Saturday 10th of May 2008. 15.00 Hours. A Pub in Brighton. Myself and cameraman Adrian Pinsent are handed a sealed brown envelope. Inside is a piece of paper which simply reads: Pet Sounds Vs Sgt Pepper, and a contact name and number. The clock has officially started. We have just begun our 24 hour film challenge.
The challenge this time was to complete a 2 minute documentary based on an act performing as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival in 24 hours. It became clear that the act myself and Adrian had been given was (thanks to Google and free WiFi) the Brighton Beach Boys. They were going to perform Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys and Sgt Pepper by the Beatles in their entirety, back to back. Our documentary was to be based on them and that evenings concert they were putting on.
A quick call to our Brighton Beach Boy contact, Rory, filled in some of the blanks for us and we had agreed to meet at the venue for 17.30. So first things first we came up with a cracking idea that would open our film. Head down to a record shop and see if they had a copy of both albums on vinyl and then allow us to film them amongst the racks of records. Having lived in the area since birth I thought I would know of a few old record stores but for some reason I couldn't for the life of me think as to where we might find one. Thankfully we stumbled upon one very quickly and explained to the perplexed looking girl what we were hoping to do. It was during my explanation that I looked down at the counter between us only to notice a copy of Sgt Pepper laying there! Fate! But sadly no Pet Sounds! Damn! We quickly knocked off a few shots of Sgt Pepper before continuing our quest for Pet Sounds. A few hundred yards down the road another record shop was found and success, they had Pet Sounds. A few more shots of said record and a couple of cheesy ones of Brighton, e.g. the pier, seagulls and the sea, it was off to meet the Brighton Beach Boys.
The venue turned out to be a church, quite a dramatic backdrop for that evening's concert. We met up with our contact, Rory, who also turned out to be one of the guitarists and singers for the band, and he couldn't of been more helpful. Offering us the opportunity to film whatever we liked and also organising some interviews with several band members, one of which was with band founder Ralph Brown (look him up) of Withnail and I fame. All were fantastically easy going and gave great sound-bites that we knew were going to be essential to tell their story. It wasn't long before the concert was in full swing and the 10 piece displayed stunning musical craftsmanship. If you are a fan of either the Beach Boys or the Beatles I fully urge you to check these guys out!
The curtain finally fell at about 22.45 allowing us the chance to grab some last minute audience reactions outside the church. I also asked the audience the same question I had posed to some of the band members earlier: Pet Sounds or Sgt Pepper? The reaction? A 50/50 split. But they were all unanimous on what an amazing performance they had just witnessed.
No time sadly to hang around and drink with the band, it was back to mine for the mammoth task of editing the 3 hours of footage we had shot down to 2 minutes. The last tape was eventually fully digitised at 03.00 Sunday morning and with a script being crafted to tell the story it was slowly beginning to take shape. It became apparent early on that we had so much great footage that wasn't going to make it in the final cut due to the 2 minute limit sadly, but it would always be possible to come back to it after the competition and do an 'extended cut'.
05.00 Sunday morning and it became necessary to drag my girlfriend, Nik, out of bed and get her to record the voiceover. This became essential to get the timing correct and really polish the whole piece. Work continued for another hour and a half before it was time to call it a night (or morning?). I managed 2 and a half hours in bed before I got up again and really attacked the edit. Taking out the flab and honing the audio. The Red Bull was still working, so were the fags, and by midday on Sunday I had it completed. The relief and tiredness all kicking in at the same time as the Red Bull left my system. The last task was to hand it in by 15.00, this being a 24 hour challenge an all, and then have some rest before it was back down to Brighton for the evening screening of all the completed films from the competition and to see who the judges had picked as the winner from each category.
I had decided when we entered the challenge that myself and Adrian should be classed as semi-professionals and put ourselves accordingly into said category. It also had the best prize for the winning team. To cut what is already quite a long story a little shorter all I'll say is that we enjoyed ourselves immensely on the task, met some great people and most importantly to tell you.........we won.
So what did we win? What's our prize? Well that's for another time..... watch this space................
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