Yes, today was a good recon for a route around the second city of the empire. It was also good for nothing else but reading the signs on the back of white vans and city buses.
Pot holes, heavy traffic and failing light added to what should have been complete misery. But not even that fact that all filming today suffered from an annoying tilt from a poorly mounted camera, has put a dent into my happy mood.
Yes the end result is not 'all that' but as an initial runaround, it was 'all that'.
Shame for the viewer, take 1 lasts way too long. So does take 2 and 3. I might have to go down the 3am route you know.
Hmm, but it will be freezing. Too early and too icy and dangerous surely. No, just too early.
Showing posts with label DrivingKolo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DrivingKolo. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 November 2009
...continuing to work on the "French Project"
As I sit here and type, listening to Aimee Mann and Spotify ads, Glasgow has been blessed with sunny breaks in the rain clouds.
The "French Project" was always going to set in Glasgow, The work done on the Beachy Head ascent and in and around Eastbourne was just hardware testing and a bit of fun: (see http://drivingkolo.blogspot.com/2009/10/switchbacks-of-beachy-head.html )
Glasgow is what it was always about.
Now it wasn't just "C'etait un rendez vous" that has influenced me into starting this project. The way the streets of San Francisco are shot in "Bullitt"; the hilly terrain, the shops, people and houses are as much a part of the 'best ever car chase' as the actors and the Charger & Mustang. If anything, the chase would not be as well regarded as it is without the cityscape at the start of it. Another trigger for me was San Francisco 9 or 10 years before Steve Mcqueen's version of the city was shot; Hitchcock's more sedate and more gentrified San Francisco in "Vertigo". At the start of "Bullitt", post credits and after Lalo's theme dies down, a taxi pulls up at a very distinctive hotel perched in a hilltop at a busy cross-roads. This hotel was used as a very spanky block of apartments in Hitchcock's film. The traffic was almost non existent in the earlier version. I'm not going to go into the debate about how landmarks are used or how productions alter places to there own ends, well not now. I'm merely saying that it is interesting how you can dress up or down a place to meet your own ends. It can be a backdrop as a curtain is a backdrop of a stage production, or the city can be an integral part of the piece. Now San Francisco is more of a feature in films than say, LA (Dirty Harry verses Heat for example), because it has a number of older landmarks and set pieces. LA is a modern urban sprawl, a giant of corporate towers and business suits with a theme-park in the middle (Hollywood).
Glasgow, like San Francisco, has a grid of streets, distinct residential and city centre business districts. Glasgow also shares a blessing of historic landmarks and urban set pieces.
Glasgow has also suffered from a real negative image. It's either thought of as a drug addled of it's former Victorian masterpiece, or it's just thought of as the deep fried fat man of Europe; the collective heart-attack waiting to happen. The Scottish Tourist board has yet to fully reverse this, the way Edinburgh has. Remember Edinburgh has it's fair share of blight but the capital comes first in Scotland's strive for a modern, positive identity. I'm not saying I'm going to change all that with this, far from it. I can imagine it'll be used in a powerpoint at the highways department, showing the one-way gridlocked chaos of the city centre. What I think will happen though, is non Glaswegians, non Scots, will see a busy, lively city from the view of a car travelling from Westend to Dennistoun in the Eastend.
What I have noticed, youtubing about, is that Glasgow has yet to feature in a copy version of Claude Lelouche's seminal work. As yet, I've not realised why.
Today, I might just find out....
The "French Project" was always going to set in Glasgow, The work done on the Beachy Head ascent and in and around Eastbourne was just hardware testing and a bit of fun: (see http://drivingkolo.blogspot.com/2009/10/switchbacks-of-beachy-head.html )
Glasgow is what it was always about.
Now it wasn't just "C'etait un rendez vous" that has influenced me into starting this project. The way the streets of San Francisco are shot in "Bullitt"; the hilly terrain, the shops, people and houses are as much a part of the 'best ever car chase' as the actors and the Charger & Mustang. If anything, the chase would not be as well regarded as it is without the cityscape at the start of it. Another trigger for me was San Francisco 9 or 10 years before Steve Mcqueen's version of the city was shot; Hitchcock's more sedate and more gentrified San Francisco in "Vertigo". At the start of "Bullitt", post credits and after Lalo's theme dies down, a taxi pulls up at a very distinctive hotel perched in a hilltop at a busy cross-roads. This hotel was used as a very spanky block of apartments in Hitchcock's film. The traffic was almost non existent in the earlier version. I'm not going to go into the debate about how landmarks are used or how productions alter places to there own ends, well not now. I'm merely saying that it is interesting how you can dress up or down a place to meet your own ends. It can be a backdrop as a curtain is a backdrop of a stage production, or the city can be an integral part of the piece. Now San Francisco is more of a feature in films than say, LA (Dirty Harry verses Heat for example), because it has a number of older landmarks and set pieces. LA is a modern urban sprawl, a giant of corporate towers and business suits with a theme-park in the middle (Hollywood).
Glasgow, like San Francisco, has a grid of streets, distinct residential and city centre business districts. Glasgow also shares a blessing of historic landmarks and urban set pieces.
Glasgow has also suffered from a real negative image. It's either thought of as a drug addled of it's former Victorian masterpiece, or it's just thought of as the deep fried fat man of Europe; the collective heart-attack waiting to happen. The Scottish Tourist board has yet to fully reverse this, the way Edinburgh has. Remember Edinburgh has it's fair share of blight but the capital comes first in Scotland's strive for a modern, positive identity. I'm not saying I'm going to change all that with this, far from it. I can imagine it'll be used in a powerpoint at the highways department, showing the one-way gridlocked chaos of the city centre. What I think will happen though, is non Glaswegians, non Scots, will see a busy, lively city from the view of a car travelling from Westend to Dennistoun in the Eastend.
What I have noticed, youtubing about, is that Glasgow has yet to feature in a copy version of Claude Lelouche's seminal work. As yet, I've not realised why.
Today, I might just find out....
...explaining the "French Project"
Yes, the French Project, hmm
Well, fans of Snow Patrol may have seen the video to Open Your Eyes, this was in fact Claude Lelouche's film "C'etait un rendez vous".
This 8 or so minutes has become a seminal piece of film.
Shot in 1976 on a camera mounted to a custom made jig on the front of a Mercedes 450SEL, then dubbed over with the engine noise of a V12 Ferrari. Set in Paris, at 4 in the morning, it is a race to meet a date at a famous park in the city.
What makes the film interesting, as a piece of film making, as appose to film viewing, is the reason it is 8 minutes 46 seconds. This is the length 35mm film came in. This was restricted by the technology of the time and the director; Lelouche's want to make the hole thing in one continuous take. No post editing. No second camera cutaways. No roping off of streets or altering of the city. This is Paris, this is his drive, this is Claude racing to make it for a date.
Now, you may cry wolf, or cry foul at this point because of one major move Lelouche has made to make this work; who has a date at 4am? Yes, yes, it is a large point to concede. But well, I don't have any real answer but this, 8 minutes behind a 2CV, and or, it's the 70's, maybe she, and he, are complete slags. Maybe it's when her father left for work as an airport employee and thus be able to sneak out the house to see her older lover. Maybe she's a nurse and has just finished a shift treating syfalific old men in a private hospital. Whatever one helps you appease that nag in your head.
Anyway, I present Claude Lelouche's "C'etait un rendez vous", enjoy.
Well, fans of Snow Patrol may have seen the video to Open Your Eyes, this was in fact Claude Lelouche's film "C'etait un rendez vous".
This 8 or so minutes has become a seminal piece of film.
Shot in 1976 on a camera mounted to a custom made jig on the front of a Mercedes 450SEL, then dubbed over with the engine noise of a V12 Ferrari. Set in Paris, at 4 in the morning, it is a race to meet a date at a famous park in the city.
What makes the film interesting, as a piece of film making, as appose to film viewing, is the reason it is 8 minutes 46 seconds. This is the length 35mm film came in. This was restricted by the technology of the time and the director; Lelouche's want to make the hole thing in one continuous take. No post editing. No second camera cutaways. No roping off of streets or altering of the city. This is Paris, this is his drive, this is Claude racing to make it for a date.
Now, you may cry wolf, or cry foul at this point because of one major move Lelouche has made to make this work; who has a date at 4am? Yes, yes, it is a large point to concede. But well, I don't have any real answer but this, 8 minutes behind a 2CV, and or, it's the 70's, maybe she, and he, are complete slags. Maybe it's when her father left for work as an airport employee and thus be able to sneak out the house to see her older lover. Maybe she's a nurse and has just finished a shift treating syfalific old men in a private hospital. Whatever one helps you appease that nag in your head.
Anyway, I present Claude Lelouche's "C'etait un rendez vous", enjoy.
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