Tuesday 4th December

On a Czech train, ambling through the countryside between Dresden and Berlin. A beautiful sunny winter’s day. Nice German cheese roll for lunch. All is well. Well, almost. I had just travelled all the way to Dresden to interview a wonderful musician for my Chopin film and was just outside the hall, with all my gear, when the person rang me to cancel due to illness. Ah well, not to worry – I’ll get the interview another time and at least I got to see Dresden (with its impressively re-built old town) for the first time. In the snow too…can it really be almost December? A year since we did Leonardo Live? Over a year since we launched The Boy Mir – Ten years in Afghanistan? 9 months since I toured some cinemas in Australia and New Zealand… My daughter and I looked at each other in amazement at the weekend when we got the Christmas decorations out of the loft – ‘but we only just put them up there, Dad!’….Time does indeed fly…

Nadar, Edouard Manet, 1874

Most of my year has been extremely busy and extremely unpaid. A huge amount of investment and risk-taking at our expense. But, as always, as we try to choose only projects which interest us, it has been fascinating too. It’s no terrible hardship to be engaged in a highly detailed film on Chopin. Nor is it the end of the world to be looking deep into the life of Manet. Certainly it’s Manet that has been taking up our time over the past three months – and what a fascinating period it was in mid -19th century Paris. We’ve made films before about the impressionists but it’s great to be back in the library and in Paris revisiting the subject. As always, I am fascinated by the economic context of a period. Manet, for example, lived at a time of expanding demand in art, the growth of the gallery, the dealer, the critic. There was even a considerable demand for paintings that could be rented for social events (a party at home for example) and then you had the growth of regional museums (who thus wanted paintings to show). All of this (and more) created a world where the artist moved from even further from the nameless artisan to the world superstar.



Edouard Manet,
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1862-63
Musee d'Orsay



Yesterday the Turner prize was won by Elizabeth Price for her video work. It’s not my cup of tea but at least the guy who works with faeces didn’t win nor the woman called Spartacus who entered a puppet show of the Jesus and Barabbas stories. I’ve never subscribed that art is anything that is called ‘art’ not anything that is in an ‘art gallery’. Maybe I’ve been spoilt by making so many films by what I would say are truly great artists – and that most certainly includes Manet. Of course the reaction to his submissions to the Paris salon elicited the same kind of response as mine to the Turner submissions. One critic said of Manet’s ‘Luncheon on the Grass’ ‘It’s best seen from a kilometre away’. And that was one of the polite comments. Maybe my kids, or their kids, will in a few decades time revere the Prices and Spartacus’ but I doubt it.

I feel the same about films – the endless desire for novelty and shock can often leave art, accuracy, morality trailing in its wake. When asked for lists of the greatest documentaries or indeed feature films generally of all time, I’d say most talk about films from decades ago. And most people’s favourite artists still include Manet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and so on. In researching the works of Manet I’d been delighted to become acquainted, often for the first time, with works of great artistry. The film will be in the cinemas in March and I’m sure you’ll enjoy looking at the paintings we’ve included. The same goes for the ongoing film about Chopin – to be completed and first released in Australia next Christmas. What a treat to get to listen – carefully and not just as background music – to his wonderful creations. I’ll be spending time in Warsaw in April and can’t wait. Anyway, this lovely train is arriving at Berlin’s new(ish) main train station. It’s functional but there’s little artistry. I’ve a couple of hours free so maybe I’ll go for a quick walk around the western lakes…with Manet in my eyes and Chopin in my ears – and try to come up with some cunning schemes to pay for it all….

Thursday 21st June - Broadcast Digital Awards

Just back from an interesting evening at the Broadcast Digital Awards. LEONARDO LIVE had been nominated for an award as best live show of last year which was, frankly, pretty generous as not everything went smoothly on the night. But, as I’ve said before, juries are very random beasts and obviously they had enjoyed the show and were happy to overlook some of the glitches. Plus it was a TV/Cinema ‘first’ and there aren’t really that many of those around.

So… to the Lancaster Hotel where a sea of middle-aged men in black (yep, including me though no dicky bow!) and a very glamourous younger crowd of women gathered in the hope of a gong to adorn a mantelpiece somewhere. Let me state straightaway that I love winning awards - and consider them irrelevant when we don’t…. But there are so many now it’s hard to keep track and also hard to know which are the most valuable. Frankly, it’s much of a muchness – but any award is good news for the broadcaster concerned and offers a stamp of success. Anything thus that helps secure the next commission has to be useful. On the other hand, were those tables really £3000+ a pop?? Good lord – there were 49 tables so do the maths…. I think I might start a few awards ceremonies myself and hold them in my lounge. Or maybe just sell the laurel leaves for producers to fling liberally over their DVD covers. That’s what we do! I’ve won dozens of awards – has it helped? Not much.

So what were we up against and did we win?

Radio 1's Big Weekend Lady Gaga Live, BBC Productions for BBC Three

The FA Cup Final, IMG Sports Media for ESPN

The World Sheepdog Trials, North One TV for More 4

Tour de France 2011, V Squared for ITV4

World Match Racing Tour, Red Handed TV for multiple broadcasters

My vote went to the Tour de France coverage which is super. The jury’s vote went to ….The FA Cup. Never mind, the nomination (our second for Leonardo Live) was nice. The highlight though of the night was the comedian Greg Davies who was superb. The lowlight was the British rail service…..

Phil Grabsky's Blog - Friday 18th November

Friday 18 November 2011.

3am, Koln. Can’t sleep. My body clock is upside down. I’m listening for the millionth time to my CD of Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in F Major played by Ronald Brautigam. I almost can’t believe I am almost through this long-planned series of screenings of The Boy Mir. It began almost two weeks ago with a screening at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. That was at the invitation of a South Asian event (Annual South Asian Literary and Theatre Arts festival) which was very impressive and comprised two days of performance – beginning with a screening of The Boy Mir. The Natural History Museum (of Night at the Museum fame) was the venue. In their excellent cinema, we had a sparely attended but well received showing. It was a real whistle-stop as, after only 30 minutes of Q&A, I had to run for a plane home. I had been flown in on Delta who I have to say were great but they weren’t going to wait for me so it was all at double-quick speed to get on board and home – for the Leonardo Live shoot. I’ve talked about this in another blog so suffice to say once that was done (phew!) it was farewell to my patient and supportive family and back to Heathrow and onto a plane to Washington again. I had asked an excellent PR company (PlanetPix) in New York to organise some BOY MIR screenings for political purposes – to get the film seen by those who make the decisions about billions of dollars and thousands of lives. On a beautiful Autumnal day in DC, we held our first screening at the fancy new building housing the United States Institute of Peace.
In their own words, USIP is our country's global conflict management center. Created by Congress to be independent and nonpartisan, we work to prevent, mitigate and resolve international conflict without resorting to violence. An ideal place to show the film. It is indeed a beautiful new building just near the Lincoln Memorial. The screening was well-attended by aid workers and grant-funders…and USIP ‘experts’ of various types. They seemed to enjoy the film and the subsequent Q&A. Then Planetpix took me downtown to the National Press Club. In their own words: The National Press Club, a private club for journalists and communications professionals, has been a Washington institution for more than a century. It is also a world-class conference and meeting facility that hosts thousands of events each year for sophisticated clients from around the globe. And while these are the Club’s functions, its mission is to be The World’s Leading Professional Organization for Journalists. It is a social and business organization dedicated to supporting the ongoing improvement of the profession of journalism. It’s a great place, actually – with some wonderful, iconographic photos on the walls. Along the corridor are also many world flags and I was very proud that the occasion of my visit was used to present (from the Afghanistan Embassy) an Afghan flag to stand among them. I think Afghan journalists are supremely brave and deserve every recognition. As for my own press conference, it was a bit quiet but I did do a couple of TV interviews – who knows?… It was the eve of a three-day weekend so not the best time, in hindsight, to be asking journalists in. That night, I had a wonderful dinner with the inspiring and, frankly, brilliant head of the Afghanistan section of VOA (Voice of America).
Friday – another lovely day outside but I simply couldn’t break away from trying to whittle down the 200+ emails I had to deal with. I’d like to say I’m a victim of my own success but I’m not sure it’s really that…. I also had to work on the Leonardo Live re-edit. I did make time to walk down with a good buddy of mine to the war memorials including the recently restored First World War memorial. Today was Veterans Day so there was quite a crowd. I was wearing my poppy (as we do in the UK – commemorating the poppy fields in France in which so many men died) and I suddenly burst out laughing: all of yesterday, talking about Mir and Afghanistan, I’d been wearing a poppy ! Most folk here don’t know about our UK tradition so what were they thinking?? That I was an advert for Afghanistan’s no 1 crop?!
That evening, I went to Symphony Hall to see cellist Gautier Capucon. He was fabulous and I stopped by backstage to say hi. His cello piece in IN SEARCH OF HAYDN will, I’m sure, be among many people’s favourites.

Saturday: I worked all morning and then took a lunch break to go to a local cinema to watch The Drive. I don’t know why I do it to myself – it was crass, violent & pointless. If they had given the budget to schoolkids in Afghanistan they’d have done so much more good. In the evening, Planetpix had again done an excellent job of organising a big screening of MIR – this time in a fine cinema at the George Washington University. It was noteworthy for so many Afghans that turned up. Well dressed, handsome, affluent – just as their brothers & sisters in Afghanistan could and should be. For me, a particular treat was sharing the stage with Christina Lamb, one of the best journalists around. If you haven’t read SEWING CIRCLES OF HERAT, you should. Luckily for me, she liked the film. Phew! A lot of positive reaction…but, as so often, very few donations. Website-based donation simply doesn’t work. I keep expecting at least one wealthy person to send in a few thousands dollars but it simply hasn’t happened in all the screenings I have had over the past year…

Sunday – train to NY – had an important meeting with the distributors of LEONARDO LIVE and then made my way to a lovely building overlooking Central Park where I was the guest speaker at a fundraiser for Afghan women. Showed 20 minutes of clips and talked for an hour. Went down very well. Best of all though was the delicious Afghan food – people always laugh when I say one of the reasons I go back is for the food – especially the kebabs … but it’s true.

Monday – Pittsburgh. Oh dear. 11 hours to get there to do a Q&A at a cinema. Travelled up to the cinema and was surprised to arrive at the door and see a poster for me to do the Q&A three days earlier: they got my day wrong! Audience who turned up today – 0! Well, two old dears finally waddled in , hesitated until I told them what a great film it was (they didn’t know I was the director) and they sat all alone in a 300-seater and watched the film. My sense of professionalism did not extend to me sticking around to do a Q&A. I’ll be looking for compensation for that cock-up.

Tuesday and almost at the end of my trek now. As wet and miserable a day as yesterday was gloriously sunny. I gave a talk & screening at the University of Pittsburgh. Some very nice folk who are at their Institute for Human Security. Then a mad dash for the plane home.
Weds- into Sky for the start of the Haydn post production – luckily I have a star post-production editor who can get on with it all alone at the early stage so I could go home. Only to leave 4.30 am next day to Berlin.
Berlin holds such a special place in my heart that I am always so happy to be here. The city always has the same central European air that I remember from my visits as a child. Such a grand, sad, energetic, beautiful city. I’m here because the Franco-German channel ARTE are holding a press screening of MIR. Of all the braodcasters to whom I pre-sold the film, ARTE is actually the biggest coup – and then to get picked for their number one doc slot too is brilliant. And then the fact that they are pushing it makes me even happier. They have hired a wonderful cinema called the Babylon (where, funnily enough, I once came to show ESCAPE FROM LUANDA). I met my ARTE commissioning editor and we hug in relief that we actually managed to win the many fights along the way to get the film through. I won’t bore you with it but, trust me, it was like walking through a field of thorns at times. She has become one of my favourite all-time TV folk – because she believes in the programmes and programme-makers. And, trust me, many don’t. A decent crowd gathers inside – there must be thirty or so people in attendance – a very good turn-out, including the former German ambassador to Pakistan. It’s so easy to put on these events and for them to be ill-attended (well, like the National Press Club in Washington which only saw a handful turn up). The film kicks off on the big screen and it looks great. I make a run for a meeting to do with a classical music project (but that’s another story, folks) and then get back in time for the end of the film and the Q&A. Everyone stays and are very keen to ask questions and listen to the answers. The proof will be in what they eventually write but they seem really approving of the film. I have to add that this is a special moment for me as my sister and her lovely friend who both live in Berlin have come too. I manage to woof down half a bagel before my commissioning editor and I dash to the airport for a 3pm flight to Koln. There I give a talk to a class of film students interested in making political films…’Don’t’ I tell them. ‘make “political films” but tell great stories and let your politics come through the way you tell them, the choices you make, the questions you ask, the shots you frame, the characters you choose”. I find I talk non-stop for 45 minutes – either I’m good at this or have become a bore who likes the sound of my own voice….a bit of both probably! After this we head to the Forum Ludwig – a nice cinema next to the staggeringly impressive cathedral. Their first film ever (five or so years ago) was IN SEARCH OF MOZART (can you believe?!) and so it’s nice to finally visit them. This is a somewhat unofficial screening for WDR (the German channel that is showing the film six months after ARTE) . Again, it is decently attended and well-received. What I learnt from this screening is that the only way to extricate donations towards my desire of paying for a new, well-educated, teacher for Mir’s school is to actually have buckets held out by the doors on the way out of the cinema. Asking folk to visit the website fails. Handing out flyers fails. Two students jumped up after this screening and made paper hats from newspaper and held them out to everyone leaving – and raised 150 euros in one go. I am delighted..and somewhat peeved as I have had so many screenings that I could have done that at – and didn’t. I should have learnt from the Church – they know how to raise cash. Pass the tray round or hold a bucket out and get the cash from people before they leave the building. Oh well… Live & Learn.

Fri – Back to Britain…and it’s not quite over yet. In the afternoon, I give a talk about documentary film-making to some young kids at Brighton College (rapidly becoming accepted as one of the top schools in the UK) and then, after dinner and general fun & games at home, I drive off for my last Mir event: a conference on Afghanistan to be held at Marlborough College, an hour or two west of London.
The event on Saturday turns out to be fascinating (and well-run). I attend excellent presentations today from Bijan Omrani, Rob Johnson and Frank Ledwidge. Mostly concerned with history and contemporary military failures. The event is very well attended and the screening of MIR at the end of the afternoon goes very well. I hang around for a pleasant dinner and then head home, arriving about 1am.

Sun – I’m with my family now and I’m so delighted this mini-Mir-madness is over….It’s time to ease back a little and hope the films take on a life of its own….My golf swing has become way too rusty…

Oh shame…just heard we were not shortlisted for an Oscar. Lots of other omissions too such as (amazingly) Senna and The Interrupters. The selection committee like old-school simple emotional narratives it seems. I’d been told MIR stood no chance but I’d lived in hope for the past few months – it would have been great publicity. Well, we tried….and, on that, one has to say we’ve tried our best for the last year. We said we’d push it for this twelve months (at our own expense) and that time has now ended….Let’s see what happens…Maybe in 6 or so months from now we’ll be able to judge what impact, if any, the film had had….

Leonardo Live

Wednesday 9th November 2011

I’ve been counting down the days and, finally, it is done. LEONARDO LIVE has passed. This is the morning after the night before. I don’t think I’ve ever known such a stressful project – not Afghanistan, Nigeria, Angola, Brazil, nowhere. But we made it – on TV and in 41 cinemas across the UK, we had an unbroken 73 minute show live from the National Gallery. It is two years since I first thought it would be nice to share the privilege of being at great exhibitions after-hours with a wider audience, i.e, in this case, a cinema audience. I always recognised that the Leonardo would be a good first show to do but I had no idea at all it would be such a perfect choice.

The press has been utterly extraordinary – ‘the greatest exhibition I’d ever seen’, ‘the most wondrous exhibition ever’ and so on. It really helped achieve a remarkable success – 95% sold out. I had originally thought to do a live screening to kids at midday in cinemas but the cinema chain that I managed to bring on board decided, for them, it had to be for an adult (and paying) audience. Then I had to get a broadcaster interested and the enthusiastic and ambitious SkyArts came on board. It wasn’t quite that straightforward, of course, but suffice to say without Sky there would have been no project. Luckily the National Gallery were open to the idea and I was lucky enough to hook up with the one person with the insight, energy and sheer brilliant person skills to make this happen. Gosh, looking back, there were so many hurdles – access, cabling, lighting, so on and so forth. But we just kept moving forward small step by small step.. It seems that no-one had filmed live from the gallery before (though that seems hard to believe) but certainly from the basement that is the Sainsbury Wing it seemed impossible. We tested with radio frequency cameras (which worked OK) but, in the end, thanks to the advice of the live production team we worked with (Leopard), we went for cabling. I can still remember spending most of my two week holiday in France dealing with that on the phone; it seemed impossible. But, again thanks to our National Gallery colleague, we somehow were able to lay cables into the roof of the gallery space at the same time as they were building the rooms for the exhibition.

When you remember this is the biggest exhibition in years and includes paintings & drawings worth not millions but billions, the fact they let little old us in is a thing of wonder! At the same time as this was on-going, there were satellite links to book, press releases and posters to check, picture clearances to be sought (and that is another massive task). Above all perhaps, there was the creative process to engage in: what is the film going to show? How? What? We decided very early to have two presenters (Tim Marlow and Mariella Frostrup) and a mix of pre-recorded background films as well as live talk with intelligent guests in front of the paintings. That basic premise never changed though maybe too many people were involved in the scripting at different stages – all wanting to do a good job but sometimes you need one clear voice to drive it forwards. This was tricky because the live script had to be pre-written and the pre-recorded script had to work around it. I’d have expected it to be the other way around so that was a long, difficult process. The default of ‘Live’ folk is quick, quick, quick whereas I lean to taking more time to let people look and learn. The best way on a show like this is probably somewhere in-between. Anyway, the day dawned finally and the 70-odd crew made their way to the gallery. A road outside was shut off to allow the trucks to park and set up their satellite links. Mariella and Tim came in and did their make-up, rehearsals, and so on. The minutes ticked by until finally at 6.40 we went live to cinemas with a special 20 minute (cinema-only) intro of fun facts and then at 7pm we went live to both cinemas and on TV. The next 75 minutes were nail-biting. Tim & Mariella were super, as were most of the guests. The technology worked – my word, I can still remember the endless, endless hours spent on discussing the technology to get these signals out live. Hats off & thanks again to Leopard Films for working so hard to get the show up in the air live and bouncing back down again to cinemas and TVs around the country. Along the way, we had an autocue failure and a camera failure but, again, that’s live TV I guess.

The point is what did the folk in the cinemas and front rooms think? And that answer came back to me very quickly – they loved it! They forgave the glitches because they just loved seeing the paintings in huge HD, they enjoyed hearing the background, they enjoyed the guests. Some cinemas immediately rebooked it for a repeat showing. SkyArts’ viewing figures were, for them, huge. And everyone said that this certainly had been a gamble but it had proved to be a gamble that had paid off. The National has already asked me what exhibition should we do next! And I have meetings with four other major London institutions and a couple of international galleries too…This could run and run. If I have anything to do with it, you need never miss a major exhibition again!!

Sunday 6th November - Leonardo Live

Back in the UK (after a very nice screening at the Smithsonian in Washington DC) in an edit suite in London. Preparing some short documentary inserts for Tuesday’s big event: LEONARDO LIVE. I can’t honestly say it has been as much fun getting this far as making MIR or HAYDN – it’s a helluva lot easier working in a small team whereas Leonardo Live has about 100 folk involved. But the team I’ve employed to do the live production – Leopard Films – are doing a fine job and it should be a great night. I always knew there’d be an audience in the cinemas and just about all 40 cinemas that are taking it live have sold out! And I hope SkyArts get a good audience too (they are showing it live as well). Above all, the paintings – all 9 of them – will be shown in HD on big and small screens throughout the country. And soon the world. Wonderful. Mind you, I say all this two days before the show and I am most certainly not counting any chickens! Trucks, cables, dozens and dozens of crew, satellite links, radio frequencies, 600 guests to the preview night itself, egos, stress, adrenaline, excitement, fear….and, above all, the paintings. I just hope they don’t get it swamped in all the technology. Well, we’ll see…or you will if you watch it on TV or in the cinema: just know while you watching no-one is more scared witless than me. And if the show seems to go OK I want us all to raise a glass at 8.30pm UK time and toast Leonardo da Vinci and the rockets he first drew which ultimately put satellites in the sky. (LATER: started editing (three suites) at 11.30am - ended at 2.30am next morning. Madness. All I can say is you had better bloody well watch the show now after all this effort!!).

Phil Grabsky's Blog - Milan - The Boy Mir, In Search of Haydn, Leonardo Live.

Milan 28 August 2011: well, I know I moan about funding and stuff but some days are really worth all the headaches. Today was one. I started before dawn to drive up to Heathrow airport to catch the early flight to Milan. I know they take a lot of stick but I really enjoy flying BA (most of the time) and this was, again, a nice comfortable flight. Then, after the long train ride into Milano Centrale (one of the greatest train terminals in the world), I was at my hotel by midday. Then began a typical day of working on three projects at once. To begin with I did 2 hours of emails concerning the Boy Mir film. The recent screenings in NY, LA and Chicago were, overall, very successful in terms of generating reviews and interest. The actual screenings were poorly attended (but so were the other docs I saw) but many of those who did see the film have become very active in supporting it and spreading the word. Ultimately, I think it's word-of-mouth that makes a film gain traction so that's hopeful. On the other hand, we lost our extra bookings in NY & LA because, almost bizarrely, we got too much press attention. I certainly can not tell cinema managers how to do their jobs; they know best. BUT I'd have thought having a great line from the LA Times or Village Voice would help sell tickets - I'm not convinced documentary film-goers are that concerned about seeing something the week it comes out. But, hey, I can't really be sure. Anyway, since my trip to the USA, I've been getting a stack of emails and facebook messages which take time to deal with. At 2.30pm I switched to project 2: Leonardo Live. It was 30 degrees and my shoulders are now a mess but for three hours I traipsed with HD camera and tripod the wonderful city of Milan from one Leonardo location to the next - gathering up some GVs (general views) that we need as background for our live show on the 8th November (Leonardo Live will go to cinemas and TV at 7pm UK time on the 8th November - a first-ever live event from the opening of an art exhibition and not any old exhibition but the biggest worldwide exhibition of this year).

I could have used an assistant today or someone to carry the tripod at least but the budget doesn't allow for it - broadcasters, when they insist we work for smaller and smaller budgets, should come on a shoot sometime. I bet none of them could carry a tripod - never mind camera, tripod and rucksack - for more than 2 minutes. Funnily enough, the last Leonardo shot was a great statue outside La Scala. And there I changed to project no 3: In Search of Haydn. Today's search took me to another super interview with Gianandrea Noseda who is rapidly shooting up my charts as one of my favourite people.. Not only did he give me an excellent interview but then I attended his rehearsal (with La Scala's orchestra) of Dvozak's Symphony no 8 in G major and a piece by Weber. Both were great: for 2 and a half hours I was utterly engrossed by both the music and Gianandrea's attention to detail, energy, control and, well, sheer artistry. I was privileged to be there. Things got even better when - and I will now be accused of name-dropping, I know - I then went to dinner with Gianandrea and one of the world's best pianists Leif Ove Andsnes. I tried my best to contribute but really I just wanted to ask questions and hear them talk! The food was fabulous too - thank you Milan! Thank you Italy! You may have Berlusconi but he will pass and the food, the architecture, the music and so much more will go on for ever. It's now 1am - my feet are killing me, my shoulders wrecked, my belly bigger, my brain scrambled, my nose sunburnt but it's been a good day - oh, one extra treat: Man City won away to Spurs 5-1. OK, early flight tomorrow. Must go. Ciao.