Kung Fu and NCP Penthouses.

So early tomorrow morning I'm setting out to do some 'guerilla' filming in the Manchester.  It's for a set of martial arts sequences with an 'urban' twist: Crouching High Street Hidden Dry Bar perhaps.

Now I've filmed many locations in the city (and other cities) for certain jobs that get thrown my way occasionally, usually sequences of buildings and cityscapes and busy bee workforce.  This is slightly different however.  I'll have a couple of martial artists (I myself like to partake in a dash of Kung Fu when my backs feeling supple and generous) and will attempt to film a few fight sequences within the city.  My best bet is to find a couple of NCP car parks and head to the top, open deck floors.  These usually guarantee an excellent 'surround view' of the city and it's rapid changes and it's ever increasing large buildings.  

To be fair to NCP as long as I politely ask if it's OK to take a camera up on their premises (I'm usually paying the exorbitant parking fees as it happens) they'll leave me to my own devices.  Mid winter on a cold and dark Sunday evening isn't my best notion of fun but sometimes needs must.

A short while ago (for the same project) we filmed in a city subway at night.  The fella's (one a black belt master) were dressed in 'urban street gear' i.e. hoodies and elastic 'kekage'.  Once rolling they'd go for it big time, and every once in a while a passer by on their way home from work would freeze at the ensuing rumbles in front of them (not at all allaying their fears that subways are edgy places at best).  It essentially resembled professional happy slapping episode destined for Youtube, so I'm not surprised people were a little taken aback.   I'm sure they were intelligent to understand what we were doing and no authorities were to be dispatched our way that evening.

Still, a  quick glance at these choreographed scraps would allude to something a little sinister.  Part of the training in martial arts is the ability to take 'hits' and because we are striving for authenticity the fights have to look fairly realistic.  Of course I'd said it's extraordinarily rare for two trained martial artists to happen to meet in the street and start a shindig and street fights don't look anything like this quite beautiful art form.  Perhaps instead I should just get them blind drunk on Special Brew and tell one the other deeply insulted a respected member of their family...

So, if you see some fancy fighting taking place tomorrow morning, you'll know not to be too concerned...actually, I believe Lee 'Scratch' Perry is in town and he's a big fan of the 'Fu' perhaps I can get him to come along and join the fun?  Dub and scrapes atop a multi storey NCP.

Found: One lost tribe.

I was using my eyes yesterday to view one off on the internet news conduits.

What startled my very senses was the images beamed from an aeroplane over the Amazonian Jungle.  Here, we were told, was evidence of an Amazonian tribe who have remained out of contact with the outside world i.e they have no inkling of the outside, modern world.  Whether it was due to  falsely uprezzzed images or a combination of that and their rather garish 'war make up' I felt unnerved,  even sat thousands of miles away on the end of a cyberpipe.  It was almost as if we've managed to send a visual recording device back in time (perhaps one day that may be possible) and sent images of past civilisations in 'real time'.  I could've sworn I'd seen that tribe on an old episode of the original Star Trek TV series...they look remarkably familiar.  Of course signs of aggression where shown by them: the 'female' (as it was claimed) sent shivers hurtling down to my coccyx.  But I'm not surprised if this is the first time they've seen outside contact – they're flying above them is a gigantic metal parrot making a noise like a five hundred metre long hunting horn (incidentally they now sell these in Asda/Walmart).

So what happens to them next?  I can understand the reasoning behind 'exposing' these tribes: it's proof (so they say) that such tribes exist and showing the authorities they exist may in fact help  prevent further destruction of their habitat (Terence Conrad had very ambitious expansion plans).

Now however, this lost tribe is aware of ulterior influence – whether they had any knowledge of outside peoples and technology I'm not sure: if they had then perhaps they understood that the large object in the sky was indeed man made and a possible threat (hence spears at the ready).  If they hadn't they it's quite possibly a huge talking point around the fires come night time.  They essentially have to rewrite the history books overnight.  Alongside the sun god, they now have a giant silver parrot to contend with.  Children will have a story nightcap of the day the king parrot came to the village; art will take on this twist of fate and perhaps even their behaviour (appeasing gods) will alter accordingly.

Unless the snaps were taken by a remote, motorised helicopter in which case they may have confused it with a giant bee and dreams of lakes of honey about round the camp.

We need Bruce Parry in a situation like this.  I imagine there can't be that many spots on earth which house such tribes,  It's quite startling that in this global, connected village with millions upon millions of tracking devices such peoples exist - can you squeeze your brains hard enough to think of that occurring in the UK?

Slots and Roses

I can't say I ever visited an amusement arcade in my own city or any other city I've ever visited.

They don't really suit modern day cities at all and besides 'Casinos' are really the grown up, city version of the 'slots'.

I've never in fact entered a casino (and it's far easier these days to do so), but every time I watch a Bond flick I'm inspired to don my Sunday best and waste a bit of money...I feel it's probably time I visit one, so I'll put this down on my ever expanding 'things to do in 2008' list.

In seaside towns I visit (unless it's Cornwall) I'm suddenly impelled to walk towards the flashing lights, the arrhythmic sirens and the uncouth post rave fairground music and spend a small sum mindlessly emptying bags of 2ps into the thin mouths of the slot monsters.  

Of course it's all very much of a scam, but it's a whole load of fun.  I love the 2p slots where you try and 'nudge' piles of teetering coppers off the edge and into your grubby little hands below.  To add to the game several cheapy toys are placed amongst the coppers and your brain (of which you lose control...it's a bit like Derron Brown in machine form) then locks onto the blighters until they eventually cascade to the descent below (and to be honest often get wedged in the contraption flap below).  What fun – you've just paid a mark up off 500% on a character key ring and left your eyes looking like a crack head who's just run the London marathon with a game of kerplunk tied to his ankles.  Like Fagan all those years before us,  at the end of the 'session' we collate all our swag together in a pile  - a shrine in fact to 5p toys our hands radiating the wrong stench of money.

I try the over 18 machines very rarely...I just do not understand them at all.  You see experts whistle up to them and flick their palms over nudge buttons and flashing chunks of electronics before, it they're lucky, causing the machine to ejaculate large amounts of money into the trough below.

I'll stick 10p in watch the wheels turn, wonder what the fuss is about then play the post 'Out Run' driving game.

In their true environment of the seaside, amusement arcades are palaces to cheap fun: the romance of the neon jamborees and the space jazz of the colliding musical messes, fire me into a corner of my brain I rather like.  As it stands, many of these places are closing down – forces beyond their control have dampened their spirit – the smoking ban has cleared a few but it's often cheaper to fly to other countries for your hols rather than stay at home.  Maybe these vivid towns can one day re invent themselves, but keeping their heart intact...stranger things have happened...now if I can only find a virtual 2p slots of my iPod I'll rest a lot easier. 

Carry on up the Caravan.

I'd recently talked about my holidays as a kid, specifically our caravan park holidays. 

Nothing but good memories from these times.  

Over the past two years I've started to return to the place I visited as a kid but this time with my own 'tin bids' in tow.  My mother, on a whim, decided to purchase a static caravan after seeing one for sale in the area we went to in the early eighties (when The 'Duran of Seagulls' and 'Howard Shaft's magnetic Keyboard band' ruled the charts with an iron lisp.

So each year we spend a long weekend there (usually over those 'sunny' bank holidays) which to be fair is probably enough for a holiday.  If the weather isn't too great then you've got a choice over the  hypnotic 'slots' or a quick traverse around the kinky pound shops.  

We've just returned from a break last weekend: it was indeed not so great weather wise (a walk on the beach front was akin to Phil Mitchell from Eastenders Street rubbing your eyes with a floor sander.  We effectively went to the seaside without seeing the sea.  I wasn't too concerned to be honest.  I was floored by a back injury and the combination of super strong pain killers and the local Co-Op wine rendered me Martian.  Plus I'm rather keen on a once a year flutter in the 'junior gambling dens', more of which in another tale...

The site my mother has her 'static-carahome' on is much smaller and quieter than the ones we stayed at years ago.  I think it might be owned by the WA, or perhaps the Daily Mail.  It's a pleasant affair with lovely, Sunday-esque landscaping.  No games with your balls are allowed and cars have to be pushed around with your fingers in neutral.

I also find it very serene and relaxing.  Come dusk when the site lights become pert and lively, a beautiful hue descends on the surrounds.  It's a perfect photograph opportunity and has a cinematic quality about it.  I should have really taken my own camera down and caught these moments...perhaps a short film could be set here, a Lincolnshire coast trailer park flick or a post Eldorado soap opera – 'Golden Spades'...yes...that's it....Golden Spades a celluloid paean to faded seaside glamour.  

Come darkness and the greyness of the earlier day becomes transformed immediately (and fairly dramatically) by the neon lights. Slightly tacky as they are, they still manage to evoke something deep inside me every time I see the lights and hear the chaotic aural bursts of sound of the amusement arcade.

To round the night off we played old school electronic card bingo (hey – we're talking four sheets here...you need a mind as sharp as Gore Vidal to control your winning destiny here).

Talking of winning...our swag for the evening included a child's Swatch watch, a jubilant picture frame and a green 'Swiss' vase.  You don't get that kind of entertainment on Las Ramblas!

We headed back to the caravan and the wind and rain battered it's thin shell but I cooked us up a treat in the 'open plan kitchen and dining room' and opened another bottle of French red and retired to the boudoir a happy caravanner.

Apparently caravanning is back in vogue and it's not too difficult to see why  (some of the posher places have en suite DVD's and wireless kitchen taps in High Def)...so go on - give it a whirl one year.

Holidays Fast and Present.

I used to go caravanning as a kid quite a few years ago now; we'd drive up from home to the Lincolnshire coast and I'd be as excited as Larry Hagman on ice.  We'd stay in a huge caravan complex in one of those static caravans, which at the time I guess, was fairly glamorous.  

On the site lay a huge entertainment building (the building itself wasn't entertaining as such but often it's contents were) which sprouted talents such as local comedians (who always resembled members of the pop combo 'Black Lace' for some reason); cabaret acts (the boom of the waltz I could hear from my bedroom in the caravan whilst I tried to sleep) and once or twice a week they'd show British wrestling bouts (unfortunately the likes of 'Big Puff Daddy' and 'Giant 50cents' never made it to this neck of the woods.

I remember they had a lilo in the grounds; bloody cold and concretey...I can't actually remember swimming in it rather just playing around the edges.  

We went here quite a few times over the years, and so I visited at different stages of my life.  Clearly one year I wasn't so interested in the Butlins style talent shows and magic performances and progressed to shyly looking at girls in the disco.  I distinctly recall one particular girl I 'fancied' and she said 'Hi' to me – it was the first time I'd heard somebody say 'Hi' outside of US telly...it was one of the best moments of my life up to that point.  Being a particularly shy young lad I, of course, never followed it up.  I wonder what became of her.

The year before I hooked up with some cooler older kids (they, gasp, smoked for gods sake) and felt like the bee knees, until one female slot machine attendant thought I was a girl.  

I often became lost in the world of the flight simulator arcade game 'Star Wars'.  I was Luke Skywalker, albeit living in a caravan with the face of a girl.  It's around this time I was 'taught' how to wet a 1p piece and spin it so some of the older arcade machines thought it to be 10p.  That, thankfully, was about the time me and 'life of crime' said our goodbyes...aside from perhaps one or two things later in life...nothing bad mind.

Jumping a few years into the future I started 'tarting' myself up a little - the girl face slowly morphing into a more appropriate masculine appearance – and I armed myself with a bottle of Denim.  This is the year that 'White Lines' appeared on the scene and instead of learning break dancing and 'Body Wapping' in the streets of the inner city, I was taught it in the foyer of a caravan park disco.  Passing bingo traffic must have thought they'd supped one too many pipes of advocat on sight of the crazy gymnastics going on under their 'legs eleven'.

It was many years (15 as a hunch) before I revisited this place – but I've taken my own children there to share my memories whilst forging their own.  There is a touch of faded seaside glamour about the place now, things have moved on in the world but it still has it's moments of joy. 

Cine Wide Shut

And so this week the carcass that was Withington's Cine City has all but entered the earth from whence it came, and 'history heaven' awaits here.

The last film I saw here was also Stanley Kubrick's last film – Eye's Wide Shut.

It's been mentioned before that the place was an absolute eyesore during it's last few years.  It perhaps could've been demolished a few years back but that's not how these things work.  They're sat on until a time when words such as 'profit' 'maximum' and 'timing' squeeze themselves free from somebody's vocal system.

Sadly this would never again show images progressed at 25 frames per second into our cranial illusory systems.  But times change.  I can confirm that already this part of Withington has been lifted somewhat.  It's as though the dirty, rude and outdated elephant sat in the room turned out to be a helium balloon purporting to be real and some kid with the vitality of a summer salad has popped it with his mini Swiss army knife.

Poof – its gone for ever.  Yes, already the street scape and indeed skyline (such was the size of the old cinema in comparison at least to the rest of the village) has altered dramatically.

An apartment block is set to land on the footprint of Cine City, although given the fact there's a lack of agreement on what exactly the final design should be and given the slightly salty economic environment, it might be a while before some rises from the flames of the film reels.

I must admit I was taken aback a little when I saw it's current, shorn of life state.  Others where to seemingly, all stopping to look at and photograph the last remaining piece of the building.

I hope that whatever eventually takes its place is worthy of inclusion in the village.  A fancy piece of well concieved architecture wouldn't go amiss....here's hoping for the village's new dawn.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm prone to receiving splinters on a weekly basis for the rest of my life.  Whether it's haphazardly opening a door, slightly missing the intended knob and careering my digits towards microscopic sword like shards of timber; sun-blindly reaching for a tool in my  shed and thwacking my tom thumb into a rusty Jimmy nail; searching for the play dough hairdressers set under the kitchen sink and instead jamming an under sink spike into and under my finger nails...I guarantee I'll have some minor domestic war wound come the end of the week.

This week I managed to embed a few slices of metal underneath the nail on my middle finger (left hand) whilst routinely reaching the tap to fill the kettle.  I let out a subdued scream into the bit of flesh where the thumb and index finger, milliseconds before the tom and jerry-esque throb began.

This type of splinter I'd categorise as level II: I mostly involuntarily procure level III types such as general finger (non under nail), flesh splinters.  Last year I had a lucky strike with a level I type – an eye splinter.  This required a more professional surgical solution (rather than home surgery which I'll come to it in a moment).  I'm not entirely sure how I obtained this one, but it was probably during a bit of brick chipping, drilling or electrical sanding.  I kept blinking (as it dust were to have gravitated upon the balls of your eye) but it wouldn't budge; I washed my eye out with various bird baths of water and solutions, sadly all to no avail.  

So this, inevitably, led me to take a trip to the A & E (the one in the city where you meet some of the more colourful characters welded into the city's fabric).  

My name soon got called out of the ward speaker phone and in, admittedly, slight trepidation (my 'BP' always rises the moment I enter the vicinity of hospital wards) I blinkingly walked into the  eye surgery.  My face and indeed head was placed in this 'Dune' (David Lynch's version) type contraption, with a mini Jodrell bank scope hovering centimetres from my affected eye.

I very soon saw the delicate hand of the 'eye nurse' bring some professional tweezers up to my viewing tunnel and within a minute the offending shard had been deftly emancipated from the gooey sac which gives my brains an illusion of reality.  A genius of minor eye surgery I thought to myself before vocally offering a large 'thank you' for her time and effort.

But back to my Level II.  With a lack of pro kit at my disposal, I rummaged through the 'haberdashery' section of my kitchen draw and picked out a packet of sowing needles.  I dropped one into a cup of boiling water and then cleansed it a travel bottle of Dettol (I'm sure that's how they do it on 'ER' right?).  Under the bright glare of halogens in my bathroom I set to work.

Poking and prising I eventually, under a few twangs of pain, managed to carve a path towards the shiny little blighter.  After around of 30 mins of self surgery (and a mini gash on the end of my pointer) and with a little help from the missus's tweezers I managed to pull free this alien who had the audacity to invade my body.

A few days later I have a few throbs and and odd shaped finger nail but all is good...until the next splinter arrives  sometime next week...

The screen is greener on the other side.

So this weekend I've found myself building a green screen for some upcoming Chroma key work.

If you didn't know this already, then chroma key utilised either a green or blue background on which you can film (or photograph) subjects and then digitally add a different background over the top.  For example, if done well, you can transpose your own face and associated paraphernalia to anywhere in the world you may have never visited: Taj Mahal; Peak of Everest; The top of Sears Tower; the underpass used in the Clockwork Orange movie.

The equipment is pretty expensive to buy; like most 'pro' kit you end up paying extortionate amounts for what turn out to be simple objects.  The green screen material itself is pricey, but essentially (and if you get the colour right) you can pick this up from a local fabric store – I did (Abakhan in the Northern Quarter).  Unfortunately it wasn't quite wide enough so I found myself discussing the more rudimentary aspects of dress making with the staff in that fantastic store.  I needed hemming web apparently (over sowing...I can barely sow cress seeds).  So I purchased a packet of this magic stuff – you basically overlap the fabric, place the hemming web inside and then iron it for a permanent fix.  I now had my required 5 foot width of material for my first green screen productions.

I'd then require a dash of velcro (again purchased from Abakhan) which I would sow onto the fabric and then attach to a pole – the pole which is attached to the frame, again made on the cheap from local hardware stores (my 'model' made from conduit).

It worked a treat.  

Off to Wickes next to pick up some 'Hollywood style Kinoflo Light Rig'...in actual fact a set of kitchen/shop fluorescent tubes with 'diffusers' set on their side.

I'm overall impressed.  I picked up another light from set on a tripod as my fill/key and as far as I was concerned I was good to go.

I still have to muck around with the footage on the 'puter but if I don't get it like George Spielberg did in Jaw Wars V I'll be as cross as Dee Snyder.