February 24th in LA

Dateline Los Angeles….very flash..  I guess I came about as close as I'll ever get to the Oscars 2 nights ago...I was there to show my In Search of Chopin film on the invite of Poland's no 2 in the USA. He had a party in his house last night as they had 4 or 5 possible Polish winners...In the end they did get the big one - best foreign language film with Ida. As you can imagine they were delighted.  Personally I'm bored to death with awards shows - although, remarkably, the two big winners Birdman and Grand Budapest Hotel were great films...I'm just so glad American Sniper was snubbed. Yuk.

It's very sunny here (though I've been stuck indoors doing emails and research all day) but tonight we have our LA premiere of Chopin – better than any Oscar ceremony!  

I’m shocked when I look at the date and realize we are almost in March.  What a crazy few months it has been –  starting the release of Chopin, filming CONCERTO as well as producing five EXHIBITION ON SCREEN films. These are now done and slowly being released here, there and everywhere.  The brand is building – slower than one would like – but it’s a steady incline at least.   Audience reactions are great – as evidenced but some sell-out shows I attended on the West Coast last week – but the economics are tricky while folk continue to see cinema as cheap entertainment. No-one really questions (well, I do!) paying £80 or $120 for a rock concert or theatrical piece but cinema we expect to be about a tenth of that. I’m not saying that’s wrong but it makes life pretty hard.  Mind you, we are finally starting to get some interest from sponsors which is good news.  It really is essential we keep making films like these: my family and I made a terrible mistake recently and went to see a film called Kingsman. We thought it was a kids’ spy thriller.  Boy, were we wrong!  It is a sick, vile, humourless exploration into how violent we can make a film and still only get a 15 certificate. If you enjoy seeing folk cut in half or a church full of parishioners being slaughtered, then this is for you. But then somehow I doubt you’d be reading my blog if it were…..  And guess what, this awful film has taken over $100m already and climbing.  What a world….

[Next day]   

Back in my oh-so-different world, I had a lovely screening of IN SEARCH OF CHOPIN in (a freezing) New York this evening. The Carnegie invited their privileged members to a screening – plus a preview clip of CONCERTO – A BEETHOVEN JOURNEY. It went really well – and both looked great on the big screen.  CONCERTO looked really super – the first time I’d seen any of it projected.  Very exciting.  Right, need to pack as I have an early flight tomorrow to Philadelphia (a great town) and then home….

26th January 2014

A rather belated Happy New Year to everyone! January seems to have whizzed by and Spring is certainly just around the corner, unless you live in the many parts of the world experiencing strange weather these days. We, in the UK, have had a wet & windy time of late and there’s a good deal of flooding still around. I also feel for my many friends in the USA & Canada who have experienced some of the coldest weather in memory. It hasn’t really had much impact on me as I’ve been pretty well tied to my desk or edit suites since before Christmas. 

The good news is that yesterday we ‘Picture-Locked’ IN SEARCH OF CHOPIN. It’s been more or less a 4 year journey so to finally say ‘That’s it! No more picture editing’ is a great moment. There is still a lot to do with grading, audio mixing, subtitling and credits but I do feel a mountain has been climbed. Am I happy with it? Yes, definitely. I guess I wouldn’t have stopped editing were I not. But more than that, I admit there were times when I struggled with Chopin – it seems strange to say (after life stories like Mozart & Beethoven) but there seemed to be endless hard choices about what not to include. As ever, summarising (in an entertaining, accessible way) someone’s full and significant life in only 110 minutes is always going to be a challenge. The first good news for me is that one eminent historian of the period and a key Polish Chopin Institute have all given a full thumbs up. The Chopin Museum in Warsaw want to be able to show it regularly in their (wonderful) gallery – and actually that’s the best recommendation I could have got. The film is not yet finished but that’s a good sign. A lot of time is also being spent on sorting out the film’s distribution….and that goes well too.  We will be announcing officail release dates soon. So posters, press stills, social media and all that kind of thing are being worked on. What’s nice is those countries want to take the opportunity to reshow MOZART, HAYDN & BEETHOVEN. Well, we’ll see….let’s hope financially we can at least break even! 

 In a musical vein, I’ve been working on the other music film too which is the film about Beethoven’s 5 piano concertos – with Leif OveAndsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Having filmed (a 5-camera shoot) two more of the concertos in Brussels recently, we had a chunk more material to start playing with ideas in the edit suite. That’s always such an exciting, important and creative moment in any film’s life… This is a film that just has to avoid me messing up. I have the best music, performed by ‘the world’s best pianist’ `(The Irish Times) and a great orchestra. I’ve been hamstrung as always by the horrors of funding but I don’t think it’s impacted on the filming or the film…So I’m getting excited about that one too (which will be released in 2015). As for EXHIBITION ON SCREEN…we’re getting lots of requests for repeat screenings (To book a screening visit seventh-art.com). More on all that another time…. One last thing, if you’re in the UK, do try to see Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies at Stratford – brilliant.