Collapsed/siesta by the red carpet on the last day of the Venice Film Festival
2011 is looking up for Ruby TV with more film festival coverage (most likely including Adelaide, Cannes and Venice), reports over three continents (including Barcelona Tap Festival and perhaps LA) and there’s a series on the brew. But before we get into all that here’s a flashback of 2010. Enjoy!
In January, I decided a bit of official camera training wouldn’t go astray so I TGVed to Geneva and enrolled in a two week course at Geneva University with the friendly and highly skilled Nicholas Senn. Already having completed the Final Cut Pro course in 2010, I decided to make a little travel video while I was at it. ‘Little’ ended up as 5 full cassettes filmed all weekend with the uni’s HUGE camera and tripod. I was exhausted by the end of the shoots (so much heavier than a mobile phone!) After a few 2am edit trials my brilliant, complex idea was stripped back one simple story (you can see how starving I am from lugging that camera around!).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqyHMZEAEg[/youtube]
The next few months were filled with a bit of theatre and a trip to Bordeaux and the Pyrenees as an escape from the big smokes.
May was Cannes time and thanks to Fiona Williams over at SBS, I had five videos to produce for them. Having covered the festival the year before for Screen Hub, I headed straight to Screen Australia office which is the (incredibly well situated) hub of all things Australian and shot the first story at their welcoming drinks.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSvly_xHPrU[/youtube]
Luckily having met Kitten on the Keys at the previous year’s Paris Burlesque Festival and recently being introduced having met cabaret producer Kitty Hartl (merci Juliette!), I had an ‘in’ for the stars of ‘On Tour’. Kitty got us into the film’s official party (and after party) where we met the rest of the beautiful and fun cast, and also invited us to the wild Wild Bunch party where we found lodges backstage to do 3am interviews (they had early flights back to Paris the next day). The girls were such sports despite their Cannes frenzied schedule and the late hour!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lLzcOAkpE[/youtube]
At this point, Elise (McLeod) arrives like a breath of fresh (and vigorous) air from Paris and we ran into shooting and editing the next two videos – ‘Virgins and Veterans’ and ‘Inside Words from the Press’.
With less time to play than normal, we whipped out quickly to a late beach party and to have champagne with the Screen Australia posse while networking our way into great lengthy interviews for The Tree with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sue Taylor, Julie Bertuccelli and Morgan Davies. Thanks to the fantastic Australian publicist Tracey Mair, it was a rustic chic beach front terrace interior as opposed to short, glary and sweaty talk shared with four other journos on the terrace!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-LTfZ1JHrk[/youtube]
In June I recovered from May and penned my first article for Qantas magazine on a Ruby TV recurring subject – Australian Creatives Abroad…
… which paid for July’s trip to Tap on Barcelona festival where I joined a couple of hundred other tap freaks to shuffle hop and wing in 30 plus temperatures for several hours a day followed by jams, parties and concerts- for a week-and filmed and interviewed som of the local and international stars.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qi3n4fqdkU[/youtube]
The French take their holidays very seriously and it all happens in August… so it was Bordeaux and beaches… and some snaps for a travel article or two between negotiation with SBS for….
Venice film festival! This time it wass worked with a local team including the fabulous and fun production manager Fabrizzio Weiss and cameraman/ editor Marco Bravetti. After the initial shock, I got the knack to do 5 minute fixed camera interviews for Julian Shnabel’s Miral and so finished the 6 minute slot with Sofia Coppola in 4 minutes flat- such was I going like a bat out of hell! Luckily, being aware (and scared of) her mono syllabic answers, had others qs up my stilettos and it all went smoothly.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb0vB0j3ufc[/youtube]And thanks to a lovely, enthusiastic French publicist Aurelie, I cancelled my third story to cover the brilliantly twisted Balada Triste… (and managed an early session of the film despite a late Venice Jazz Club aside). This was own crew, Alex de la Ingelsias was great as were the Spanish actors.
Here’s what we got up to (music ‘One in a Million’ by Jamel Boukabou and find it here on itunes).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbKxEJFmuA[/youtube]5 kilos lighter post festival, I ate a lot of fromage and so forth in Paris (thanks Pacino!) and then… London was calling…. For a brush up at Presenters Inc for an intensive studio presenting course. Then it was back to Paris to attend (and perform at) the opening of the film I wrote with Elise McLeod- and performed in- that was screening at the Cabaret des Filles de Joie cabaret at La Bellevilloise (Artistic Director Juliette Dragon had done the styling, hair and makeup).
In October Ruby TV covered the second annual Paris Burlesque Festival with director Elise McLeod and an interview with American star Kitten de Ville.and I also performed a little tap (not to mention playing a nubile, jug- carrying servant for Australian Vivi Valentine).
The rest of the year was about keeping warm with tap (including new formation- Jazmin and the Berets), a few more trips and finding a producer for a tv series… and thanks to those Screen Australia parties, I had just the right pile of cards to do so. Within three emails, I’d found the Sydney producer I wanted! So …
…here I am in sweltering Sydney summer. Stay tuned for reports on many colourful and inspiring characters I cross the next 12 months… by subscribing to Ruby TV on this page and Ruby TV youtube if you haven’t already.. or twitter, and of course like the FB page.
Open to covering your various projects and concerts and publications so do keep us posted!
Bonne année!
