Technically a film can hang together quite well when the director stays close enough to his subject to understand it yet far enough away to leave scope for reinterpretation – technically. This is where crash zoom comes in. Unfortunately at the time of filming part three I was unaware of the crash zoom technique but you live and learn. We did get a nice level of zoom into Ekz’s head for the PTCs (piece-to-cameras).
Indeed the PTC became a sort of stylistic motif throughout the wepisode, intersplicing the action of the day and a chance/chances for me to probe Ekz on topics that I didn’t know what he thought about them. Often his answers related to questions that were further down my list or not on the list at all but we never stopped rolling. An answer is an insight and an insight is exactly that – an in-sight.
Part of Ekz’s morning ritual (on this day) involved a dip in the sea at the 40 foot. Braving the frozen sea was I suspect aimed at impressing his little cousin Amos and more importantly Karolina. We were all somewhat impressed but the sky and sea combination irked my sense of what I call colour harmony. Grey and blue grey do match but they are pretty boring colours.
Poolbeg light house and the where’s Wally towers and their associated rancid sewage plant poetically provided a dramatic backdrop for what turned out to be drama: Ekz’s exchanges with Karolina were exactly what myself and Myles were hoping for. For different reasons.
It was an inspired move for Karolina to bring sandwiches for all as the budget for food is getting beyond a joke.
While munching on the above sandwiches Ekz found himself in a bit of hot water when explaining the workings of export-import trade to Amos.
Along with the use of the pieces to camera, I was very happy to have managed to catch moving action without relying on filming in the car for dynamism. My sister was starting to get annoyed with the golden-food dumping ground that it had become, thanks to Ekz.
Music is something that has always been a very important aspect of my films including my silent movie “When a tree falls”. On another occasion I might source a beautiful operatic piece from www.royaltyfreemusic.com where you can find everything from rock to hypnosis to symphonic to sound effects to jazz to softer moods.
We open the episode with a piece by the man himself (Ekz) which sets a mood of optimism. I could have sourced this from royaltyfreemusic.com’s optimistic section but the selection isn’t great.
The DJ set in the Dice Bar is a lovely scene. Here we see the visceral experience that is Ekz’s life’s work. The crowd is fair to medium size but they fall under his spell in the course of his two hour set. The sound kept peaking and unfortunately Myles took his eye off the ball by failing to be vigilant on the levels front and we had to overdub other music which Ekz played us in his living room.
The final P-T-C was tough. Ekz had had a rough day what with his girl problems and Brian’s unsolicited job offer so Myes’s snide remark about Hollow Earth was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. To be fair to Myles we all thought Ekz was joking when he brought it up in the first place. What followed was what I term “docu-gold”. Ekz flew off the handle and proceeded to burn his only suit, my promotional cardboard cutout of him and Karolina’s gloves. This upset me at the time but thankfully my gut instinct was right on the money: stay with the action even if it costs you money. I don’t know what was going through his head as the flames flew up into the night but I’m sure we can find out if we ask him.
Keep an ear out for WOtS WePisode 4 comin April 12 on http://rte.ie/storyland
