Instrument maker Andy Wheeldon finding materials in a rubbish tip and miraculously making them into a clarinet.
A clip from my recent feature length BBC doc Scrapheap Orchestra. Fronted by the great conductor and musical polymath Charles Hazelwood, the film does exactly what it says on the (scrap) tin. We asked the UK’s top instrument makers to make a whole orchestra’s worth of instruments out of rubbish. This involved violins made from toilet waste pipes, trombones from plumbing and vases, drums out of river buoys, cymbals from car bonnets and iron beds…and a lot of painstaking and difficult work from the instrument makers.
We next asked the virtuosi BBC Concert Orchestra to, reluctantly at first, play them. Then we told them they had to perform Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture on their scrap instruments in the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. TV producers call this ‘jeopardy’ and the stakes were indeed high – see the film to find out what happened!
The film was an enormous undertaking which kept me busy between March and October this year. I’m indebted to the team at Love Productions: Alice Wheater, Kieran Smith, Elena Mourey, Dan Baskerville and Fiz – as well as to Dave Jacobs, the editor, and Linda Brusasco for taking it to the end.
As the year ends I’m finishing another programme, Kissing With Jo Brand, unsurprisingly scheduled to air on Valentines Day. More on this soon.
A sequence from my More4 doc on the author, portraying his tense and dangerous life as spy in Cold War era Germany. Presented by Jon Snow and produced by the great Elissa Midgley.
A clip from my film about Yusuf, formerly Cat Stevens, on his days as a rock star connecting with tens of thousands of people every night. The film was presented by Alan Yentob. Apologies for the quality and dodgy edit in this clip, I’ll re upload when I get a chance.
This clip features among others Lou Reed, who was, as they say in New York, a sweetheart. From my film telling the story of four seminal Jazz LPs from that year: Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus’ Ah Um, Dave Brubeck’s Time Out and Ornette Coleman’s prophetically titled The Shape Of Jazz To Come. In this clip we hear about the Ornette Coleman Quartet’s explosive debut in New York and the upset it caused.
Shot by Paul Lucas, edited by Duncan Weston and exec’ed by the great Jez Nelson, the UK’s premiere Jazz disc jockey.
A clip from my film about the incomparable Ella. An extraordinary life, which her number one fan and subsequently close friend Jim Blackman, featured here, let me into a little of. The film was entirely self shot (and the equipment self carried I might add).
My favourite clip from a film I made about the Queen of Country, Emmylou Harris, centring around one of her greatest songs. The programme was shot by the marvellous Will Jacob, though I shot the more abstract visual overlays in this sequence during a fierce rainstorm that woke me in the middle of the night in Nashville.
Apologies that Emmylou’s first words are a little clipped, I’ll re upload the sequence when I get a chance.
The opening of my BBC film about the singular and influential Jazz Blues singer and pianist Mose Allison. His songs always meant a lot to me so it was more than great to make this with him. Among those singing his praises here are Pete Townsend, Van Morrisson, Loudon Wainwright, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and the late lamented Joel Dorn.
Produced by the irreplaceable Svetlana Palmer. Shot by Chris Morphet, Jeff Baines, Will Jacob and myself.
Clip from a film I made about searing singer songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson, featuring Billy Connolly perfectly expressing the moment when Richard’s then group Fairport Convention pretty much invented Folk Rock.
From a Channel 4 film I made exploring the life of Rider Haggard, Imperial adventurer, friend of the Zulu nation and author of ‘King Solomon’s Mines’. A fascinating man whom Indiana Jones owes more than a little to, as the film shows.This clip features avid fan Jonathon Ross on Haggard’s rather salacious book ‘She’.
The mighty Stereophonics perform the reprise from The Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to mark it’s 40th anniversary in 2007. They’re recording on the same desk and tape machines The Beatles used in 1967 and the session was produced by the Beatles long serving engineer Geoff Emerick.
From the documentary I made ‘Sgt Pepper : It Was 40 Years Ago Today’, shot by the estimable John Simmons on this day.