Moving and funny

My friend Pavla lent me Koyla which I watched today. It's a Czech film made in 1996 by director Jan Svěrák that is set in 1988 as Stalinism was finally crumbling.

Its a really neat story about a middle aged single musician who's life is beautifully interrupted by a child. Its wonderfully told and filmed and well worth a look. The director's dad Zdeněk Svěrák, both wrote the script and played the lead role.

Prague is such a beautiful city.

And I really liked his apartment.

It was a handy thing

Back in 1984, I found myself in a room one day that had some clay in it and feeling bored, I thought - why not use the clay to figure out how metal bars deform when blacksmithing. Well that kept me busy for an hour.

So I was still holding this ball of clay in my hand - looked at it and thought - why not copy that - so 8 hours later - here was a clay hand holding a clay ball of clay.

I was gobsmacked because having never done art at school or played with clay before - here was a fairly accurate little sculpture that had a part of me in it. Then someone walking past offered me $200 for it!

It was quite a cathartic experience - my whole world changed at that point. Here I was finally able to express what I thought and felt in something I could make. On that day I decided I wanted to become a sculptor.

The hand was never fired and today sits by the drawing board in the office.

Patch's Place

In 1999 I got asked by Chris Ragg to help him make a set for his children's puppet TV show Patch's Place.

Having never designed or worked on a film set, I visited the Court Theatre Workshop and asked if I could do a few days work experience to get an idea where to start. Brian was the Workshop Manager at the time and he said yes with a big grin. After a week of helping I was offered a part time job as the Engineer doing all the metal bits. But that's another story...

So with a bit more confidence under my belt, I made a small model of the house in Patch's Place and showed it to Chris. Chris liked the design, so I went ahead and made it in my home workshop out of bits of customwood, old sacking, paint and plaster. It was made to come apart easily for shifting and putting in storage when not filming.

Chris had done these wonderfuly expressive drawings of creature puppets for the series. He made the creatures himself, found friends and family to write the script and help crew. I got roped in to be on 3rd camera.

It was a marvelous effort. Later on Chris went to Australia with a great show reel to break into the industry.