter took off from a yacht. Which is pretty cool,.
iv) a hoard of people taking flyers, reading them and asking things like “What?” or “Que?” and seeming interested by the bloody great yellow van blaring out films over the road
v) the fact that you can buy pizza on the campsite
Andy and I (mostly Andy) have spent the morning editing
the video footage that I have been shooting on the DV for the diary. The first posting is up. Which is cool.
So go and watch the footage.
.
The mountains here leave me wanting not to return to London.
I have that problem with mountains.
So far I have to say that its been a success. All of it.
All two days of it to date.
Even the bits that didn’t work.
Fuckin’ aye.
Actually.
Updating this blog is seriously hard, seeing as I don’t speak, or read French and for some reason all of the uploading stuff has turned all French. Argh.
We arrived two days ago. In the dead of night, or early morning. At our campsite. And made a total fucking ruckus of a noise.
It was pretty funny.
Cannes has come to us and we have come to Cannes.
We are not lost (which is good), because we spent a lot of time being very, very lost.
We still have no logo for the van but hey, last night we hit up the Quasette and showed the films tat we be packing.
In the middle of the street.
We tried it earlier on, on a side road and there were major technical hitches. The moral of the story is probably don’t do anything low-fi. If you’re going to do something this stupid, do it loudly.
Last night we had London Tonight following us around. We are the show tonight at 18:15pm. TV people are pretty odd, though quite sound.
As I just said, last night we screened things, people loved it, damn, even the police loved it. Everyone loved it. People actually stopped all their official crap and watched.
I have never been to L.A., or Hollywood, but I imagine that this is a hell of a lot cooler.
There were many ubiquitous celebrity folk around the place. Mostly looking smug.
Amongst other things, the highlights so far have to be:
i) getting here alive
ii) stuff only slightly going really wrong
iii) A helicopter took off from a yacht. Which is pretty cool,.
iv) a hoard of people taking flyers, reading them and asking things like “What?” or “Que?” and seeming interested by the bloody great yellow van blaring out films over the road
v) the fact that you can buy pizza on the campsite
Andy and I (mostly Andy) have spent the morning editing
the video footage that I have been shooting on the DV for the diary. The first posting is up. Which is cool.
So go and watch the footage.
.
The mountains here leave me wanting not to return to London.
I have that problem with mountains.
So far I have to say that its been a success. All of it.
All two days of it to date.
Even the bits that didn’t work.
Fuckin’ aye.
16th MAY, 19:46pm, 200 hundred kilometres from Marseilles (or anywhere sensible)
16th MAY, 19:46pm, 200 hundred kilometres from Marseilles (or anywhere sensible)
Some hours have passed since the last time hours had passed.
We are somewhere not in Cannes, but we are much closer than we were.
Andy is currently on the telephone to Radio4 about all that we are doing and why we are doing it. It is going out on air later tonight. It’s still raining.
Si has been driving for the last few (many) hours and is doing a rather good job of not crashing. I can’t drive, so I respect this.
The direction in which this is going, is South. The roads are blocked for the moment. Rush hour. I would tell you where we are in France, but I have no sense of direction so I couldn’t possibly do that.
Sharon the film maker managed to blow a wheel on her car earlier this morning, so she is someplace far from us right now. So we are not miked up and bugged.
Which is nice.
Her film will be interesting I think.
Right now we (Si and Andy) are doing quite great team work (the radio interview is over) in getting us out of a car park somewhere where the world is very green with long strips of tarmac. Roads and that.
The send off the other night was great. Despite the chronic fuck-ups in setting up for the grand unveiling, it all turned out quite well. Though upon leaving and turning a corner we ran over a bollard somewhere towards Piccadilly.
The bollard lost, the van is hard.
It has just been stated that we shall be driving hard to hit up Cannes by midnight.
Most excellent.
Check out the video blog for today. It’s quite good.
Basically, not a lot has happened since the last time I wrote something. That said, we are a hell of a lot closer to where we’re meant to be than we were twelve hours ago.
We just found hills on the horizon (well, some other people probably found them before us, but we’ve not seen them before so now they’re ours).
There is sun above these hills. And it has stopped raining.
And as I wrote that it has started raining again. Still, the clouds are hardcore;
it is quite a stunning sight.
We are picking up speed. French radio is appalling.
Apparently “We are going to arrive in darkness”.
The place we are staying is a road up from the beach; the ocean rules at night.
Tonight we will be on that beach.
So I say we will arrive in total fucking glory. And Cannes will be ours, for a bi
Some hours have passed since the last time hours had passed.
We are somewhere not in Cannes, but we are much closer than we were.
Andy is currently on the telephone to Radio4 about all that we are doing and why we are doing it. It is going out on air later tonight. It’s still raining.
Si has been driving for the last few (many) hours and is doing a rather good job of not crashing. I can’t drive, so I respect this.
The direction in which this is going, is South. The roads are blocked for the moment. Rush hour. I would tell you where we are in France, but I have no sense of direction so I couldn’t possibly do that.
Sharon the film maker managed to blow a wheel on her car earlier this morning, so she is someplace far from us right now. So we are not miked up and bugged.
Which is nice.
Her film will be interesting I think.
Right now we (Si and Andy) are doing quite great team work (the radio interview is over) in getting us out of a car park somewhere where the world is very green with long strips of tarmac. Roads and that.
The send off the other night was great. Despite the chronic fuck-ups in setting up for the grand unveiling, it all turned out quite well. Though upon leaving and turning a corner we ran over a bollard somewhere towards Piccadilly.
The bollard lost, the van is hard.
It has just been stated that we shall be driving hard to hit up Cannes by midnight.
Most excellent.
Check out the video blog for today. It’s quite good.
Basically, not a lot has happened since the last time I wrote something. That said, we are a hell of a lot closer to where we’re meant to be than we were twelve hours ago.
We just found hills on the horizon (well, some other people probably found them before us, but we’ve not seen them before so now they’re ours).
There is sun above these hills. And it has stopped raining.
And as I wrote that it has started raining again. Still, the clouds are hardcore;
it is quite a stunning sight.
We are picking up speed. French radio is appalling.
Apparently “We are going to arrive in darkness”.
The place we are staying is a road up from the beach; the ocean rules at night.
Tonight we will be on that beach.
So I say we will arrive in total fucking glory. And Cannes will be ours, for a bi
16th MAY, 05:14am (French time)
Cannes in a Van is on the road.
In FRANCE.
It’s bloody exciting and as Andy just pointed out the sky is coming up on the horizon.
The send off in Soho went well, sort of.
The sound system blew up. It fused. In the most wrong of ways.
Then a bunch of other crap happened that is so dull it’s not really worth going into, but suffice to say, fate seemed out to maim us in the head.
We are in a van. Our van, Somewhere outside Lome, and thirty six miles from some other place. A long way from Cannes.
We’ll get to Cannes. And as Andy also just pointed out, we’ll get there on a beautiful hot evening and it will all be joyous.
Today we met some people who like what we’re doing. They came to Soho to say hello to us, and tell us that they will be in Cannes. Which was polite.
The road is bendy. More tomorrow I guess. Blues (Howlin’ Wolf) in a van at this hour is good. The traffic is pickling up, the neon of the street lights is smashing off of the keyboard. It makes typing really hard.
Deftones on now. Gonna go watch the road pass under.
In FRANCE.
It’s bloody exciting and as Andy just pointed out the sky is coming up on the horizon.
The send off in Soho went well, sort of.
The sound system blew up. It fused. In the most wrong of ways.
Then a bunch of other crap happened that is so dull it’s not really worth going into, but suffice to say, fate seemed out to maim us in the head.
We are in a van. Our van, Somewhere outside Lome, and thirty six miles from some other place. A long way from Cannes.
We’ll get to Cannes. And as Andy also just pointed out, we’ll get there on a beautiful hot evening and it will all be joyous.
Today we met some people who like what we’re doing. They came to Soho to say hello to us, and tell us that they will be in Cannes. Which was polite.
The road is bendy. More tomorrow I guess. Blues (Howlin’ Wolf) in a van at this hour is good. The traffic is pickling up, the neon of the street lights is smashing off of the keyboard. It makes typing really hard.
Deftones on now. Gonna go watch the road pass under.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Jacques Bauer
I am now taking bets on whether this man is a fan of the Indy film scene
Less than 48hours to go and the Festival is looming like the Death Star.
Yesterday involved a lot of van-out-decking. Paint, curtains (obviously), turpentine in the finger nails, all that jazz. Plus a piece in the Sunday Times.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article1777412.ece
See, not lying.
Sharon Ward, the nice, loud (it's a good thing, she'll draw attention to us) woman who is making a documentary about Cannes in a Van and travelling down to the French Riviera with us, camera-and-assistant in-tow, did some filming and it was all a bit of a productive day.
The camera is freaking me out, but I’ll get over it.
So now I guess the blog (hopefully) ceases the rambling, and goes Diary.
So without further procrastinating…
14th May 2007, A DAY AND A HALF TO GO.
Arrgh.
Tomorrow is the leaving-for-Cannes send off in Soho.
Otherwise known as a party.
The van is a variety of truly lovely looking colours
(yellow, green and orange, HELL YES!)
Hopefully the Gendarmerie Nationale will like our van a lot; it is possible that the colour combination alone will be enough to sway them towards our cause.
The Gendarmerie are outside the jurisdiction of the French National Police.
I don’t know what that means but it doesn’t sound good.
I am also aware that they have an elite counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit.
A bit like a French Jack Bauer. Jacques Bauer for instance.
Also, they have a parachute squadron and a hoard of mobile armoured units, some with 90mm cannons. Our transit does not have cannons. However, I very much doubt that they have a projector and a bunch of kickass films. So if it comes down to it, clearly, we’ll win.
It is now wise to consider that the motif of the Gendarmerie is a grenade. Word.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
huang and feng
We have a van.
We thought we had one before, but then it fell through. Ah well.
Last weekend was spent looking for a long wheel base high top transit or something of the sort. We had no joy. We also had some potential sponsors, who bailed out, who shall remain nameless.
It’s all been a bit of a close call.
Now we have one and everything is all good. Apparently it used to belong to a woman who sold flowers. Which is quite excellent. Tomorrow it shall be painted and decked out with joyous things. Like red carpet and bean bags. It will be the best van at Cannes, ‘swear to god.
The whole thing seems to be coming together. I keep saying this, but I really mean it this time. The utmost respect goes out to Andy for the amount of work he has put into making this happen, and to Si for his ever calm and always logical suggestions. Their idea is truly forming into something brilliant. The three of us, as well as some documentary-making woman who seems to dig the idea so much that she’s shooting the whole thing, are heading off next weekend.
A few of my posts placed on this site in the past have been ridiculous. I re-read them today and just thought Jaysusfuck if I were not me I would slap myself for parts of them. It’s hard to slap yourself. So apologies to the reading public for that’n.
I stand by the New York one though. That hobo was cool.
This morning I spoke to someone who I have not had anything to do with in a long while, and since having nothing to do with them, many weird things have occurred. The last twelve months have been really a bit odd, with parts of it verging on the David Lynch. There has been a lot of Sliding Doors in there as well. This Cannes idea is something that I really have a lot of time for, kind of just because it is Real, with a capital R. It’s really easy to stop having time for things and people, and that is never good. You end up interacting with others as something that is two thousand miles from who you are.
It makes people feel confused. Confused is never a good place to be.
Feng Huang is a compound term in Chinese. It means Phoenix. Feng is a male phoenix, whilst Huang is the female phoenix. Together they depict Yin and Yang, or perfect harmony, but separately they are very different things. The phoenix found in Chinese and in turn, Japanese mythology is not the loner bird that rises from the ashes in a ball of fire, it is something different altogether.
The image of the traditional phoenix carries many interesting connotations. It is a symbol of grace and beauty, an animal that appears in calm and tranquil times, but hides when there is danger near. It was the symbol of the Empress of the Chinese imperial household.
The Huang represents the sun, justice, obedience, and fidelity and has done so for over seven thousand years.
She is the guardian of the South on the compass. The turtle is the guardian of the North, whilst the white tiger is that of the West. They are all balanced by the dragon, known as Loong in Chinese, who is guardian of the eastern point. The turtle is the messenger of the dragon and the tiger his mortal enemy.
The huang has often been depicted throughout history in synchronicity or war with the loong. The dragon and the phoenix, always as blissful and passionate lovers, or as the most mortal of enemies. The dragon is also the deity of rain.
The tale of the dragon and the phoenix is a truly ancient one. The white tiger depicts grace and wrath, whilst the dragon carries the traits of raw power, almost anger, and emotion. The huang is always between them.
When the dragon looses the phoenix, he is alone, raw and moves with complete apathy towards the idea of the destruction of others or himself. He will challenge anyone, and strike to bring suffering in the name of sadism. Meanwhile the huang hides. With the phoenix in flight, the Loong is at peace, embracing his equal.
It is a never ending cycle of love and war between the two, but whilst the war is over they both soar. I'm not sure where this is going.
Hopefully to a place where it rains in the sunshine.
Go ridiculous writing.
We thought we had one before, but then it fell through. Ah well.
Last weekend was spent looking for a long wheel base high top transit or something of the sort. We had no joy. We also had some potential sponsors, who bailed out, who shall remain nameless.
It’s all been a bit of a close call.
Now we have one and everything is all good. Apparently it used to belong to a woman who sold flowers. Which is quite excellent. Tomorrow it shall be painted and decked out with joyous things. Like red carpet and bean bags. It will be the best van at Cannes, ‘swear to god.
The whole thing seems to be coming together. I keep saying this, but I really mean it this time. The utmost respect goes out to Andy for the amount of work he has put into making this happen, and to Si for his ever calm and always logical suggestions. Their idea is truly forming into something brilliant. The three of us, as well as some documentary-making woman who seems to dig the idea so much that she’s shooting the whole thing, are heading off next weekend.
A few of my posts placed on this site in the past have been ridiculous. I re-read them today and just thought Jaysusfuck if I were not me I would slap myself for parts of them. It’s hard to slap yourself. So apologies to the reading public for that’n.
I stand by the New York one though. That hobo was cool.
This morning I spoke to someone who I have not had anything to do with in a long while, and since having nothing to do with them, many weird things have occurred. The last twelve months have been really a bit odd, with parts of it verging on the David Lynch. There has been a lot of Sliding Doors in there as well. This Cannes idea is something that I really have a lot of time for, kind of just because it is Real, with a capital R. It’s really easy to stop having time for things and people, and that is never good. You end up interacting with others as something that is two thousand miles from who you are.
It makes people feel confused. Confused is never a good place to be.
Feng Huang is a compound term in Chinese. It means Phoenix. Feng is a male phoenix, whilst Huang is the female phoenix. Together they depict Yin and Yang, or perfect harmony, but separately they are very different things. The phoenix found in Chinese and in turn, Japanese mythology is not the loner bird that rises from the ashes in a ball of fire, it is something different altogether.
The image of the traditional phoenix carries many interesting connotations. It is a symbol of grace and beauty, an animal that appears in calm and tranquil times, but hides when there is danger near. It was the symbol of the Empress of the Chinese imperial household.
The Huang represents the sun, justice, obedience, and fidelity and has done so for over seven thousand years.
She is the guardian of the South on the compass. The turtle is the guardian of the North, whilst the white tiger is that of the West. They are all balanced by the dragon, known as Loong in Chinese, who is guardian of the eastern point. The turtle is the messenger of the dragon and the tiger his mortal enemy.
The huang has often been depicted throughout history in synchronicity or war with the loong. The dragon and the phoenix, always as blissful and passionate lovers, or as the most mortal of enemies. The dragon is also the deity of rain.
The tale of the dragon and the phoenix is a truly ancient one. The white tiger depicts grace and wrath, whilst the dragon carries the traits of raw power, almost anger, and emotion. The huang is always between them.
When the dragon looses the phoenix, he is alone, raw and moves with complete apathy towards the idea of the destruction of others or himself. He will challenge anyone, and strike to bring suffering in the name of sadism. Meanwhile the huang hides. With the phoenix in flight, the Loong is at peace, embracing his equal.
It is a never ending cycle of love and war between the two, but whilst the war is over they both soar. I'm not sure where this is going.
Hopefully to a place where it rains in the sunshine.
Go ridiculous writing.
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