UNIVERSAL EARLog: Day 19

Lockwood awakes complaining of feeling "fuggy". He hasn't been the same since The Bad Lieutenant. I know things are bad when I offer him £7 to go and get his haircut and he says he'll just let Strigner do it: the very idea of letting our production designer loose on his follicles was enough to bring him out in shakes just three weeks ago.

We manage, all the same, and despite Strigner being delayed by dog health issues, a quietly productive morning. I complete the entire shotlist for "Bloodless Offering in B Minor" in the Snuggle Office whilst Lockwood deputises for Strigner in the studio. At 11am I pop my head round the door to find he has built the beginnings of a fine miniature for our model shot of an ancient Greek marketplace. However, when I return an hour later he has progressed no further, painting the same tiny radish and muttering about his veg stall being structurally unsound.

We escape into the cafe area for pizza pie, a concoction of toast, cheese and tomato that looks and sounds like something I might make (I don't make things) but tastes superb, and briefly alleviates Lockwood's fug. Strigner's right hand woman Suzanne Thompson arrives with a bagful of handcrafted veg and a bad head: on Strigner's arrival we finally get around to singing the Institute's anthem, a discipline that has been neglected three out of the last four days.

Buoyed by our Fat Larry imitation (and personally by Strigner's remarks on my own improvement at same) we crack on at a mild canter. A pleasant moment occurs as we stand by the window to the secret garden (should a secret garden have a window?) when Nexus Sally, distracted from her homework, wistfully imagines we are talking about the weather: whilst Sally is not far off, I am taken with the idea of imagining other people wasting time in mundane conversation whilst daydreaming oneself. Such pockets of time are undervalued, ephemeral and uncontrivable. If only you could tin them for emergencies.

The rest of the day is spent messing around with togas and attempting to keep Lockwood from harming himself. He is left painting quietly in the studio and we pretend not to be disturbed by the occasional perverted assertion that issues from his troubled lips. Tomorrow Doris rolls on the next episode of UNIVERSAL EAR. An early night for all.

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.

UNIVERSAL EARLog: Day 16

A day of fleas, Hawaiian shirts and the baddest of lieutenants. More soon.

Second UNIVERSAL EAR episode going into production

L'Institute Zoom are continuing to reshoot the entire lost UNIVERSAL EAR serial in our temporary film studio at Nexus Art Cafe.

UNIVERSAL EAR is a perpetual adventure series, charting the progress of Harley Byrne – arch-explorer and former postman – and his mission through space, time and sound to capture and make available for download “all the world's music, ever”.

The first episode "A Flea Orchestra In Your Ear" will wrap on Sunday 22nd May, and the production is looking for extras dressed smart (black tie) and carrying musical instruments (talent non-essential) to join us from 2.30pm-4.30pm to 'perform' in the flea orchestra itself. Please show up at the cafe and ask for the UNIVERSAL EAR studio.

Next week we begin work on the second episode, a swedes-and-sandals epic entitled "Bloodless Offering in B Minor". Wednesday 26th & Thursday 27th we will be making sets and costumes, and rehearsing and shooting on Thursday, Sunday 30th and Monday 31st.

Our film studio is to the right of the cafe counter and is open 10-5.30 Mon-Thurs and 12-5.30 on Sundays until further notice. Whenever you see the door open, you are welcome to come through and say hello, whether you'd like to help or just be nosy.

You can also follow our progress online at twitter.com/Nanneman, and join our Facebook group.

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 15

This weekend at UNIVERSAL EAR Studios

Just to warn you, the studio will be closed Friday 21st-Saturday 22nd May: please watch here or on Facebook or Twitter.com/Nanneman for updates on what's happening next...