The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum in Belgrade

UNIVERSAL EAR:The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum will make its next festival appearance at the inaugural and - if we might - in-AWE-gural Kinoskop Festival of Analogue Experimental Film in Belgrade, Serbia, this weekend. The ethos and programming looks astonishing, and promises:

shades of mysticism and psychodrama of Maya Deren, dealing with esoteric "thingamijigs" and alchemy of Kenneth Anger, magically mundane secret diaries of Jonas Mekas, but rest assured this will be no sheer nostalgia trip... Selection will show documentaries on subjects which haven't been touched upon in the history of cinema and witness peculiar deconstructions of sci-fi and horror genre through the creative lens and poetics of experimental film, take a trip inside nocturnal visions of the non-human world, oneirically sabotage H/B/ollywood on our found footage safari and take on you on a rollercoaster ride in the realms of non-commercial, non-compromising, personal cinema.

Sadly, the Institute will not have any agents in town for the festival, but we truly hope it thrives so that we can attend and imbibe the visual broth in future years.

EVENT: UNIVERSAL EAR: The Curse of the Phantom Tympanum at Kinoskop 1st International Festival of Analogue Experimental Cinema and Audio-visual Performance
PROGRAM: Selection IV : Film Deconstruction

WHERE: Kvaka 22, Ruzveltova 39, Belgrade, Serbia

WHEN: Saturday 30th November, 2019, 20.00

COST: FREE

UNIVERSAL EAR: A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear is now online

The first episode of Mr Cole's artist film series UNIVERSAL EAR is now available to watch online in full.

UNIVERSAL EAR is a lost adventure serial charting Harley Byrne’s ongoing mission: to capture and make available for download “all the world’s music, ever.”

Mr Cole and his roaming, ever-evolving Universal Ear Studios team have made it their business to (p)reconstruct this unfound serial of the future, episode by episode into infinity. Other texts, videos and supporting experiments have also materialized.

A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear was produced during an artist residency at Nexus Art Cafe in Manchester in May 2010 and premiered at Abandon Normal Devices in August 2012. The film stars Stewart Lockwood and Tuesday Betts; music is by Aidan Smith.

In this episode,  heroic ex-postman Harley Byrne travels back in time to 19^th century Romania, to record the world’s first ever remotely delivered electronic music. But while recovering from a dramatic splash-landing, he finds himself falling head-over-heels for his host, the sultry inventress Nola Luna. Is she really all she seems? Will she let him record her electronic ‘Orchitron’? Or will Harley Byrne finally be thwarted in his ongoing mission: to record and make available for download all the world’s music, ever?

A new episode of UNIVERSAL EAR will go into production during Mr Cole's forthcoming EMARE residency at Bandits-Mages in Bourges, France.

UNIVERSAL EARLog II Part 2: Day 1 (7)

It's always a worry when we welcome new collaborators to the set. I try hard to prepare them in advance for the adjustments they will have to make but only experience truly does the job.

Our new sound recordist, Martin Salomonsen, has also had the luxury of a briefing from his predecessor "On The" Mike Cacioppo, who has fled the country with the episode's guest star Amanda Belantara. (Luckily we already got her shots). Thus, when Martin is the first person on set and I arrive apologizing that it's become apparent he will be working against tremendous noise from our host cafe Takk upstairs, he takes it in his stride. With a bit of schedule re-jigging, we decide we can incorporate the Northern Quarter's chattering, MacBook-tapping hipsters as 22nd century Olympid Games-goers.

Mush, however, who has joined us as unofficial art department head, casually mentions that she used to do this sort of thing "for real" and politely asks if we always just make it up as we go along. Mush's first job of the day is to make the Institute's contract starlet Tuesday Betts look like Ernest Borgnine. Mr Borgnine is the inspiration behind the disguise Bett's character 'Being' adopts for this episode of UNIVERSAL EAR. This is precisely the experience it takes to recalibrate our new artist to the Institute's way of doing things. With a bit of patience, a bit of fleece, a pair of tights and some tit tape, the job is soon a good'un.

Further illustrating for Mush the improvised nature to our schedule, Executive Producer Sugden arrives out of the blue with 5-year old Rudie, the latest in a line of UNIVERSAL EAR child labour. Rudie nearly misses out on his big break though when he proves too short to show up on any of his cameo walk-throughs. Rudie's main role on set today will be to keep our adrenalin up by repeatedly donkey-kicking a rubber ball prop (meant as a punch bag) at our last functioning movie light and at Doris herself, our now legendary Super 8 camera.

We're nearly thrown when I unwrap a brand new, foil-sealed Super 8 cartridge and find it's already been 'Exposed'. Betts speculates that perhaps it contains the missing Egyptian episode despite no mortal hands (outside of the Kodak organisation) ever having touched this virgin film. We'll find out in time as I managed to muddle it with our legitimately-exposed cartridge so will now have to get both processed. 

Somehow, all the above-noted instability is transformed into action and despite not firing our first shot off until halfway through the day, for the first time ever we manage to get every shot on the list made before kicking-out time. Perhaps it was something to do with creative entropy and strange energy. Perhaps because we saved time on hairdressing when no-good sell-out Lockwood insisted on preserving his hair and jeopardising the iconic look of UNIVERSAL EAR hero Harley Byrne in the name of some big-time commercial shoot next week. Either way, we're surely due for a big post-pride fall on Day 2.

It's Nick's Birthday: our Super 8 musical is now online

Following its transcontinental festival run, our homemade musical is now available to watch online in full.
Written & directed by Graeme Cole with award-winning music by Aidan Smith, It's Nick's Birthday follows four friends as they waste a precious day failing to communicate - except, perhaps, on a level that only Nick can bring himself to acknowledge.

Further details, festival list, awards, credits and so-called Extras can be located here.

It's Nick's Birthday: a glimpse behind the giant pizza-top finale

*UPDATE: the musical is now available to watch in full on Vimeo.*

April 2007, and the It's Nick's Birthday crew reconvene to shoot the big finale of our DIY musical: a triumph-over-adversity-romance on a giant spinning pizza complete with dancing cigarettes, pineapple chunks and Grim Reaper Olive.

The raw unedited footage in the video above is comprised of a single reel of Kodak Vision Super 8 film and seems to capture the joy, energy and mess of the day. As writer/director I felt a bit lost, as much of the focus of the day went on building the set (in the Studio at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre), learning/developing the dance moves (our philosophically inclined choreographer was Fran Higginson, who would later re-join our crew as Physical Welfare Enforcer on the UNIVERSAL EAR project) and getting the technical stuff up and running - chiefly the rear projection. As such it was a brilliant opportunity to master the skill of looking important and busy but not really doing anything - a vital director skill I suspect they don't teach at film school.

The drawings below are art director Louisa Birkin's visions for the costumes. Following a successful festival run, the film will be online in full from March 4th. Please Like our Facebook page for updates.

 

Harley Byrne: Library of Postures and Expressions

Readymade emotions

It is not uncommon, in the world of television and the cinematic serial, for the producers of a new show to create libraries of their main characters’ tics and poses, in effect "backing up" a serial's stars in case they should become lost or disfigured before the end of the run. We certainly believe this to have been the case with the original UNIVERSAL EAR, for not only did director Francis Dove place no value on authenticity of emotional performance, he planned to create entire unofficial episodes using just off-cuts, bad takes and whatever other footage he could get his hands on without alerting Harley Byrne (who played himself in the original) to his scheme.

So it is that, one week into the Institute’s short-lived Universal Ear Studios venture, I opened the day’s work with a brief lecture on the science of facial expressions, ahead of a planned afternoon of filming stock emotions for the UNIVERSAL EAR-remake library. Truth be told, I had pretty much thrown the speech together in a bar whilst waiting for Lockwood to get home with the keys the previous night, but all the same I was somewhat put out that he failed to take Duchenne seriously until the latter’s name cropped up in the former’s Acting Basics book a few days later.

There is clearly far more work to be done on this subject, and it is one of my great regrets of the Universal Ear Studios era that we did not have time to spend more days like this – speculating and creating standard parts, rather than zealously pursuing the completion of entire episodes. (A transcript of our ‘therapy’ session from that day’s end is available on request).

The lecture was open to the public without entry fee, but only Lockwood attended. I positioned myself between him and the door:

Faces, Electropuncture, and the Actor’s Craft

“Whilst facial expressions are thought, with a few ambiguous exceptions, to be universal (cross-cultural), the different proportions of an individual’s face can cause confusion. For example, somebody born po-faced might not necessarily be miserable – it’s just the way their nose came out.

As such, we calibrate our own minds to read the faces of people we know – to make minute personal adjustments to the rules their faces generally play by - and this also applies to the familiar stars of a regular adventure serial. We know, as it were, what they can achieve with their face, and we understand their feelings within those parameters.

There are three alternative processes, to my knowledge, to elicit a facial expression:



Above: polished-up diagram of 3 methods for eliciting a facial expression (terms in brackets refer to what can go wrong with each process). Below: two charts to each be considered synonymous with the above.

Concerned as we are here with controlled methods of production, we shall naturally consider following the ‘science’ route, as pioneered by Monsieur Duchenne, who would isolate and faradize the facial muscles of his heroic volunteers in order to learn more about the mechanics of emotional manifestion – face-wise. Duchenne de Boulogne (1806-1875) believed that one could not read moral character from facial expressions - only emotions. However, we can posit that a series of such emotions – frame by frame – in the context of a particular narrative and aesthetic surroundings, allows us to at least attempt a moral or dynamic emotional analysis: and this is Cinema.

The danger, though, is to assume that cinema – or rather, photography – is Truth. It is not. It is  re-presentation, pixels or photons splattered onto a 2-dimensional screen. As such, this is what gives us license to manipulate the human face-image as a collection of symbols that hint at a real human face whilst referencing broader visual codes, from colour and geometry to landscape or circuitry. But we only have so much time today… and given that Mr Lockwood is interpreting Harley Byrne’s reinterpretation of Byrne’s own real-life experiences, we might do best to adopt (however multiply-filtered) verisimilitude as our aesthetic priority.”

So the lecture ended: and indeed, without verisimilitude of circumstances, verisimilitude of emotional expression was no picnic. My attempts to inspire Lockwood’s emotions with a range of condiments (salad dressing &tc.) or with carefully chosen images from a favourite book of mine were controversial at the time and remain a bone of contention between my muse and I to this day. However the results – if they do not speak – sneer, cower, spasm and thrust for themselves.

Please note the music is not our own work but has been shamelessly checked out from Pietro Grossi's Electronic Soundtracks library music LP.

Down The Rabbit Hole: watch online

Dear Blogspot,

Dazzled by the bright lights of Facebook and Twitter I forgot to tell you the parade film previously alluded to is now complete and ready to view online.

Here it is, anyway, complete with original song by Aidan Smith.

Down The Rabbit Hole premiere in Manchester this Saturday

The Institute's short film of the 2011 Manchester Day Parade will premiere with a free screening at Manchester's Nexus Art Cafe this Saturday at 2pm.

A 5-minute Super-8 odyssey tracing the preparations and parade-day antics of the Nexus Art Cafe float (a giant travelling tea party complete with aerialist owl), the film features a specially composed new song from staff composer Aidan Smith.

The film will show during the lunch rush at Nexus, and all are welcome to venture down into the subterranean cafe to buy a brew and/or pie and/or sweet thing to keep your mouth busy while it plays. The film will be introduced by filmmaker Graeme Cole and aforementioned songsmith Aidan Smith.

There are some preview photos on our Facebook page.

Down The Rabbit Hole @ Nexus Art Cafe
WHERE: Nexus Art Cafe, 2 Dale Street, Manchester, M1 1JY
WHEN: Saturday 18th February 2012, 2pm (cafe open all day)
COST: free

Psychotransitionary datamoshing on parade, with MC John Cage (apologia)

nb: If you are not trained in the interpretation of psychogeographic metering I recommend you start the video and let it play while reading the notes below. It is not meant to be entertaining.

Technical Notes

I AM SO SORRY

It is often said that a film or video should stand up on its own, unsupported by the post-rationalisations of its progenitor. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but anyway in this case the movie is a mistake and I feel I owe you an explanation.

COMPRESSING/DECOMPRESSING EMOTIONAL VALUES

Last week I set out to edit our short film of the Nexus Art Café float at the Manchester Day Parade 2011. The footage had been shot on Super 8 film and transferred, out-of-house, to digital, and I had watched it back in the latter format without any problems. However, when I then imported the same digital file into the Institute’s post-production engines for editing, I was confronted with the images you see in the above video. Something had gone wrong. I assumed it was me.

My first instinct was to delete the file. But since a lot of my work here at the Institute involves the recovery of lost films, I took pity on whatever future-me might have the job of reconstituting the canon of ‘unintentionally datamoshed parade movies of the early twenty-first century’. I saved him or her a job by saving the corrupted file. Anyway, when one ‘deletes’ a digital file it is not actually erased, but only marked for overwriting - and so, if data-energy is never truly destroyed but only restructured, might I not learn more from my mistakes by taking responsibility for restructuring the file's raw information myself?

I set about charting the binary ruins of the video, and it was not long before I began to notice a familiar pattern. Having seen the uncorrupted rushes of the parade, I recognised amongst the rearranged pixels a visual echo of the route we took. There, through the luminous video-fog, could be made out the streets and buildings and the dancers and even some of their moves. But, in addition, the newly fragmented pattern seemed to channel the conflicting feelings I felt on the day:

• The pride I felt in representing with my Nexus comrades and celebrating my adopted city, shattered by self-consciousness and crowded-room loneliness into neat rectangular shards.
• The particular dismal brand of existential emptiness I’ve only previously felt during extended periods of inactivity while playing left-back for the GM Hurricanes, punctuated by the giddy euphoria of eye contact with this old friend or that sworn enemy in the crowd.
• The desire to dance and the fear of falling over, expressed through neurotic video jitter.
  

Somewhere between committing the images of that day to film, and translating it into a digitally manipulatable form, it seemed that the movie had become corrupted moment-for-moment by the emotions I felt on parade. How?

You will remember (and it doesn’t matter if you don’t) that for three months over the summer of 2010 we were asked to vacate the Institute while one of the major search engine companies mapped the dynamic emotionality of the premises for its latest online cartography resource: a (still) unnamed(*1) psychogeographic atlas of the known universe. It so happened that, as they worked in our absence, several expensive pieces of their psychocartographic machinery were irreparably blown due to incompatibility issues with the Institute’s wiring. The workmen dumped the remains in the Institute’s gardens before they left, and since that summer our IT manager(*2) has frequently raided this abandoned equipment for spares. I asked him: was it possible that some kind of ghost codec had hijacked the parade file and decompressed its latent emotionality? Some frustrated algorithm designed for compressing psychogeographically-metered video, now released from its silicon purgatory by the integration of its motherboard into the Institute’s hardware infrastructure?

He told me No, it was not possible, but that as emotion is a matter for the heart and meaning is created in the mind - and if it would make me feel better - I could certainly ‘read’ the video as some kind of pseudo-scientific videograph of the emotions I felt on parade. This did in fact make me feel a bit better. Then he pointed out that nobody else was going to see the corrupted video anyway, which made me feel worse again - yet more determined to salvage the thing.

PIANO HACK

The moving images were saved by mere fact of their re-contextualisation. By considering the broken video from a psycho-transitionary angle, it had meaning again, without even needing to be ‘restructured’. But it still wasn’t much fun to watch, and it needed some sound. It would be dishonest to create and sync up a psychogeographic soundmap after the matter, and besides I didn’t have the processing power to facilitate such an endeavour. Instead, I thought about a song.

The idea of chance discovery and the turning of unfavourable circumstances to one’s creative advantage called to mind John Cage’s invention of the hacked piano, or ‘prepared piano’ as it was known at the time. It is a story that he recounts on Indeterminacy, a recording of 90 one-minute tales ranging from composer-clique gossip to Zen parable. Cage was the most important composer of the twentieth century but he died without hearing the word ‘Pro Tools’. So I decided to rip/sample/steal this most pertinent anecdote of his and add a beat: time, rather than tone, being the fundamental index of music; and beat music being an instant fix for unwatchable movies.

In the original recording of the story, Cage solves a technical problem - how to create percussive music in a room where there is only a piano - by opening up the piano and attaching objects (a pie plate, a nail) to its strings. I decided to hack the narrative so that in the remake he solves the initial problem but creates a new one, accidentally inventing Dance Music (rather than music for a dance) and being unable to un-invent it. This unhappy ending, this punchline of undesired creative productivity, brought the anecdote closer to my own experience.

The audio facilities at the Institute are less than ideal. The track was put together using Audacity 1.2.6 on an iMac with a 600 MHz G3 processor and 256MB RAM for your listening pleasure, though it might have been easier to use tape and scissors. Bring on the interface city where a gesturally operated Protools XI will be embedded in the ambience of bus shelters! In addition to the Cage number, The John Cage Bounce (as the new song was christened) samples The Rose by Nine Circles and Martin Denny’s March of the Siamese Children. There is no original sound.

TRASH BIN

(*1) I suggested they brand it [search engine company name]Hurt. But by the time they read my email, they had apparently lost interest in building a personal rapport with the Institute’s staff and the series of cold but suggestive replies I received seemed to have been generated by a bot or similar
(*2) whom I detest

Mossley, As In A Dream

Home movie from a ramble around the hills of Mossley, April 2010, shot on expired AGFA Moviechrome, slowed down but otherwise un-edited.

I really wanted to experiment with sound design on my home movies but the Institute's steam-powered editing chambers aren't currently up to anything beyond sticking a sound file and a video file together and waiting to see if the old Macintosh engine gives out. So instead I shamelessly lifted Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange's The Dreams: Land piece from 1964, which seems to create a few interesting juxtapositions and, you know, keeps their work alive.

If anyone would care to add their own soundtrack I will happily provide the video file and reward them with an over-familiar pat on the shoulder upon completion of the work.

6.92 Billion Portraits: an ongoing side-project

Having been dispatched to Valencia, Bucharest and Poitiers last Autumn to represent L'Institute Zoom at screenings of our short film It's Nick's Birthday, I decided that rather than clog the Institute's archive with further shambolically improvised Super-8 travelogues I would instead set myself the task of exhaustively documenting the people and places I encounted in a series of 10-second audio-visual portraits.

"Circumstances" (wine, time, cowardice) prevailed and I was only able to take three portraits in Valencia, three in Bucharest and none at all in Poitiers. Thus, to preserve my own dignity I have adjusted the terms of the project so that this handful of films should now be considered the first batch in my ongoing task of creating a portrait for every living person on Earth - which, day to day fluctuations in world population figures notwithstanding, should eventually account for around 6.92 billion of us.

Below are the first six, the inaugural portrait subject remaining anonymous as an exercise in legend-making. The remaining 6,199,999,994 will appear here in reverse-chronological order as they are produced. Whilst the basic tenets of the portrait-taking process will remain consistent, I sincerely hope my technical skills show some improvement as the millions and billions pass.

Please contact me to arrange your sitting ASAP.

SUBJECT: Anon
LOCATION: Valencia
DATE: 20.11.2010

SUBJECT: C.L.
LOCATION: Valencia
DATE: 20.11.2010

SUBJECT: C.M.
LOCATION: Valencia
DATE: 20.11.2010

SUBJECT: S.M.
LOCATION: Bucharest
DATE: 26.11.2010

SUBJECT: A.S.
LOCATION: Bucharest
DATE: 26.11.2010

SUBJECT: A.B.
LOCATION: Bucharest
DATE: 26.11.2010

UNIVERSAL EARLog: Day 18

Lockwood spends the morning alone in the studio, no doubt grunting and hooting in response to the ridiculous "find your natural voice" book his head has been stuck in for the past two days. If that's his natural voice, surely losing it was the whole point of drama school?

The first thing I achieve once on set is Lunch, and it looks for a while like that's as good as it's going to get. Even as I allow myself a self-congratulatory "whoop" on having hunter-gathered carbs, protein and pro-biotic yoghurt for the pair of us, Lockwood tells me it's the wrong kind of carbs and the bottom falls out of my day.

A ray of of light appears in the form of a visitor to the Snuggle Office: Ian from k'motion Films, who is - until Nexus Alistair introduces him - a stranger. We talk of our respective ambitions, struggles and triumphs, although I decide not to mention the post-lunch slump thing (I don't know if Ian has eaten by this point but there's no evidence of any slump on his part), and generally reassure each other of the nobility of trying to create something from only a wisp over nothing. Ian has big plans, he also has a lunch partner waiting him for out in the cafe so Lockwood and I reluctantly allow him to leave, whereupon the energy in the room dissipates and I impulsively down the remaining yoghurt in one.

To the cafe, then, where I don my 'serious' look so that Lockwood doesn't guess I haven't a clue what to do next. I have him shift some furniture around to make up a set for "Stampys", the postal service members club from where Harley Byrne introduces each episode. But it doesn't feel right, and we decide to save the cafe environment for our next-episode-but-one, in which the space is to feature prominently. We retire instead to the studio, to which I have Lockwood drag more furniture. We are able to utilise some of the Lumpenbal donations - a splendid bicycle, an Egyptian tea set - to create the Stampys set. But then it comes time to actually film it, and I find I have nothing. I don't even have the notes we made whilst rehearsing the scene several weeks back, as - whilst embodying the spirit of original UNIVERSAL EAR director Francis Dove - it seemed to make more sense to lose them and perform instead from a memory of a contrivance of an interpretation of a script. This somewhat indefinite, analogue approach is in fact completely inappropriate here, as it is our intention to shoot Byrne's performance "lo-res" - glitching from emotion to clunking emotion with nary a segue from one to the next. (Doris, the Super 8 camera, is to record this sympathetically by gearing down to 12 frames-per-second - not least because we're running perilously short of film stock).

However, if there's one thing that'll make you slap yourself across both cheeks and face up to your professional obligations, it's having a photographer appear on set and ask to snap you in action: and that's precisely what happens, as Kit from Hong Kong pops her head bravely through the studio door and asks what we're doing. Kit packs an arsenal of proper old cameras herself, and by redirecting some burning tungsten from Lockwood's gurning face to Doris's mechanical curves I am able to draw her right in and ascertain that she is no rush to leave.

Will you help us, Kit, get these three shots? Kit is no rush, wants to get some pics and agrees to extra as a Stampys tea-girl. I quickly scribble a direction ("billowing vowels", "Bond [Roger]") on each of Lockwood's prompt cards and we're ready to go. Once Doris is whirring, we all get caught up in her momentum: Kit pours steaming tea, Lockwood clunks from "hard consonants" to "condescending pity" with zero grades of performance in between, and I aid him by holding/swaying/rolling his cue sheets in the direction and distance I think he should stare with each line. Before we know it, we've burnt through 48 feet of Tri-X on Lockwood and used the last couple of feet for Kit's close-ups, and are wrapped for the day. It's only 16:30 so Kit takes this opportunity to turn her cameras on Lockwood and I. Hunter becomes hunted as we hold our respective contraptions (Doris for me and the Universal Ear for Lockwood) feebly at each other and allow our likeness to be captured by Kit's vintage bellow-hinged Polaroid and medium format Rolleiflex. We say our goodbyes, and Lockwood and I high-five.

The excellent mood is only soured when Lockwood is shortly after given some free chocolate cake by Steph and Hannah in the cafe and I get none. What hurt the most was the way he wolfed the remainder down when he saw I'd caught him.

Cast, extras & runners needed for UNIVERSAL EAR

This week production starts on the next episode of UNIVERSAL EAR, on an open set at Manchester's Nexus Art Cafe.

"Bloodless Offering in B Minor" is a swedes-and-sandals epic in which our hero Harley Byrne travels back to Greece, 425BC in order to record the pulsating rhythms of an immolated artichoke. But his arch nemesis BEING has arrived ahead of him and spun a web of tangled identity and multiple disguises amongst the religious community. In the balmy, fetid-smelling air of the temple of veg, Byrne finds himself attracted to his host's official greengrocer, Thersites. A boisterous and tender relationship blooms between the two men, compromising the success of Byrne's mission.

We need!

1 chap to play the REAL THERSITES (any age 18+)
->auditions this afternoon and tomorrow (Weds), shooting Thursday and Sunday this week

1 couple to snog in the background of our opening sequence
->get in touch, we'll work out a time to do it

Set decorators, prop/crafts people and runners are also needed Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday & next Monday... however much or little you can do, please get in touch (experience not essential).

Please email info [at] zoomcitta.co.uk or drop into the studio at Nexus Art Cafe, on Dale Street opposite Vinyl Exchange; or leave a comment below.

This week we will be there 10-6 Tues-Thurs and 12-5.30 Sunday.

Extras needed in Manchester this Sunday

Please join us at the UNIVERSAL EAR film studio in Manchester City Centre this Sunday, as we film the final shots of first episode, "A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear".

We will be shooting the Flea Orchestra itself so require extras in smart dress (preferably white shirt, plain black/dark tie, dark jacket), with whatever musical instruments you can bring. We have a few shirt/ties & instruments so feel free to come along and borrow. You don't have to be able to play the instruments as we will add the music later.

The shoot should last from 2.30pm-4.30pm. The cafe will be open before, during and after if you'd like to factor your Sunday mellow into the day. Extras will become a part of cinematic history, and one day receive a DVD of their work.

Please email armend [at] zoomcitta.co.uk or just show up at Nexus Art Cafe on Dale Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter this Sunday from 2.30pm.

& please forward this call-out to anyone who might appreciate it.

If you would like to join us earlier to help make up some costumes, we'll be in the studio from 12 ... please drop in.

UNIVERSAL EARLog: Day 13

Lockwood and I awake, once more, to the sound of drilling and hammering next door. 8am sharp every morning, our industrious - indeed, industrial - neighbour treats us a complex treat of sensations both sonic and vibrational. I'm able to shake it off though, better rested for having regained custody of "the bed" as we call it - "the bed" being a bed, rather than an arrangement of armchair cushions and folded sleeping bags on "the floor".

I had dreamt of being a child again, moving to a mansion and "Far And Away" style staking my claim to all of the best and biggest rooms (including the basement) before my sister got home. She wasn't happy. Many of my dreams these last weeks have involved me being a child, perhaps because deep down I consider myself to be hideously out of depth leading a reconstruction project off-site from the familiar environs of Zoomcitta. Or perhaps because it's like having a massive toy set. Or just because of Lockwood's liberated, childlike attitude towards bodily functions.

The journey to work involved high speed collisions in both eyes (greenflies), the only levity being provided by the sight of a taxi driver getting roughed up in the middle of the road, presumably for being an inconsiderate road lout.

Rather self-satisfied for having set up today's first shot last night, I am rather gutted when the starlet Tuesday Betts points out that this scene requires soaking our hero Harley Byrne (who has just landed in a lake) which means his costume will be out of action for the rest of the day. Instead, we dismantle the set and prepare the "romantic dinner" scenes. My swagger soon returns as I singlehandedly concoct an ingenious lighting set up out of some garden lights (sans stand), two redhead pots (with barely a directional stand between them), a reflector and a tea tray. Lockwood and Betts have done themselves proud setting up the actual location (dinner table in log cabin in front of window with mountainside vista) and refuse to acknowledge my burgeoning cinematographic genius. Fortunately, Nexus gaffer Emily walks in at this point to see what we're up to and I'm able to quite naturally introduce the fact of my genius into general conversation. Emily has just returned from gardening class and, having successfully photosynthesised over 50% of her runner beans in the past three weeks, can also claim to know a thing or two about the taming of raw light: we instantly gain a new mutual respect, or at least I think we do, as there are still big yellow blotches in my eyes and I can only make out her feet.

Having achieved all this, our three-person crew breaks for pies, which we take in the Nexus garden: it's barely noon but we're hoping the post-lunch slump will get confused when it turns up at two and finds us all fully digested. We crack through the dinner scenes, then I pretend to go through my script whilst my actors build the outside of the cabin for Byrne's big wet arrival scene (really I am napping). Naturally, having each done the work of a dozen disparate crew members today, we are slowing: but we nail the cabin, whoosh through a self-congratulory analysis session and bid Betts au revoir: she has done all her scenes for this, the first episode of UNIVERSAL EAR. She casually points out that she won't be back for at least a fortnight but, giddy on our success, we overlook this and I make a mental note to develop a simmering resentment at a later date.

Delays at UNIVERSAL EAR

The original, 2012 version of the time-travel adventure serial UNIVERSAL EAR is considered - by those few who are aware of it - to be the greatest act of filmmaking folly to have ever been committed to celluloid.

I beg to differ. After eight days of attempting to "prehabilitate" the same series in a public film studio no bigger than my flat (tiny), whilst putting up lead actor Stewart Lockwood (mansize) in afore-mentioned (tiny) flat, a full two years before the original was even made, our endeavour seems follier. Francis Dove, the director of the 2012 original, at least had some finance behind him - even though he never seems to have made up his mind whether the finished work would be destined for TV or cinema or internet, or even whether he intended it to be seen at all. We have only donations of junk (some really fantastic junk), and it is little consolation that Dove - who was in something of an emotionally bankrupt state when he made UNIVERSAL EAR - would have considered the physical accoutrements of his own set to be little more than the flotsam of a sinking reality.

Furthermore, it's difficult not to feel the pressure of time constraints when one begins the reconstruction of a series that had over 1,000 episodes. You can imagine how Dove was actually quite pleased when his leading man Byrne boycotted several episodes, leaving Dove to cut together performances from outtakes from shoots gone by. We don't have that luxury - we're working on a strictly first-take-counts basis, which means there's nothing left on the cutting room floor at the end of the day.

All of which is to say, we've rather jettisoned the idea of shooting a whole episode every week, and are instead basking in the luxury of time and tightly parametered space that residency chez Nexus brings us. We've shot maybe 15% of "A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear" which was meant to wrap last Sunday; we're reveling in the spirit of our 2012 alter-egos; trying things out and enjoying the company. Certain disciplines (morning meeting, warm-up/L'Institute Zoom anthem, closing analysis "What have we achieved? What went wrong?") remain, have even begun to stretch out over the so-called productive hours in between. We may add more - rhythm is important. Join us, and we can beat out time together.

This week at UNIVERSAL EAR @ Nexus Art Cafe

First off, Mr Cole sends his apologies for being unable to contribute a truly comprehensive blog entry at this point. He has the UNIVERSAL EAR crew working around the clock to find a time-efficient blogging technique that can function alongside the day-to-day pressures of working in a film studio alien to one's usual surroundings (the latter being the currently sealed off Zoomcitta complex).

This week the studio is looking to employ short and long term (one hour or three weeks) art department volunteers. There are sets, props, costumes and backdrops that need painting and building out of assorted donations of junk: please drop into the studio or message us via the Facebook group. (There are now also some photos of what we've been up to).

This week the studio will be open:
Tues 11th 10am-5.30 (outtakes, freezedried emotion tinning)
Weds 12th 10am-5.30 (set design & making for "A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear" & "Bloodless Offering in B-Minor")
Thurs 13th 10am-5.30 (shooting some more "Flea")
Sat 15th 10am-1pm (rehearsal with recurring guest character "Santiago Byrne" .. and watch this space for possible Night Cafe action)
Sun 16th 12-5.30pm Tuesday Sundays - shooting with the starlet Tuesday Betts.

Please drop in for a chat about how you can become involved. We need you.

Busy times at film studio from the future

Hello there, project leader Cole here (attempting to channel the spirit of original UNIVERSAL EAR director Francis Dove).

We're two days into prefabrication of the lost UNIVERSAL EAR adventure serial at our temporary home, Nexus Art Cafe. Frankly, between tea-making, wolf-sourcing and epic holistic warm-up sessions, there's been no time to relay much of what's happened so far - I'd advise you, if you can, to visit us instead and see what's going on. We'll be there 10- 5.30 every day until Sunday, and then publish a new schedule for next week.

Thursday 6th May - set making, preparing for grand Lumpenbal (with last-minute rescue guest spot from Manchester's snuggliest band PYJAMA PARTY)
Friday 7th May - exposure of film begins somehow
Saturday 8th May - A.M. we work with Tuesday Betts on her performance as BEING (in the spirit of the original actress, Brigitte Bridges); P.M. come and play a flea and/or a wave and/or a flame as Downing's original production design gets person-al.
Sunday 9th May - the first of our Tuesday Sundays, when we film starlet Tuesday Betts' scenes for the UNIVERSAL EAR episode A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear.

Anyone is welcome to pop in whenever they can; we're in the studio behind the kitchen, we should have some good signage up shortly. Come and say hello, or watch in silence, or volunteer to paint a set or don a costume. We are particularly looking for make-up people and film (rather than digital) cinematographers, but tell us what you do and there'll be something you can turn your hand to. A bit like those ads for the army only with significantly less killing and that.

UNIVERSAL EARLog: Day -1

Evening: I meet Lockwood and his sister, having personally invited the latter along to keep the former's self-esteem in check. I introduce them to our temporary studio at Nexus, and they are discreet enough to keep their excitement in proportion to the dimensions of the space (two rooms at each approximately 18ft by 10ft, by 8ft 3 inches high). I draw comparisons with Hollywood's (unrelated) Universal Studios, and Lockwood's sister notes that indeed the carpet on the walls is green and might be used for some of that green-screen stuff you see in "Making Of" documentaries. Mental note: as we're shooting on Super-8, could we align the grain of the film to cancel out inconsistencies in the weave of the carpet?

Later, we attempt a video conference with the Institute's house band, who are due to perform at our launch night on Thursday 6th. During the conference, it becomes clear that they are in fact in the same room as us behind a giant fake monitor made of cellophane. This is just the first of several suspicious circumstances leading up to their last minute cancellation ahead of the Lumpenbal.

Lumpenbal in Manchester this Thursday to launch UNIVERSAL EAR

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Facebook event

IN BRIEF! A costume ball at a beautiful art cafe, for which you will be expected to dress-down in the rags of the broke... be you a --

FADED STARLET
BANKRUPT STUDIO MOGUL
CONVICT
TRAMP
WANDERING AMNESIAC
CHIMLEY SWEEP
OIK etc etc.

There will be a reception during which your photo-portrait will be taken, and tea & cake will be available from the cafe whilst you take to your tables to gossip about the other guests. Then speeches & awards & an introduction to our project UNIVERSAL EAR. Finally, dancing to live music from across the history & the future of the world. (And then, pub).

Be there, or be written out of history.

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For the hardy of concentration:

During the month of May, L’Institute Zoom will recreate the lost adventure serial UNIVERSAL EAR on an open set in the Nexus Art Café studio. Having foolishly squandered our resources on opulent Manc musicals and dazzling sci-fi sitcoms, there is nothing left in the kitty, so what better way to launch the production of UNIVERSAL EAR than with a grand rag ball?

Come and celebrate our collective faded glory by dressing up in the most downwardly-mobile of fashions: tramp chic, forgotten frocks, moth-nipped tuxes, and accessories born of folly. Bring obsolete possessions and broken things to donate to the production. Wear your emotions boldly, they’re the last thing you will own.

The evening will be comprised of four key Lumpenbal rituals:

Die Gaeste werden kategorisiert (THE TINNING OF THE GUESTS)

In which, on your arrival, your costume will be catalogued photographically. No further photography will be permitted during the evening, although illustrative sketches, collage, crochet etc. will be encouraged.

Die besetzung der Huetten (THE OCCUPATION OF HUTS)

As the guests continue to arrive, you will make your way through to the ballroom, where you can find a table and convert it into a dwelling place for the evening. Perhaps you will have brought boxes, planks or umbrellas, in which case you can truly seal off your temporary home from the covetous gaze of others; or perhaps just a handful of unwanted objects with which to mark your territory. Freeze-dried music from across the history of the world will be piped in; tea and cake will be available from the café. Mingle with your fellow outcasts, then scurry back to your hut to gossip over their choice of costume (or cake).

Das Sprechen der Worte (THE SAYING OF WORDS)

Messrs Cole and Lockwood of the UNIVERSAL EAR production team will introduce you to their industrious intentions for the weeks ahead; explain a little of the story behind their forgotten epic; and detail ways in which you might get involved with or actively ignore their endeavours. A brief survey of donations will be carried out. The movie starlet Tuesday Betts will then crown the Belle or Beau of the Ball, who will be rewarded with a contract to star in an episode of UNIVERSAL EAR. (The contract is compulsory and unpaid).

Der Tanz der gebrochenden Gegenstaende (THE DANCE OF THE BROKEN THINGS)

Please take to the floor as the Institute’s house band performs compulsively danceable interpretations of the most obscure music ever known – or unknown – to humankind. Be pitiful, be fabulous, reconsider the mechanical possibilities of the human body. You will forever be remembered as one of the Broken Things.

** DONATIONS **

The Institute has been uprooted from its sprawling studio home, and is out of money following the decadent filmmaking excesses of the past six years, so – reader - why not take this moment to have a look at some of the articles and objects you have acquired and expired, reimagine them as fine and ragged ball costumes, and donate whatever is left (be it CLOTHING, DECOR, TECHNOLOGY, or THINGS) to our production team at the Nexus Art Café studio?

In order to prehabilitate the lost adventure serial UNIVERSAL EAR, economic pressures require us to REPERCEIVE the stuff we are offered, paint it, turn it several degrees to the left and call it something else. As such, we can use anything that you have no further use for, be it:

Trousers
Hats
Uniforms
Cardboard boxes
Books
Sporting apparatus
Cooking implements
Garden ephemera
Magazines
Tapes
Musical instruments
Make-up
Stationery
Furniture
Broken things
Tat
And anything else that will fit.

Please bring it along to the Lumpenbal or at your leisure during May.

Entrance to the Lumpenbal is FREE, with a suggested donation of £2 (no-one will be watching if you choose to sneak in). For those who wish to wind down with something stronger, we will move en masse (and in ballwear) to a nearby public house following the close of the ball at around 10pm.