UNIVERSAL EARLog III: Day 33

After yesterday's catastrophe of light, today a gift. For the only day of the shoot, today we are away from our regular studio - The Chapel - and working in the café space of the Nadir arts venue instead; one of the downsides of this Sabbath-honouring shift is that today's space has high up windows that are pretty difficult to cover, leaving our lighting options (supposedly) limited. But as we recreate the Manchester working person's club from where hero Harley Byrne introduces each episode of UNIVERSAL EAR, we discover that the morning light flooding through the window is perfect for the scene, and the finite splendour of its glow causes us to work with such pace and attentiveness that we manage to complete three charming shots in the time it took us to go home and get the costumes we forgot yesterday. 

A special nod goes to visiting German guest Valerie, friend of our soundist Nina Queissner, who - aside from her general assistance - stepped up to play a blinder as the waitress serving Byrne his tea. ('Should I have any expression on my face?' 'Sort of... Mancunian.' 'Ah, I think I know what you mean'.)

It all means we have time to bask in the surprise late September warmth as we prepare for an afternoon shooting something altogether less kitchen-sink: the cursed tympanum itself. Tuesday Betts will utter her first lines as the enchanted Mrs Coeur, poly-authentic incarnation of the wife of famous Jacques, who offers Byrne a helping hand (OR IS IT?) in our hero's quest. Betts has previously pointed out how big the real Mrs Coeur's hat was (in the same email that she asked whether she should prepare a French accent; I forgot to reply) so when Decerle wheels in her absurd millinery monstrosity it should be no surprise that it is impossible to keep balanced on Betts' talented head.

Costumier Gallane Decerle with her ridiculous hat.

We have the brainwave of strapping the thing to the background of the set and letting Betts kind of stand underneath it instead, offering her the reassurance that in Hollywood, no leading lady is expected to support the weight of her own hat. It proves to be the random factor we require for the sequence in which Mrs Coeur, transformed into a statue alongside Harley Byrne and Saint Ursinus, is the only one left with any mobility whatsoever: indeed, even when she turns her head, her hat remains fixed.

The static nature of the scene makes it reasonably straightforward, if it is the most complex costume set-up so far. Costumes are a lot easier than holograms, though - not least because they're not my responsibility. Still, I hope on a future project we can cross the costume/tech department divide by lowering in one of Betts' hats on a drone and having the thing carry it around over her head for the duration of the episode.

UNIVERSAL EARLog III: Day 32

Shoot day 01. It starts promisingly as we are warmly welcomed to the Chapel by the building's guardian, forced out of bed on a Sunday - it makes a big difference to get a smile and some kind shrugs about my French language skills rather than the tuts and sighs I probably deserved. Next, an upbeat meeting between our assembled crew, all together in one place at one time, and augmented by Lockwood, our leading man. I establish some rules: clean up after yourself; one take for each shot; never forget where you last saw me put my folder (because I will). 

As regular readers will know, the UNIVERSAL EAR set opens each day with a performance of the L'Institute Zoom company anthem, Fat Larry's Band's 'Zoom'. The French contingent take to this ritual with admirable enthusiasm, although it is a crime of culture that none of them have heard this classic before (leading lady Tuesday Betts, who arrives in the evening, puts the British familiarity with this song purely down to the ubiquity of Smooth FM in our cafes, streets, schools and prisons).

Only once the song is finished do things start going downhill. It turns out I have forgotten to bring not only the clippers to do Harley Byrne's 'do', but his entire uniform; Leray and I are dispatched in different directions across Bourges to rectify this. The guest cast begins to arrive in my absence, little suspecting the wait they will have ahead of them, since on my return our efforts to perfect the hologram effects that we require for all of today's shots prove unsatisfactory. Over the past few test weeks, we managed to get the fx to what we considered to be something like 70% perfection; today, it proved a gross overestimation.

The complexity of the script was another mis-judgement; naturally, it's pretty hard for the French cast, with mostly a limited grip on the English language (though far better than my French, as the common and disingenuous disclaimer goes), to understand the esoteric and pretentious dialogue, let alone memorize it and perform it with the required (albeit limited) level of nuance.

While the togetherness and doing-ness of the day was still very valuable (we're not here to make a movie, after all, but to make a movie), it was a huge blow to lose the time that could've been spent with these wonderful performers figuring out how to best create their characters - instead we just wound up trying to get the shots. We'll try to use these shots as a skeleton and add some flesh together in the week, where schedules allow. After months of script work worrying about words, it turned out to be light itself that we had neglected.

One nice touch: Robin-Tyrek steps up to be our smoketographer; she buys a vape machine and fluid from a local tobacconist, and it is magical to discover the smoke in our movie will be of the 'Berry' variety. It turns out that this refers to the flavour of berries rather than a specific vaping blend local to the the Berry region in which we are stationed, but sometimes authenticity is in the eye of the beholder.

In the evening, Tuesday Betts arrives via both Liverpool and Manchester airport, having turned up wrongly to the former and caused a security alert at the latter, and having eaten nary a Wagon Wheel since 11am. Believe it or not, more mischief and chaos may be just what the production needs. Niemczyk, whose lunches and dinners have fair sustained our bellies and souls since long before the Canon 814 rolled today, does not disappoint with her baked roots.

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.

BANNED INSUBSTANCE: All-new episode of UNIVERSAL EAR goes into production

Production begins today on the fourth episode of UNIVERSAL EAR – a lost adventure serial of the future which we at L’Institute Zoom are charged with (p)reconstructing.

Harley Byrne’s ongoing mission is to record and make available for download all the world’s music, ever, for his employers at the Universal Ear record company – using his shed-built ‘Universal Ear’ recording device. In new episode Banned Insubstance, Byrne travels through time to Olympia, 2112 A.D., where Olympid athletes are using illegal motivational music to enhance their performances. Seduced and then snubbed by the corrupt Chairwoman of the National Olympid Committee, Byrne realises if he wants a shot at recording the Banned Insubstance, he’ll have to train for the games – and be strong enough to catch up with the cheats. But does his coach, a reformed ex-ear-doper, have Byrne’s best interests at heart?

Series regulars Stewart Lockwood (Byrne), Tuesday Betts (his arch enemy and mistress of disguise, ‘Being’) and Peter Easterbrook (Santiago Byrne) will return, joined by such luminaries of the Manchester alt-movie unscene as Garth Williams (It’s Nick’s Birthday) and Amanda Belantara (Sonotoki). The Banned Insubstance itself is to be reimagined and re-recorded by artpop misfits Modern Blonde.

Sets are being built in our pocket studio at Nexus Art Café today, tomorrow and Saturday. The movie shoots from Monday 12th-Saturday 17th November 2012, 11-7pm. Interested parties are welcome to drop in to the studio at their own risk. The shoot will be documented online at alltheworldsmusicever.com and in a new zine for the Salford Zine Library, which happens to be immediately next door to our studio.

The Institute has received £200 Micro Funding from Nexus Art Cafe and Artisan Manchester to do this important work.

UNIVERSAL EAR

There were over 1,000 episodes of the original UNIVERSAL EAR and we don’t know what order they’re supposed to be in. In each episode, Harley Byrne must travel to another time and place to re-discover – and re-categorise – someone else’s idea of ‘music’. He always gets his track.

The first reconstructed episode, A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear, premiered at the Abandon Normal Devices festival this August.