The Sound of Amos

A special thanks to a very talented composer / sound-designer / audio scientist, the Liverpool-based Amos (aka Tom Smith). Support this man and his music and his wonderful Music For Sleeping experiments.

www.myspace.com/amosnoisefoundation

Credit where Credit's due

BBC Big Screen Liverpool presents

a Luden AudioVisual production

a film by Sam Meech

Music by Amos

Production Assistant - Neringa Plange

Bevington Street &
International Garden Festival modelshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
filmed courtesy of National Museums Liverpool
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Clayton Square Entrance model
salvaged from complete destruction by Bren O’Callaghan
rebuilt by Sam Meech
now inhabited by a house spider

Liverpool One model
filmed couretesy of Grosvenor
www.liverpool-one.com

Liverpool City Centre 1:500 scale model
filmed courtesy of Liverpool Vision
and Liverpool Central Library
www.liverpoolvision.co.uk

THIS model (The Design Academy)
stolen from Liverpool School of Art and Design

thanks to

Jenny Douglas at Liverpool Vision
Mark Wareing at Liverpool Central Library
Kay Jones and National Museums Liverpool
Lorraine Dolding at Grosvenor
John Venters at Liverpool One
Mark Fleming at Studioscope
Matthew Halsall

special thanks to
Bren O’Callaghan

produced by Luden AudioVisual

Some small animals were lost
and harmed making this film

R.I.P Bob

Filming the Film Titles

I was a bit worried how I was going to approach the titles, and I realised I was avoiding dealing with it. So I begin to think about it in those spare minutes of the day - on a train, walking to work, on the toilet - but resisted writing things down at all, preffering instead to let the ideas seive through my brain and ferment in my imagination. Finally tonight I had enough to go on - the idea of a scale model real worl credits, plus enough energy to improvise the details of how to build and shoot it. And I'm really pleased with the way it has worked out. It also felt satisfying to thank people involved and bring the shooting to an end. On with the edit...

Rising From The Grave

On Friday I began the task of bring out the dead. Sifting through the wreckage of the Clayton Square models and bringing the pieces and people together to build one final model, in tribute to the models that had gone before it. I had bought some miniature gravestones especially from noch.de in Germany in order to mark the dead. I also added a camera team to mark the process I have gone through in filming this project. Its strange - I remember how absolutely gutted I was when the Clayton Square models were trashed, but its meant I've been able to spend more time thinking about what they mean to me, and it has also allowed me to build a permanent habitat for the house spider to live in. Every act of destruction is an act of creation.

Shoot - City Centre 1:500 model

This model is now temporarily housed at the back of the second floor of Liverpool Central Library. It is a vast and important model of Liverpool. The model istelf is largely white, which gives it an oddly futuristic feel.

And they let me film it with insects! Luckily we didn't lose any in it (though a cockroach had a good go at getting wedged under a building on Castle st).

My friend Neringa helped me manage and motivate the cockroaches, crickets, stick insects, snails, locusts and house spiders that we took to the shoot. And they looked great, especially the spider, who i'm now quite fond of.

Many legs make light work

R.I.P Bob Too

Of course, Im not just filming the models, but I have some actors to explore them too. We filmed the Liverpool one model with crickets, stick insects, a locust, and a tanzanian yellow legged millipede called Bob. Bob was undoubtedly the star, the Steve McQueen of our film. Unfortunately he thought he was in the Great Escape too, and promptly escaped somewhere in my office. I haven't seen him since but i'm know he's out there... I'm sure of it.

Anyway, following Bob's exodus, I quickly ordered another millipede. He arrived on Friday morning. I christened him "Bob Too", after George Costigan's famous northern rogue in Alan Clarkes sex comedy 'Rita, Sue & Bob Too'. However, on saturday morning i found him curled up. he died in my hands. I think. Well he weren't moving anyway.

This was the only footage I made of him. *sob*.

Shoot - International Garden Festival part B

This is the model of the International Garden Festival site near Otterspool as envisioned prior to its launch in 1984. It is a beautiful model - with green grass and trees punctured by the primary colours of tents and attractions, all laid out along the Mersey. It shows the scale of the development.

In reality the whole site has changed so much. How do things go to rack and ruin so quickly? I think two models should be produced whenever a project is proposed - one of the vision, and one of that vision after 20 years of neglect.

Shooting this model, sans insect, was probably my favourite moment so far, as it is simply such a beautiful failure. This was also the first time I had seen the model since 4 years ago and it looked even more breathtaking than i remember. It seemed now to mark a stage of things coming together for me.