Happy-Go-Mike-Leigh

I've been in film mode for the last couple of days. Yesterday I went to the Cornerhouse to check out the new Mike Leigh film, 'Happy-Go-Lucky' which was introduced by the director himself and followed by a Q&A with Mike and one of the actresses, Kate O'Flynn who played Suzy in the film.


I'm pleased to report that it's a great fun film with a lot of laughs without being flippant and overly light. It tells the story of Poppy, a thirty year old primary school teacher renting a flat in Finsbury Park who goes about being happy, positive and generally getting on with life. A quite intentional aspect of the film is that she at first appears quite surface to the point of being annoying but you soon realise that she has great wit and intelligence and has a very positive influence on her friends and the world around her. Actress Sally Hawkins who plays Poppy gives a great performance full of charm and humour whilst delivering the more serious scenes with the perfect balance. The film was also a fab little nostalgia trip for me as it was set very near where I used to live in north Camden.

It was interesting to follow with a question and answer session that illuminated on some of the themes of the film. Mike confirmed that he wanted to show a more positive outlook than portrayed in many of his previous films but without ignoring the fact that Poppy is living in the same tough world, the difference being that she deals with life's difficulties in her own way. He also talked about his method of film making using improvisation around ideas and themes, in this case for six months before doing any filming. One questioner suggested that the film is quite feminist potraying women as succeeding in coping with life and the men the one's struggling, a view that Mike agreed with. He also talked about the somewhat ironic fact that he's seen by many as the London film maker despite being from Salford. He said that he'd like to make more films in the north but that it's too expensive up here and actually cheaper in London. This does seem very surprising but he didn't explain why this is the case. It would be a great shame for film making in Manchester if this is generally true. All in all it was a great evening and I'm really glad I went along.

The film theme unexpectedly continued into today. I've just got back from having lunch with my other half and a good mate Helle at the Continental Cafe in West Didsbury where lo and behold, legendary director Ken Loach was there having lunch as well. There were rumours he would be at the Q&A last night as he's in Manchester making a film at the moment. I'm not sure what the film is about or where this is happening. Somewhere near West Didsbury perhaps? Maybe some film buff could let me know.

She Got a TV Eye On Me

I mentioned the '2008: Man with a Movie Camera' experiment in database cinema' in a post below that was part of Manchester Urban Screens 2007. I uploaded an image as I suggested I might and it's nice to see it is being used as part of an extract demonstrating the project. It looks like the project was very successful with the New York based electronic media artist, Perry Bard, being commissioned to contribute to The Bigger Picture touring programme. The uploaded images were shown alongside the original film and it works really well. My own contribution was a photo of my wife's eye and was the first picture I ever took on a camera phone.

P.S. Just noticed Perry has put the picture up on Flickr as well.

2.4 Ghz Homing Pigeons

Just spotted whilst catching up on some tweets that a friend and work colleague, Joel Porter has a screening as part of 'Manchester Urban Screens 2007'. It's the curiously titled '2.4 Ghz Homing Pigeons' screening from 3pm to 5pm on Thursday 11 th October in All Saints Gardens. Not an ideal time of day for working folk but it's near to where I work so I should hopefully be able to catch some of it. Joel describes it as such:

"Based on the original photographic work of Edward Muybridge's study of pigeons in flight this work utilises Bluetooth technology to build an interactive environment in which pedestrians control the number of birds based on the number of enabled mobile devices present within a 10m/33ft range. The pigeons appear to fly over a virtual Manchester skyline while commuting pedestrians travel beneath."

Joel had shown me a sneak preview of this in the summer and I mentioned it in a previous blog post not knowing it was going to be part of such an illustrious event. I'm sure it'll take on a whole new life in this large scale context.

Looks like there's plenty of other interesting stuff going on as well. One thing that caught my attention is the '2008: Man with a Movie Camera' experiment in database cinema on from 9am till 10am the same day - "Individuals are invited to upload shots and scenes based on scenes from the original film, creating a database which then streams as a film". Interesting, as I love this film having been introduced to it by the fantastic Cinematic Orchestra record of the same name (also highly recommended). I may try and contribute to this event as all are invited to by the artist.