Coffee houses

I’m on the train home from Manchester, feeling utterly wiped out but very content. A rather haunted-looking girl is sitting opposite me. She’s actually in my seat, but seemed so terrified when I told her, that I plonked myself in a different chair to avoid making her panic any more. She asked, rather pathetically, if the seats were “A class”. I’m not quite sure what she meant, but suspect she’s running the risk of losing her grip on the world, and trying hard to maintain a facade of ordinariness. She keeps staring at me like an animal in a snare.

A woman is sitting at the other end of the carriage with the most amazing hairdo. She must be about 50, and has a face which looks like a well-worn teak table. Her hair, all platinum-blonde and looking like a sea of man-made fibres, is piled up on her head in a cross between a beehive and a giant chignon with a brilliant platted bun at the back. She’s very cool in a hard-faced sort of way. I tried to give her an approving smile, but think she might have mistaken it as a come-on.

A good sleep last night did me the world of good. If the alarm hadn’t gone off, I suspect I’d have slept all day. I had a final breakfast at the hotel; 2 hash browns and a spoonful of mushrooms on toast. I’ve had it every morning since I arrived and it kept me going a treat.

My suitcase has broken, so I spent the tram ride from Media City to Manchester Centre wrapping a shed load of selotape around the handle, which has given it a short respite.

I met Paul for tea and scones in a charming little cafe somewhere in the Northern quarter, an area of Manchester I like very much. It was lovely to see him with the stresses of yesterday well and truly over, and we were finally able to have the necessary natter where we patted each other on the backs and said; “good job, friend...”  As we left, I popped to the loo, and was hit in the face by the smell of my Grandmother’s house. I picked up almost anything I could find - the bar of soap, the towel – to see if I could trace where the smell was coming from, but concluded it was a combination of things. For a minute or two, I stood, remembering the comedy drawings of cows that my Grannie had framed in her loo, and the little crocheted pillow cases she made for the toilet rolls. I thought about her for a long while and then I thought about the Midlands and then I felt tears pricking in my eyes, so made a hasty exit.

As the fields streak past the window of the train, I feel an extraordinary sense of pride, a huge amount of excitement and little bit of fear about what’s to come in the rest of the year. 2012 is shaping up quite nicely, and I suspect, if I work hard and everything falls into place, it could be a very good year. To celebrate, I’m listening to some of my previous compositions, and thinking about the people who have drifted through my life via my music. Miners in Yorkshire, fishermen in Scotland, brass bands in Northumbria, market stall holders in Coventry, roadside cafe owners along the length of the A1, the 40 extraordinary people who sang on the Pepys Motet. Every song brings its own set of memories, which take me to bizarre corners of the UK. Tantrums, tiaras and tears of absolute hysteria, but above anything else, pride. One day soon I might even be able to visit Lincolnshire without having a panic attack.

Someone has farted on the train. There’s nothing like the stench of rotten eggs to pull you out of a romantic stupor!

One of the many joys of filming in HD is the better class of still you get when you do a screen grab from the film. Take a look at these...

350 years ago, Pepys went with Mr Moore to a coffee house, where, as ever, a great debate was raging. This one concerned the recent hurricane, or, as Pepys put it more romantically, “the late, great wind.” He went on to recount some of the stories being told; “I heard one say that he had five great trees standing together blown down; and, beginning to lop them, one of them, as soon as the lops were cut off it, did, by the weight of the root, rise again and fasten.” News was coming in from outside London as well. In the Forest of Dean, over 2000 oaks and beeches were blown down in one single walk there, and Pepys’ father reported 20l damage to their Brampton house.

Gah!

I've seldom felt so frustrated! The film is now finished. It looks stunning and the powers that be seem chuffed enough, but in an entire building, filled to the brim with modern technology and people with incredible minds could not find a single way to burn a copy of the film for me to take home. Not onto blue ray. Not onto DVD. Not even as a MOV file on my computer. This is the most high-spec TV building in Europe! Poor Keith spent hours fiddling with various metal boxes and computers which seemed to refuse to do the very thing they were built to do. Why do machines seem to refuse to speak to one another the moment I appear?! 

The one thing I wanted to be able to do was show Nathan what I've been up to for the time we've been apart. I suppose I'm  just tired and twitching from too many cups of tea. Delayed gratification can often be a great deal sweeter! 

I'm not particularly proud of my behaviour today. The tiredness and general stress of the situation meant that I got a little shirty on a few occasions and that's not really something I enjoy - particularly when it makes people upset. I'm quite a fiery Leo, who likes to huff and blow. I forget that some people can take the bluster to heart. I'm sure several people in the building will be glad to see the back of me! 

Did I mention that my computer has also broken down? It was working this morning, but when I returned from lunch, the screen had completely frozen. I wonder if someone knocked it off the desk whilst we were away. I can't think of any other reason why it would have stopped working so suddenly and spectacularly...

Life can be quite frustrating can't it? You go up, you go down... 

350 years ago, Pepys spent the morning at a very expensive music lesson, where he was proud to put the finishing touches to a two-part setting of "Gaze Not On Swans." Pepys was pleased with his work, but uncomfortable handing over 5l for a month of lessons. 

He went with his teacher, Birchensha, to a house in Southwark, where they examined some of the teaching pamphlets the former had written to guide potential students through the rules of composition. Pepys was somewhat underwhelmed. 

He was also unimpressed with his clerk, Will Hewer, who had refused to go to church with the other servants and wasn't doffing his cap enough towards Elizabeth. Hewer had grand plans for life and would become a very wealthy man.

The terrifying grade

Things all went incredibly smoothly until about 4pm today. We worked our way through the film making sure we were happy with all the shots, the lip-synching and the sound levels, and then turned our attention to grading the film. The grade is the final process in film making. It’s the equivalent of photo-shopping a photograph. A good grade makes the images kind of zing. It means you can colour-correct shots which have been turned orange by halogen lamps, or bring light to a gloomy shot. Anyway, because the BBC up here is very much geared towards news packages, grading is something which doesn’t happen very often; frankly, there’s no time when you’re working towards a fast deadline, and the computer systems up here aren’t set up to deal with more filmic projects like ours. So, in short, we’re slightly struggling – and really up against it in terms of time. We are showing the film to all the big wigs up here tomorrow at 4pm, so if it’s not ready by then, we’re going to feel a little silly.

The start time tomorrow is therefore 7.30am, so matchsticks at the ready. By tomorrow evening, I’ll no doubt be buzzing on a combination of caffeine and adrenaline, and just as I thought we’d entered the home straight.

This seems to be a regular feature of my films. It was as we were grading A Symphony for Yorkshire that a rather large problem emerged, so I suppose I'm always a little sensitive at this time.

I woke up in the night to find my phone lighting up the room. It was a text message from Sacsha, Brother Edward’s partner, who said; “you may see in the press that our flight to Jo'burg had to turn back to Heathrow after one of the engines failed on takeoff. We’re fine, albeit pissed off and tired. Just so you know we’re okay.” The news immediately made me shudder. A similar thing happened to me when I was 18 and returning from an orchestra tour to Canada. I can still remember the thud, and the pilot’s voice saying “some of you may have heard the explosion, but we no longer have the use of one of our engines...” and then the terrible silence as all the passengers tried to comprehend the nature of what was happening. I remember the plane landing on foam, and a flotilla of fire engines whizzing down the runway behind us. I also remember feeling rather annoyed that we didn't get to take our stilettos off and have a razz on one of those inflatable chutes.  I lay awake for an hour or so, wondering how Edward and Sascha must have been feeling.

Fortunately, I managed to speak to Edward this morning. The engine on his plane also blew up – and there were flames, which I don't remember from our experience. Edward wasn’t  sitting on the side of the plane where the problem was, but describes a tidal wave of people pressing the buttons for the stewardesses as they saw the flames coming from the engine. Bing bing bing... He said it was like some kind of crazy sound sculpture. He was unimpressed by the way that the plane staff dealt with the problem. There were all sorts of announcements like; “we’re just trying to assess our options...” I don’t think they were helped by the fact that there was a 2 hour wait on the tarmac before the plane took off whilst a set of engineering issues were being dealt with. So, the frightening thing is that it seems airline staff knew there was a problem with the plane before it took off. Thank God, for the airline’s sake that something more awful didn’t happen. I’m just relieved that Edward and Sascha and all on board landed safely.

Sunday 23^rd February, 1662, was Pepys’ 29^th birthday. I tend to think of Pepys as being about my age but he was considerably younger. I think many more would think of him as quite an old man. Birthdays weren’t big occasions in those days. Pepys had a nasty cold, so skipped church, and stayed inside admiring his dining room “graced with pictures” and reading books. Apart from the cold, Pepys felt in good health, concluding; “if I have a heart to be contented, I think I may reckon myself as happy a man as any is in the world...” Oddly, I know how he feels...

Hands up if you think Tom Daley the diver is turning into a rather stroppy, arrogant young man?

Harvesters

This afternoon, at 6pm, we watched the Hattersley films for the first time back to back, to get a sense of how they work as a unit. Brother Tim and his partner John came to Media City to watch them with us. It was very important to have them there in the edit suite, as when I watch one of my films for the first time with someone who hasn't worked on the project, I'm forced to view the piece objectively. I often sit and squirm and feel the need to apologise constantly. Sometimes I see problems for the first time, but on this occasion I merely sat back and enjoyed what we’d created, and actually felt very moved. The films work well as a suite.

I have to say, having whinged about feeling a little neglected up here, I’m beginning to realise that I’m actually simply being trusted, for the first time in my career, to get on with things in my own way. Perversely, if the Manchester folk hadn’t taken this approach with me, these films would never have been made the way that I wanted to make them. I realise it’s been a shrewd and deliberate choice on their part, so instead of being shirty, I should actually be feeling a huge amount of gratitude towards them (and possibly a tiny bit of guilt!)

I’m enjoying the edit. It’s not at all stressful, and the time flies by with Keith and Phill (who is a brilliant editor). The three of us seem to have entered a competition to see who can make the most shocking remark. This is a competition I expect to win hands down!

Tim, John and I went to a Harvester for our tea. Our Grannie, Girl, was a big fan of the Harvester just off the A45 in Coventry. It was where we were taken for a fancy meal; the salad cart was considered to be the height of luxury. It was at the Harvester that my Grannie uttered her most embarrassing ever remark (unless you count the day she accosted Carol Vorderman in the Countdown studio). Looking at a black man, who was sitting no less than five meters away, she shouted (because she was deaf) “I say, he’s been out in the sun a bit too long, hasn’t he?!” We were devastated.

Media City, I realised tonight, looks very beautiful in the rain. I think all plazas in Manchester are designed with this in mind. It does nothing but rain, after all, up here.

Pretty...

Pepys went shopping 350 years ago to buy his wife a pair of stands and a “hanging shelf” for her chamber. Mr Savill, the painter, arrived with the framed portraits he’d made of Pepys and his wife. They excitedly hung both pictures in the dining room, Pepys adding that “it comes now to appear very handsome with all my pictures.”

Broken hearts and requiems

I found out today that the water that emerges from the taps in Salford Quays comes from a bore hole rather than a reservoir. It is known up here as minging water; much poorer than the water in the rest of Manchester, which I’m told is extremely fresh. So my taste buds haven't been deceiving me!

The edit really took off today as we worked our way through the third sequence from our film, which is the more experimental one featuring young Charlie, the photographer. The head of region popped his head round the door and we played him a few excerpts. Thankfully he's a very nice chap and he seemed very impressed with what we'd done. He was particularly complimentary about the work of cameraman Keith, which is just as well, as he recently poached him from Yorkshire.

I’m now beginning to get the sense that this is the best film I’ve ever made. It’s difficult to describe exactly why. I suppose it simply feels very real; like it has a heartbeat. It's incredibly bleak and sad, but there's a sun shining somewhere on the distant horizon and this makes it feel very special. I’m sure I have these feelings at this stage during every one of my projects, but on this one, I’ve been given the space to make a film without boundaries, so I'm leaving a little piece of me inside. It's very difficult to describe the attachment I've formed with the people of Hattersley and it genuinely breaks my heart to think that the community centre, which features in every one of these films, is being knocked down.

I found out today that the London Requiem has been selected for The Space, which is an Arts Council/ BBC initiative. This means the work will be performed live in Abney Cemetery graveyard at the end of September this year. The live performance will be the climax of a ten week run of online films and media packages about the project, which is almost too exciting to comprehend. I am absolutely thrilled, and only wish that the celebratory muffin I brought myself from Booth’s didn’t taste like chamois leather!

Pepys spent the morning 350 years ago packing up glass to send to his father in the country, and books for his brother, John, who was studying at Cambridge. There’s really not a lot else to say.

Water like chalk

It struck me this morning that one of the problems with Manchester is the quality of its drinking water! I don’t think I’ve visited anywhere in the world which has such horrible tasting water. The liquid which comes out of the tap in my hotel room tastes like a pile of damp dishcloths and the water everywhere else is really bitter. It must be really high in some kind of mineral. I'm sure it's really good for me and I’m equally sure it’s a taste I’ll get used to. I’ve noticed it more acutely since being up on Salford Quays, so I’m wondering if this area gets its water from a different reservoir to the rest of the city. Whatever the case, it's desperately minging and I'm off to buy some Evian! I was talking to someone today who said that water in London tastes like chalk, so I suppose we all get used to what we know.

We’ve been editing all day, concentrating on the first two films. It’s slow progress, but we’re getting there. As always with these projects there are things I wish I’d done differently. Certain shots start to show weaknesses when placed against others, and there are never enough “cutaways”, which are the transition shots, which hide all manner of continuity errors and jump cuts. In rubbish documentaries these usually consist of pictures of hands, clocks, clouds and extreme close-ups on eyes so you can’t tell what’s actually being said. Unless you have a continuity expert watching like a hawk, cutaways are necessary evils. The trick is to make sure they’re part of the story you’re telling.

I’m reliably informed by a number of my English region moles, that the staff at BBC Manchester are famously rude. Some, including my editor, Phill, are absolutely wonderful. There was, however, a steady flow of people sticking their heads into our edit suite today to rather brusquely make it clear that they didn't approve of our presence there. One woman, whose face was painted a bright shade of passive aggression, said; “I’m sure you’re fine to be in here, I just wasn’t told and I have over a million viewers expecting to see a television programme tonight which can’t now be edited.” I smiled very sweetly; “I’m sorry to hear about that.” My inner voice was wondering why a programme due to be screened tonight had not yet been edited. I smiled sweetly nonetheless. There was a note on our door which said the room had been booked all week for the Hattersley project, but still the heads kept popping round the door. The usual response from those who looked inside was; “oh.” I can walk though the newsroom here and not recognise a single face or engender a single smile. I had a nice chat with someone in the kitchen area but I had to force her to engage in a dialogue with me! Manchester is like London!

All this makes me miss Nathan rather a lot – and my friends and family for that matter. I feel a little bit like I’m in exile up here and now that the warmth of visits to Hattersley has gone, I'm going to bury myself in my hotel room and do nothing but watch rubbish telly. Hands up if you're bored of hearing Whitney Houston?

Thursday 20^th February, 1662, and Pepys’ day began with a visit from composer William Child, who “set” Pepys something for his Theorbo, a sort of lute. I’m not sure if this means he gave Pepys some music to learn, or added something to the instrument which made it easier to play.

Pepys received a letter from Lord Sandwich, still in Portugal, which brought news of bloody battles against the moors. Pepys immediately took it to the House of Lords to spread the news. On his way home, he called in on Mr Savill, the painter, who was working on a miniature version of the portrait of Pepys he’d just finished painting.

Paper Edit

It is almost midnight, and I have sat since 10 o’clock this morning working my way steadily through the rushes from our shoot. I’m doing what’s known as a paper edit; deciding which shots we’re going to use, and where. It’s a necessary evil, and we do it so that expensive edit time isn’t wasted spooling blindly through hours and hours of footage. Unfortunately, I should have factored in a rest day between the shoot and the edit because what I’ve been doing for the past 14 hours is no way to spend a day. I didn’t stop for lunch; I ate a bowl of soup whilst staring at my computer. I haven’t had an evening meal. I’m shaking from the caffeine in the hundreds of cups of tea I’ve consumed today. My eyes are square and throbbing. My ears ache from the sounds of wind that accompanies most of the shots. I just want to lie down.

I asked the hotel reception if they were able to do laundry, because I’m running out of socks and pants. They told me with great pride that it was a service they offered. Unfortunately, the cost of having your washing done by the Holiday Inn, is almost prohibitively expensive; £3 for a single pair of socks. I worked out that to have the things washed that I need for the rest of the week, I’d be looking at a bill of close to £50 which is ludicrous, particularly as the BBC would no doubt claim it's not a neccessary expense. So, I went out and bought a bottle of hand-washing  liquid, and my clothes will have to try and dry of their own accord on the back of my complimentary armchair.

350 years ago, Pepys went to Trinity House in Greenwich, before heading to The Wardrobe for dinner with Lady Jemima. I’d love to say there was something more interesting  to write... but there’s not. Even if there was, I wouldn’t write it. My eyes won’t stay open.