February

I know we're nearly at the end of March now and this post is rather delayed but February is something worth talking about.

It was definitely one of, if not the most, busiest months of my life.

Mostly, that came in the form of the film festival. This is what the whole point of my film group has been - preparing and getting ready for the festival.

We had the youth film festival, and the full festival followed on after that.

As a member of the group, I was lucky enough to receive free tickets for most films and over the period of both festivals, I saw 24 films. 23 being festival films, and one outwith that (The Woman in Black)

This was over a period of about 2 weeks. Was really emotional at the end having to say goodbye to everyone because I really came to love the group in the final few months. Will hopefully be going back next year, though!

But honestly, by the end of the festival, I was exhausted. (Did I mention that the festival took place at the same time I was sitting my mock exams in school?) Going into town every day was mad. Kinda lonesome as well since I didn't really go with anyone. I did meet a lovely, fellow film-goer called Simon however who I went to see a few films with.

My highlights would have to be: The Muppets, our premiere, that I actually introduced dressed as Kermit the Frog; a day I saw In the Family (a lovely LGBT film) followed by Wild Bill where I met director, Dexter Fletcher and actor, Will Poulter who you may know from Son of Rambow; and finally, a screening of Billy Connolly's Big Banana Feet. A 70's documentary on the man himself and only 1 print exists in the world.

Was the strangest seeing that. It coincided with Liverpool's Carling Cup final so I was sitting for the first part of the film on my brother's phone following the text commentary. Thankfully, we won (on penalties!) and the film was great. Went with my dad and brother.


It wasn't just the film festival that kept me busy, though. Still had a concert at the end of the month. Our Advanced Music class; another event we had been building to over the past few months.

It went great. We played 22 songs, hired a professional sound engineer and got to play some cracking music to a great crowd. We pretty much sold out the school. About 200-250 people.

I've never heard my bass playing sound so huge. It was routed through two sub-woofers and the sound engineer told me that he made it only a fraction of what it could have been o__O

I played bass for 19 of the 22 songs but started on guitar, although a few songs in, we played Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits (back on bass) and since only 5 of us out of the 20 people in the class were required, we stood up to play it (sat for the rest) The odd thing is that I wasn't really that nervous... we had only started practising it a few days before as well and there we were, just the five of us playing it live to such a crowd.

Maybe I just knew it would go well. Josh was on drums and he's a fantastic drummer so I knew he wouldn't mess up. He knows the song inside-out as well. Alex was on guitar and he's fantastic as well. Pulled off Mark Knopfler's solo with ease. It just went really well, as did the rest of the concert.

I've definitely caught the bug of performing live. That's only the 5th time I've played live music to a crowd, the previous 4 also being with my music class before Christmas, but this was the biggest and I loved it and I really want to do it again. Just don't know when or if I'll get the chance.
That's why the concert was so monumental.
There are a fair amount of people in the class who do perform live and will again on a fairly regular basis, but a good chunk of us knew this could be our one and only time so we all gave it everything and it was an absolutely wonderful experience. It gives me such a strange pleasure that I've never felt before. Just really something else. Here's the set:

Last Friday Night - Katy Perry (On guitar)
5 Years Time - Noah and the Whale
True Colours - Cindy Lauper
Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free - Nina Simone
Set Fire to the Rain - Adele
Someone Like You - Adele
I Don't Feel Like Dancin' - Scissor Sisters
Everybody Hurts - REM (On guitar)
Swallowed in the Sea - Coldplay
One and Only - Adele
(Interval)
Walk of Life - Dire Straits
Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
Fix You - Coldplay
All Bets Are Off - Narina Pallot
Dog Days Are Over - Florence and the Machine
Knocking On Heaven's Door - Bob Dylan (On guitar)
She Belongs to Me - Bob Dylan
Make You Feel My Love - Adele (Bob Dylan cover)
One Day Like This - Elbow
(encore)
Hey Jude - The Beatles
With a Little Help From My Friends - Joe Cocker (The Beatles cover)



February was, in many ways a culmination of months of build-up. In both the film group and the music class we had been working towards this month since about August of last year. I'm glad it's over because it was hectic but I'm sad at the same time because it was like nothing I've ever been through. It was magic. It's a month that I will look back at in many years and just remember so clearly and vividly as being one of the best of my life.


Rowan <3







I think Joe Cocker's version is a fantastic cover (hardly a cover really) and I'm honestly quite surprised we managed to pull it off since it's pretty difficult to perform as a group - 6/8 time signature. Lots of concentration required but such fun to play and a true concert closer :P

The Muppets

This evening, I had to introduce an advanced screening of The Muppets!

For US folk saying it's already out - It comes out in the UK on Friday but the lovely cinema I attend for my youth group managed to get a showing of it early as the start of our youth film festival.

Now, I'm not a great speaker so when we were being asked to speak before films I just asked if I could do the first one to get it out the way with. Just so happened that the first film was a sold out screening of The Muppets :P

It's been on the cards for a few weeks now and I'd have posted sooner but I've been busy and broken laptop so yeah...
Got to credit my mum though. We were asked to dress up and since I was one of the speaker's, I had to be Kermit the Frog, whose costumes aren't great online and are quite overpriced. So my mum put a lot of effort into making a Kermit head and getting green gloves and socks (just did black suit Kermit, not full green) and it would seem that everyone loved it. We walked on to rapturous applause.

The speeches went well according to my mum. Three of us spoke and apparently, I only sounded nervous at the very start although i know for a fact I mixed up my words towards the end but whatever, the speeches were mostly to show off the costumes :P
Forgot to mention, I brought my banjo along for added Kermit effect ;D

Now the film. I can't honestly claim to be a massive Muppets fan. Obviously, I know of the Muppets (who doesn't) but I've not watched a lot of them. Although, I have watched their first three films in preparation of this and I've seen Christmas Carol years ago but I really enjoyed this new one.

Basically, their old theatre is getting knocked down and a new Muppet (Walter) goes out of his way to get The Muppets back together to save it while some soppy love story between Jason Segel and Amy Adams goes on in the background. Well, I say background but the pair are in it far too much for such an average story. It would have been a lot better had it just been The Muppets trying to save the theatre without the two.
Honestly, at times I thought the movie could have been called Jason Segel + The Muppets.

But The Muppets themselves redeem it, of course. It's great to see all the old, loved characters back. Every scene that's just The Muppets is great, funny and charming. The new Muppet is fine as well. Nowhere near as annoying as Segel or Adams (who remind me of Seth Rogen and Zooey Deschanel, respectively. Bleugh)

One thing that's always a fantastic extra to The Muppets is the cameos and they don't disappoint here at all. Apart from one, and I'm sure you'd agree if you've seen it. I won't give away the rest, though.

Anyway, anyway. There's much more to love than hate about the film and I would definitely recommend going to see it. Just try and pay more attention to The Muppets than the human actors, which is what The Muppets should always be about! The same applies to Muppets' love plot being between Kermit and Miss Piggy, too.


But yeah, I'm mostly glad my speaking is out the way. I don't have to introduce any more films, I can just sit back and enjoy the festival itself and damn, I have a lot of films I want to see!


Rowan <3

Live Performance

Yesterday night I performed live in front of an audience for the first time in my life and I loved it :D

It was for our music class coz our teacher has this thing about the final exam being more a performance than an exam. Therefore, if we perform live we will be more used to it by the exam. I'm not complaining. It means we get more time to play as a class which I really enjoy.

Advanced Music honestly is just like being part of one big band of really talented musicians. It's easily the best subject I've ever taken in high school. We actually call it Advanced Bant (banter) because we don't really do any work, we just chat, have a laugh and play music.

Anyhow, we performed as a class to about 300 people yesterday. It was before the school's annual fashion show which wouldn't usually have a band playing as pre-show entertainment but it was to raise money for people going to Africa next year and to experience playing live.

There are, of course, people in the class who have performed live many times before but for a number of us it was the first time and I'm among them.

I played bass by the way, which I do for most songs we play in class since I like to think I play well and am pretty comfortable playing bass :P

Yet, I got quite nervous before going on. Someone earlier in the day said only about 50 tickets had been sold but there was a near full attendance of about 300-400 people.

Once we got playing though, I was fine. We've performed these songs non-stop over the past few weeks and I brought my own bass and amp so I felt quite at home, in a sense.

Since it was pre-show entertainment, we only performed a handful of songs. The setlist was:

Walk of Life - Dire Straits
5 Years Time - Noah and the Whale
Free - Nina Simone
Fix You - Coldplay
One and Only - Adele
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues

Walk of Life was a great opener and easy to play (for me) so I settled in nicely. I'd say we played it flawlessly, too.
5 Years Time was a bit messy i think but it's difficult to play it live as we tend to always speed up. Plus, the crowd wasn't great. A bit ignorant if i'm honest but by the same token, they probably didn't even know we would be playing and they were there for the fashion show. But still.
Free went well. About all I can say.
I was nervous for Fix You since I have a solo at the start (which is usually played on an organ I think) and I know I messed a bit of it up but no one else seemed to realise :P
One and Only was probably my favourite of the night since the girl who sings it has a great voice and the bass part is really fun... and coz Adele is brilliant xD
Obviously Fairytale was great, but then, it always is!

So there you have it. My first ever live performance \o/
Apart from a few little mistakes and an average crowd, I'd say it was a great first experience and I honestly can't wait to play again.
It hopefully won't be too long until that opportunity presents itself again. During the last week of term, we hope to be performing to each of the school's year groups so there might even be five shows in a week of about 10 songs each!
Looking forward to it.

But the big one is in February/March where we'll be putting on our own show, over 2 nights I believe, and will do about 20 songs. That will be something else because we can use the lights as we wish and we'll get a proper sound engineer in - we didn't have any of that yesterday so if last night was pretty good, this will probably be even better!

I'm glad the people I talked to who are used to performing were right. They told me I'd love it and the nerves would disappear after a minute or so and they were damn right. It was a great evening, and a great start to December after a pretty disappointing November if i'm honest. Perhaps up there with one of the best days of the year so far and that's saying something.


Rowan <3


P.S About the film group video I was in. I'm not entirely sure if the video will go on Youtube or anything. The reason being is that there are people under 16 in it so the guy who takes the group is hesitant to put it online. If that's why then i'm afraid there's not much I can do but either way, if i'm honest, I don't know if I want to post a photo or video of myself. I haven't so far. I'm a bit shy about how I look so i'm surprised at myself for ever volunteering to be in the video in the first place.

Thought I'd fill you in since a few people were asking ^^
Sorry if anyone finds that disappointing.

At the Movies

Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I don't have an excuse of any kind so all I can do is say sorry.

Anyhow, since my last post the film group I go to filmed an advert for our upcoming youth film festival. It was great fun.

Despite getting up at 5am on a Sunday morning to go into town I enjoyed it immensely. Although it turns out I wasn't actually required until about half ten. Yet, when i was required, i was really required.

I played two characters in the ad - Harry Potter and Charlie Chaplin. I'd say I didn't look particularly convincing as either but everyone else disagreed. But yeh, my scenes were filmed back to back and we were limited with our filming time so i had to change quick style from Potter to Chaplin but it all added to the rush and excitement of things.

We were also able to hire a professional camera and lighting team thanks to our group leader and it worked well, i'd say. It really had a proper "on set" feel, the first time i've been in that situation really.

I wouldn't say filming a music video in Media was on par with this. Everyone was up for it this time, really dedicated and serious but not without wanting to have fun at the same time so there was just a great atmosphere all round.

I'm not going to delude myself by thinking that being on set is always like that but it really encouraged me to go further, you know. Having sort of worked on set last year, I just wanted to keep doing it and filming this only furthered that desire.

The ad has been edited into a rough cut by the camera team and hopefully we get to see it this Thursday before doing a spot of editing ourselves. Wouldn't mind a little bit of that!

While we're on the subject of films, I'm not far off applying for my university courses. I've decided where i'd like to go - which isn't far from home - I've handed in my personal statement, i just need to wait on my guidance teacher to write a reference and then i can apply for my courses. Perhaps by this weekend...

There are only a handful of university courses that i'd like to go to that are nearby so i'm hoping like hell i get into them. There are 3 main ones i'd be happy to get a place on but i have two backup courses in case i don't.

I'm quietly confident since i did, of course, get 5 A's last year at first sitting (which is not bad i have to say) and I do have a fair amount of background experience within media but, as they say, don't take anything for granted.

I'll keep you on the DL but, for now, thanks for reading this little piece of something or whatever.


Rowan <3

Goings On

I'm writing this post at 4am with school to attend in 5 hours because of my damn sleeping pattern.

Monday knocked it out of me and when i got home at about 8pm (after leaving the house 12 hours previously) all i wanted to do was get some food in me and go to bed, which i did, and unfortunately woke up now. I didn't plan to.

So i'm currently writing this listening to The Beatles Anthology 2, on loan from my dad's uncle (my great uncle). I've had all 3 of them for about a month but have only got round to it now that he's asked for them back. They're really good so far although Anthology 1 will probably be my least favourite because admittedly, i'm not a big fan of The Beatles early stuff. Some of it is good but in pales in comparison to the likes of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's etc. Can't wait to get to that section in the next 2 hours or so!

Anyhow.

Recent times have been quite busy.

There wasn't one day last week that i came home after school and went on Xbox or my laptop or whatever. Monday was my film group, as usual. Tuesday i went to see a new documentary about George Harrison (called "Living in the Material World") which was very enjoyable if not a little long but of course, such a busy and interesting life takes 208 minutes to get through :P
A lot of interesting things about the man were uncovered and i urge any fans to see it when it eventually comes to tv which i think it probably will in parts. It might have already in the US, not sure, but this was the first public screening of it ever in the UK to my knowledge.

Wednesday was another film group meeting (yes, there's two or three a week now!)

Thursday... i actually forgot what i was doing but i certainly didn't go home after school :S
Hmm, weird. I can't remember.
And Friday, i went to see Melancholia. Wasn't great. Visually it is, but that alone can't carry a film. It's just too boring and not enough happens to make it engaging. Depressing, too, and not a film that really appeals to me. Ho hum.

I went to see it with Kev and we'd been planning to see something for a while and he built it up as a little date (awwwww) even though we did nothing apart from actually watch the film. I couldn't anyway, and didn't want to haha
If you want to mess around with someone in the cinema go and see something you know you have no interest in! Certainly, the cinema we went to, (the one i go to for my film club) you would never have done anything - it's for people who are more than casual film fans in all honesty :P
Go to some tacky multi-plex.

Saturday was a bit odd coz i stayed at somebody's house that i barely know. I honestly just wanted to spend the day in the house but everyone was eager for me to go so i did. Josh and Nicholas and a few others i know were there but i was mostly outnumbered by people i had never met which is fine by me but just a little awkward.
The people i don't know are actually people that i'll be going to the Lake District with. Can't remember if i talked about it or not yet but if i didn't then about 25 of us have rented this place somewhere in the Lake District next summer. Should be good!
A number of people have expressed their dislike of there being alcohol there but quite frankly fuck them. It's an end of school holiday, with friends, no parents. I've paid as much as they have and i'll be 18 by the time so i'll do as i please thanks :D
A number of us share this view.

Back to this house "party" which wasn't really a party. It was the first time in about 5 days i'd had something decent to eat (I'd been living of Subway last week basically) and the host of the house made curry, of all things.

There wasn't any booze or anything involved on the night but we had the house to ourselves and had a massive game of Capture the Flag and then watched a film called Youth and Revolt and played some sexy Twister ;)

People say it's only fun with alcohol involved but i disagree. I also have to talk about something strange. There was a girl there i'd never met before but there was something about her... I don't know. I think she was quite cute, and i was really happy when playing a game of Twister with her.
Weird, huh?
Well, i don't think anyone can seriously be 100% exclusively gay :P

Getting back home on Sunday afternoon, i was greeted by a kitten. Yes, we got a kitten. Why, i don't know. As cute as it is, it's just annoying and unnecessary seeing as we already have a cat AND a dog. This thing steps in the door and everyone bows down to it.
No.
Plus, i think i'm allergic to the fucking thing. I'd be quite happy for it not to be here, harsh as that sounds.


So yeh, past few weeks or so have been busy times indeed.

They ain't a-stoppin' either.

At least today will be the first day in a while where i can just come home from school and relax. Wednesday and Thursday i'll probably be at the film club again. Friday, i dunno but it'll be the last day of school before the October break next week.

Already got plans for Saturday. All according to plan, the film group will be filming a trailer which should be great fun (the basis of it is my idea after all) but it means i'll have to miss the big Liverpool vs Man United game - although if we're not filming i will watch it. Also, i'll be going to Nicholas' place to provide some moral support for Josh, Rob and another friend who are doing a charity event called Extra Life, a 24 hour gaming marathon.

I'd do it as well if i didn't already have previous engagements but i'll go round in the evening with my Xbox and join them for their second half probably. They're starting at 8am and finishing at the same time on Sunday morning. Can only imagine the amount of Lucozade and food that will be there.

But it's just the start if things at Nicholas' house. His parents are away all next week so his house will be getting trashed by a drunken load of us at least once, if not twice. The thing is that Kev (who i seen Melancholia with) has already told me that he is going to try and pull (kiss/snog) me when drunk.

I can tell - obviously with that statement - that he's got a bit of a thing for me but i'm sorry to say i don't harbour the same feelings about him. I like him but i'm not attracted to him. People would probably just say let it happen, get yourself a bit and maybe i will, maybe i won't. I can't predict what will or won't happen when i'm drunk :P

I'm looking forward to this random party anyhow, it's been far too long without one!

And i'm looking forward to having next week off as well. I can relax finally, and i think deservedly, as i've been more than a little rushed off my feet lately.

Ciao for now.


Rowan <3


PS Anthology 2 is really getting good now. Rare take of Tomorrow Never Knows was quite sublime and these Sgt.Pepper's tracks are tripping me to hell.