This is a blog about my attempts at starting a career in film: popping all my little clips on here and asking your opinions and advice, since I’m very much a beginner. The occassional other ramble will probably make it’s way in here too. If you want more detail go to the ‘About Holly’ page, or if you’re rich head for ‘Give me Work’ instead.

I know, I know, it’s been a helluva long time since I’ve posted here. Truthfully, that’s because I haven’t been doing a lot of film stuff: concentrating instead on my day job for working for amazing arts company Artichoke.

However, two things have happened recently.

The first: I filmed the Cambridge Lindy Hoppers’ performance in dance show ‘Signatures’ at the ADC a few weeks ago. You can see the film below. It’s pretty basic: one camera pointed at the stage. I did take a load of detailed shots with my second, less posh camera. However, the dancers just wanted to be able to see how they all looked as a group. I felt it would be a waste of their time and mine to put in a load of shots of individuals’ feet or hand movements. So, here you go:

The second thing has nothing to do with film and everything to do with creativity. If you have a twitter account and check it regularly, you can’t have failed to notice the #paperchase hashtag has been getting rather a lot of use over the last few days. The basic story is that independent artist Hidden Eloise was made aware by a friend that one of her artworks was being badly traced over and sold as a range of products by high street store Paperchase.

Eloise duly contacted Paperchase and made them aware that someone had stolen her design. They informed her that she was mistaken. The lawyer fees that were quoted to her were well out of the range of anyone earning a decent wage, let alone a struggling artist. To see the two images and how closely they match, see the video below:

So Eloise posted something on Twitter, which was duly re-tweeted by author Neil Gaiman – someone with 1.5 million followers on the social networking site. All hell broke loose on Twitter, and soon Paperchase was being bombarded with angry messages.

Eventually it turned out that Paperchase had got the artwork from design agency Gather No Moss (who have since removed their contact details from their website), who in turn posted a message saying that they had got the design from an artist, who strenuously denies any wrong-doing. Hidden Eloise states that she is going after Paperchase (I’m not sure why she isn’t putting more effort into pursuing the artist who actually traced her work, but…).

When I read about this case it made me incredibly angry, in a way I haven’t been angry in a very long time. I’ve been a struggling artist before (not ‘art art’ – theatre – but still). I know how difficult it can be. To have someone just come along and make a load of money from your hard work is a bitter pill to swallow on its own. But to then have them deny what is blatantly true – to, in fact, accuse you of causing a fuss over nothing. Well, it smacks of big corporation bullying, something I would not have pinned on Paperchase before. All they had to do was to apologise to Eloise, give her some money in recompense and fire the design agency. They would have come out of the whole affair squeaky clean and smelling of freshly cut grass, lavender and cute puppies.

I ended up writing an email to Paperchase and Gather No Moss. As yet I have heard nothing from the design agency. From Paperchase, however, I received n extremely snippy email stating that “it is a shame that people believe everything they read on websites.”

No, Mr Paperchase, we believe our eyes. Now go employ someone who actually knows a bit about PR.

Anyway, I’ve put some links to sites of interest concerning this case. If, once you’ve read all the evidence, you too believe that Hidden Eloise has been treated appallingly, please write to Paperchase and Gather No Moss an express your opinions.

Hidden Eloise’s website

The Guardian’s article on the affair

Paperchase’s statement

Oh, and one more thing – the power that Twitter users seem to have to make things happen is also making me rather excited about the possibilities of a filming project I’ve got up my sleeve. More on that soon – I promise.

UPDATE: A few hours ago the designer admitted that she had copied Hidden Eloise’s drawing. She apologised to Eloise and so did Gather No Moss. Paperchase, on the other hand, are denying all culpability and answering complaint emails giving out the designer’s name. I know that they didn’t know about the copy before it happened but their handling has been appalling: they have not yet apologised to Eloise for dragging her reputation through the mud and accusing her of lying in the National Press. Bad form, Paperchase. Very bad form indeed.

My partner gets very excited about gadgets. He often makes his own. So the other day I came home from work to discover that he’d concocted a small steadicam for me out of some of his camera equipment and one of his weights. It works surprisingly well:

Yesterday I was lucky enough to interview Jon Snow for my work with Artichoke. I made a video out of some of the footage, but thought I’d quickly edit the rest together a. for your viewing pleasure and b. to explain why I didn’t use some of these clips. I’ve attached numbers to clips and put notes relating to that number/clip below. Points to anyone who can watch the video and read the note at the same time

Jon Snow – behind the scenes from Holly Race on Vimeo.

1. I really liked the idea of catching Jon talking to someone else (in this case the owner of the cafe we were in – he was upgraded to regular on our visit) but unfortunately my voice gets into it half way through – and I really hate having my voice in these things – it makes the viewer very aware that it’s not them being directly addressed, as I like to give the feeling, but some anonymous person behind the camera.

2. Jon had some really interesting things to say about public art and where ‘One and Other’ fits in to today’s art world. Unfortunately it’s entirely my fault that I didn’t feel able to use the material. I was using a 50mm lense at the time, which makes it difficult to focus properly on anything but a very small range, and it was too close to fit in Jon’s entire head. The result was that when he moved you either couldn’t see his mouth or he wasn’t in focus. Then I made matters worse by moving the camera, which just puts a completely unusable bit in the middle. I justified leaving it out because I’m interviewing Ekow Eshun next week, who I’m thinking will have a fair amount to say on the matter of art.

3. I did actually use part of this bit of the interview, and there was no real reason to keep this part out (because I found it really interesting) except that it wasn’t really relevant to the project and I had a slight feeling of unease at publishing Jon’s personal disappointment in his grandfather to hundreds of strangers (at least on here I know it’s only going to get seen by about 50 people!).

4. Here Jon is actually talking about an interview he did with Antony Gormley (who is the artist who came up with ‘One and Other’). We were just having a bit of an informal chat about it while we had our coffees, when I realised that he was saying some really interesting and potentially relevant stuff. But, damnit, I turned on the camera too late and so had no context to put it in when I came to edit it all together.

5. Okay well I did include this in my ‘official’ piece: just couldn’t resist showing off that sock/tie combination a second time!

Any thoughts/comments/constructive criticism much appreciated! Oh, and you can view the bits that did make it to the final cut here.

So the camera I use is a nikon D90. When I turn up to productions with it people always look surprised when I tell them I’m the film person. Actually it’s a brilliant video camera, at about a quarter of the price the big, professional numbers sell at. Here’s some films made entirely with the D90 (not by me – I aspire!) to prove it:

White Tea Spa TV Spot – SD Version from mrmoe on Vimeo.

Then here’s a piece shown on the Guardian website shot almost entirely on the D90.

Not bad, huh?

I’m an absolute sucker for Top 10s, so it seemed the right and natural thing to do to write some myself. First up: my all time favourite movie deaths, inspired by crying yet again over Boromir’s death in Fellowship of the Ring last night. Before you go any further though, I’ll warn you: I’m a shameless blockbuster watcher…

1. The Shark – Jaws: “Smile you son of a – BOOM!”. Love it.
2. Edward Bloom – Big Fish: Ends are neatly tied up as the perpetually thirsty Edward Bloom is lowered into the water by his son and turns into a very big fish. What’s even better is the fact that his death is being described by his estranged son Will, who until now has shunned anything other than cold hard fact. Beautifully crafted, beautifully shot, very uplifting.
   

   American Beauty

3. Lester Burnham – American Beauty: “Remember those posters that said, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”? Well, that’s true of every day but one – the day you die.” For a film that talks about death from the first lines, it’s got an awful lot of life in it, and even though you don’t really see Kevin Spacey kick the bucket, his ensuing speech and the shots of Carolyn (his wife) hugging his clothes, make this one of my most memorable.
4. Ofelia – Pan’s Labyrinth: It was a close one between this and Laura’s suicide in The Orphanage, but I decided to be loyal to the first Guillermo del Toro movie I saw.
5. Count Laszlo de Almasy – The English Patient: More for Juliette Binoche’s incredibly moving reaction to her patient’s silent request to pump him full of morphene, but Ralph Fiennes doesn’t give a bad performance, as performances go.
6. Casey Becker – Scream: Drew Barrymore getting stabbed then hung from a tree with her guts spilling out? In the first 20 minutes of the film? Well, it was original at the time (well, vaguely original; I guess Psycho got there first).
   

   Little Women

7. Beth – Little Women: Need I say more? I defy anyone not to cry when watching this.
8. Robert Muldoon – Jurassic Park: “Clever girl”.
9. The Ring – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: I’m so glad Peter Jackson and WETA didn’t screw this up. Originally they were going to have Gollum screaming in pain and the ring just melting away, but luckily they went for a less realistic version where Gollum’s focus is on his precious and the ringtakes its sweet time melting – the suspense and the storytelling are just incredible. And anyone who says that the ring isn’t a character hasn’t seen the movies.
10. Obi Wan Kenobi – Star Wars: A New Hope: Let’s just forget Ewan McGregor ever played this role (don’t get me wrong, I have a healthy respect for the Scotsman, but no-one was acting at their best in the new films) and remind ourselves of the quiet dignity of Alec Guinness in the classic mentor role. I challenge anyone to name a better-known movie death than this.

That’s it! I’ve missed out tonnes I know, but these are my favourites, and it was a tough choice. You can lambast my decisions below.

A few weeks ago I paid a visit to the ADC Theatre to film Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’. Despite not being a huge fan of Miller’s plays I really enjoyed the production: the performances were astounding, the set exciting (I always get excited by sets with stairs in them) and the direction visceral. I used my HD camera to get close ups at the dress rehearsal and some backstage footage after Thursday’s performance, and my little camcorder to catch the whole play from a wide angle on Thursday evening. I’ve finally managed to edit the film together, from over 5 hours of footage. The film of the play itself can only be shown to the cast and crew (ADC’s rules), but I also made a short, fun piece of mostly backstage stuff that will be a bonus on the DVD. I’ve posted it below as a sort of trailer. Hope you like!

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If you have time on your hands you can download the high resolution version here.

H x