That Big Screen Experience
There was a week during my first year of secondary school when I became incredibly popular with other pupils. It was all thanks to a letter from the 大象传媒 in London. It was a letter I carried with me in my Adidas sports bag for three days until it somehow happened to find its way onto my desk and then into the hands of my registration teacher. He, with my permission, pulled it from its 大象传媒 branded envelope and read it alound to the rest of the class.
"Dear Jeffrey, " it began, "Thank you for your interest in this year's 大象传媒 Young Film-Maker's Competition. I have pleasure in enclosing the application form together with the terms and conditions of entry..."
Well that was it. For one week I was a would-be film director and, realising I would have to furnish further proof of my intent, I brought in my wind-up 8mm cine camera (no sound) and the first draft of my shooting script. My screenplay dealt with a gang turf-war in . My classmates began to bomard me with requests for a part in the movie and I made cast selections based on the potential for violent retribution posed by anyone that I should refuse. The film, however, was never made. I soon realised I had neither the equipment, the know-how nor the funds to make progress. My week of glory flickered and died.
These memories came flooding back to me today when I took the Zedettes up to the multi-screen cinema at Inverness Retail Park where we watched It's a great little movie and centres on the efforts of two mis-matched friends to make their own version of the Rambo movie and enter that self-same 大象传媒 Young Filmaker's Competition. It's set in the early 1980's when school staffrooms were clouded by cigarette smoke and local picture houses still had curtains that slid across the silver screen just as the main feature was starting.
The magic of the movies! Yet things seems so much brighter and better in modern multiplex cinemas. Except that today's screen of Son of Rambow was slighlty out of focus for the entire duration of the film, despite my complaint to a very official looking man with a walkie-talkie. Oh and don't ask me about my Kafka-esque conversation at the coffee counter in which my repeated request for either a cappuccino, or a latte or an americano were met with the same response: "I'm not sure."
Oh the frustrations of being a grown-up!
