The most amazing driving rain & pelting hail stones poured down the other day. Kiloh & Anna Clare went crazy on the roof after the heat wave come the showers, the snow and then heat wave again! June... Always unpredictable!
An interesting time was had by all. Good to get a better idea of how it works out there.
]]>Our first night we all went out to dinner at a lovely seafood restaurant and sat next to Francis Ford Coppola.
I am sad that I hardly took any pictures. Particularly at the Nowhere Boy party, which must have been the party highlight of the week, with dancing all night and celebs to keep the paps busy flashing all night (Paris, Peaches, Ryan Phillippe etc...). In fact Kirstin Scott Thomas danced all night too. When the party was over, we thanked the DJ and he told us to follow him to his next gig. So we did, avoiding the sea of paparazzis that swallowed poor Paris up in the middle of the Croisette, and followed him through the narrow streets and into the next venue.
The club was great, but when the show changed over and men dressed as lampshades started filling the stage and the music changed we got a bit suspicious. Sure enough a foxy lady sat on stage knitting while a man cat pulled at her yarn until her jumper unravelled and two red heart-shaped nipple coverettes were all that was left. We thought maybe it was time to wander home!
Overall the festival was a busy time and a great opportunity to meet non-London based people you don't get to see often, Russian & Australian producers, people from the UK Film Council in short sleeves and pretty dresses, people you forgot you knew and obviously a lot of interesting people you would never otherwise get to meet.
Of course a lot of rose wine was consummed and in fact one of my more pleasurable afternoons was spent drinking too many bottles to mention in the lovely presence of Sarada McDermott from Liverpool and Rob How from London.
Al Morrow was invited to a Slumdog Millionaire party by a crazy man who lived in a millionaire's mansion. Of course we never went.
Helen Grace was busy with her horror film Colin which was made for £45 and became a great Cannes success story saleswise. Although I haven't heard the whole story yet, so I hope it remains a great success story.
Of course there's much more, but it's probably unwise to go on as it makes it sound like it was all too much fun.
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Neil posed with Douglas for his twitter page. I guess I'll have to get the iphone before I quite manage to upload anything interesting like pictures onto Twitter properly. The song was called Did You See Me Coming. It did sound terribly familiar, but as Neil joked, they've been doing the same thing for years and years, so no surprises there.
Neil Tennant & Douglas Hart
Louise, Jane, Tereza, me & Claire Luke
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It's been a really valuable experience and interesting in tandem with what Daniel and I are working on. It's been great working with the HSI gang again, particularly Claire Luke & Claire Neate James as the last time must have been on The Pond. In fact we even managed to get Rebecca Kibble back on this who worked as my 2nd. There were definitely some funny moments, but I think everyone did really well as the schedule was very ambitious in 4 days and the Claires made sure it was all as professional as if there had been proper money behind it. You know we even had caterers!
It was great getting to meet the twins and work with them and we had a great crew. Jake Polonsky lit it and the footage is absolutely beautiful. I think the infrastructure and the restrictions that come with a 35mm film shoot came as a bit of a surprise to the girls. I think they adapted well though, and having created their piece for the BFI, this film was something the twins had lived and thought about extensively. I think the exercise and experience of turning this idea into a film was a new challenge which I think they really enjoyed too.
I had always wanted to shoot at the hornsey town hall which is a hero of the film as much as the two girls in it. Only 10 minutes walk from the house!
The following day, this is totally unrelated but, Billy took me to see La Ciudad de Sylvia, which was directed by a Spanish artist and which felt like someone had given the sisters enough money to make a feature length film. There were lots of beautiful shots and reflections and long lingering moments. Half way through the film there was a cut from loud music to two people sleeping in a bed in silence. Well not exactly in silence as there were two old dears at the back of the cinema snoring loudly and the effect of this spontaneous sound track was very funny.
But anyway, I can't wait to see how the film will look after it's edited together. It is also funny having been to the cinema extreme workshops and knowing that this is the last film in last year's batch to be completed and therefore quite long & keenly awaited.
Until it is done, if anyone wants to have a look at the work they put together for the BFI, you can click on the link below.
Wilson Sister's BFI piece
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Apoa and Kiloh think this is way more impressive than making washing powder ads or short films about suicidal teenagers (actually on second thoughts they might think that was pretty cool too...).
The first promo was an 8 minute track called Sea Within A Sea for The Horrors which was basically all live performance but with a psychadelic projection that made the whole piece look pretty cool.
The second was for Last Of The English Roses by Pete Doherty and involved shooting Pete and a five a side football game outside. I'm sure the temperature had fallen below zero that day and in fact might have contributed to the playback breaking down almost as soon as we started using it!
Heather, our production manager, resorted to chasing the camera & Pete as we paced the football court, with the track playing off her laptop! 
Well it worked thankfully! But we were all relieved when we had to move inside to shoot the final lip-synch inside and standing still!
Kiloh was desperate to miss school and help out on set to be near Pete...
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I am so excited that this film is finally available once again on DVD!!! I have been trying to get a hold of it for ages & keep bugging people about it - now Billy has ordered it from Lovefilm and it is here!!! It'll probably feel very 70's, but let's hope it's as good as I remembered it to be...
I think it's the first film I ever saw Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen in (although I must have seen Bugsy Malone). They were both amazingly well cast in these roles. The film was so skillfully directed and the performances were so strong that for a long time my brother and I were obsessed with this film. The image of Jodie's stony tight-lipped face as Martin Sheen stroked her fair fair hair... and I will always remember to use an almond flavoured tea if I ever plan to poison anyone with arsenic.
Jodie Foster was already by then an incredibly accomplished actress bearing in mind she was only 12 or 13 when she made this film (I think anyway!). She seemed to have cornered the market for 'older than her years' most notably with her roles as Tallulah & the teenager in Taxi Driver. In fact one of the most exciting star-spotting moments in my life was sitting at a table next to her at a restaurant on l'ile de la cité in Paris. I believe we were celebrating my friend's 16th birthday and we were probably a little loud and giggly. When we asked the waiter if the girl sitting at the table there was indeed Jodie Foster, he embarassed us all by saying "Jodie quoi???" very loudly and repeatedly.
She was so cool she just smiled at us.
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