Ok everyone, I have writers block, can’t think of anything much to write about today.
My motto in life has always been “never look back”, but lately I have been having a bad case of looking back. I recently discovered a clip of my first big film The System aka The Girl Getters, on You Tube. I was so taken with it that I have ordered a copy of the whole film from Amazon. It was largely a very happy experience, filled with people who sadly have left us behind: Oliver Reed, great love David Hemmings,
Michael Winner, Derek Newark, with whom I was at RADA, Alex Thomson (camera operator), Andrew Ray…not sure about the other guys and gals who were in the film. I do know that tragic Talitha Pol was in the film. At least the extraordinary Lighting Cameraman and Director:
Nicolas Roeg DP
Nicolas Roeg is still with us. So bad case of looking back, not sure how healthy it is, I am a great one for living in the present and looking to the future.
Yesterday I filmed another poetry session for my pleasure and yours and this time I had the help of two proper professionals: Lincoln Lewis, terrific cameraman, who photographed my short film The Tell-Tale Heart and the film I made last summer with Lee Majors, Almosting It. Lincoln created a wonderful, very expensive classy look for the feature on a pretty tight budget.
The music and sound recording for my poetry reading was provide by another excellent talent Ryan Peck of the Boise Band: Edmond Dantes, love their music and their sound. There is considerable talent based here in Boise and one of my current pursuits is to try to help promote that talent wherever possible. The little poetry session will be up in due course.
When we made The System the talent was largely young and raw, not yet tainted by the darkness of our industry. I see the same passion among many of the young talent here, the enthusiasm and the innocence, it is exciting.
More soon folks.
hi jane,
love you, by the way (duh).
now that’s out of the way, i’m curious about a couple of things above:
first, that you didn’t already have a copy of ‘the system’. huh? you’ve Got to have everything you’ve done, have Got to look back!
you deserve to enjoy your body of work at Least as much as we do. have fun with it, i say. i’d think that unless it for some reason makes you actually sad or otherwise unhappy, it would be just absorbingly fascinating to revisit it all on dvd/tv/whatever.
in any case, i was surprised by the indication of your being, to some degree, and by choice, cut off from what i think is the very prideful & hugely enjoyable thing that is your own edifice (as it were).
second, i’m curious re the darkness of your industry; about just what you mean by that.
i’m trying to guess, first, what the darkness was, or is, specifically. and second, about whether, as you see it, it was already present in ’64, but just hadn’t yet reached you young ones, or whether it came later, tainting you all during later stages of your careers.
no pressure, of course, but if you were to expand on that, it would be fascinating to get your perspective. thanks.
Nice comments…good thoughts KK. Thank you In answer to a couple of your comments…think I did feel cut off from my own edifice for much of my career and am just now beginning to understand that my work has reached out to a few people, it feels good….and our profession can be very dark….obvious reasons power, money, insecurity, non stop rejection, temptations to sell out…all those things, they can destroy passion and innocence quite quickly.
hi jane, thanks for the response. well it’s of course the case that you’ve reached out to and affected a great many more than just a few people, but that’s your modesty doing you credit, as they used to say.
the lady jane merrow experiencing insecurity and rejection? sitting out here in radioland, that’s pretty hard to imagine, much less accept. but i’ll take your word for it; on some level, we Do understand that you people on the other side of the screen Are People, with, sadly, no immunity from trouble.
on a lighter note, i hope you’re happy, well, & having fun Today. no need to respond to this, & nice to talk to you.