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Audiovisual Cultures Episode 124 –Strand, Thor and Robert Simpson

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Show notes

Recorded on location at the Strand Arts Centre in East Belfast, programme manager Johanna Leech and cultural freelancer Robert J. E. Simpson chat to Paula Blair about the venue’s history, its current status and plans for its future. We then learn more about Robert’s work as an artist, an actor, a for-hire freelancer and with the CinePunked podcast. And finally, there is a post-viewing discussion between Robert and Paula after seeing Thor: Love and Thunder (dir. Taika Waititi, 2022) with plenty of references to plot details and lots of meandering off to other broadly relevant topics! If you get something out of this episode or know someone who will, please share it and give it a good rating and review on your podcast app.

Music: commonGround by airtone (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Edited by Paula Blair with Audacity. Recorded on 2 August 2022. Get early access on Patreon.

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you’re very welcome to audio visual cultures the podcast that explores different areas of the arts and media I am a liar and for this episode it was my great pleasure to speak in person T. G. one LH and her guys as program manager at the strand art center in east Belfast and cheat cultural freedom Sir Robert J. E. Simpson the following conversations were recorded on location at the strands first you hear from all three of us talking about it strands it’s history present and hopes for its future then more but Roberts and the different aspects to what he does and finally Robert knight shot quite generally up by things springing from the location and having just watched Seward often thunder and denotes we mention plot details so if you want to avoid spoilers fast pick mark this episode for after you’ve seen the film my huge thanks to our generous patrons without him I would not be able to keep making that show and providing it for free if you can join them and want to access exclusive bonus material including I takes it will have come from these recordings have a look at our membership options at Petri on dot com forward slash AP cultures you can also head over to our website audio visual cultures dot com and dropped one off donations of any amount you choose and use the buttons to make one off Tony tions of any in mind if you count two thoughts sharing this episode with the friends and giving us a nice review every access this podcast would be much appreciated okay I really hope you enjoy this one it was great to crack say record most and strong arts center fell in love with the sentiment many years ago was a very small tiles and rose from Hollywood rose I am very M. here’s while this may really great pals Robert J. Simpson %HESITATION Joanna H. as a programmer she yes you can tell soleil VS John John has been on the podcast before quite awhile ago talking by one of her art projects let’s say she’ll be speaking a week back and her guys is a programmer at the strands and as retail’s fails to meet up with Robert from semi punks and he’s right behind me that may talk asked him on sending yeah it’s really cool to be here it’s very special to me that we’re all here so thank you both for joining us the service of in the same room together before the ad was like we’ve known each other for so long in various different you know prices but like yeah yeah so I’m doing that would you be happy to give us a better if your spiel about the strong because it’s a really old sentiments one of Belfast the last time doing art deco cinema %HESITATION and it was known as a strong sentiment for a very long time and then it was rejuvenated as distraught arts center so would you be able to just give us a bit more detail of faith yeah so the strong does on Hollywood road and east Belfast Northern Ireland and yes I suppose said we are the oldest cinema left in Northern Ireland %HESITATION on the last pre existing kind of wartime and building on this from nineteen thirty five and we have four screens currently used to be one theater and when we became the art center a few years ago it just meant we were look at rates relief for the building I’ll be able to get charitable funds T. help us change from thirty five millimeter film to digital and apart from not the strand for time was a variety theatre so we’ve been able to take you sixty two KM and kind of out on all the creative things that we do so sometimes we’ll have like circus performers before film on it sometimes would be doing just straight up like comedy or theatre what film is still our first love and we have film clubs for younger people and older people and we’re hoping she refurb next year on we’ve got four of the six million that we need I’m not just take pride hold me electrics and here disability access and lost a few bits and pieces of people enjoy contests thank K. and Robert you’ve done a few events here you yeah hosts and you can change the thing so what’s your experience with the strong this was would be my local summer when I was a kid %HESITATION although we weren’t big cinema goers which is ironic considering how much time I spend watching film today %HESITATION so I certainly remember coming here as as a kid in the so it’s got a kind of nice warm for the feeling of family because that’s when we actually rolled together and every member of the class I still remember coming here to see Michael’s Christmas Carla my teacher from primary one thing behind me I haven’t seen her for years so it’s just a memory that I have %HESITATION as if any I think it’s it’s it’s fox and all of the history so I’m I’m like I’m really into this sort of film history and I have been wanting runs you K. take a photograph some doesn’t old cinema sites when I come and that this is still functional art deco nineteen thirties cinema and all of us thanks contesting that we still have that there are still a few other cinemas in the city repurposed from similar kind of period but the still retains a lot of his character %HESITATION so the whole appeal it’s a nice place to work as if they were there for very different screens are mostly done stuffing and the tiny screen around here spring for an screen too which is quite a woman the next big stage on the other screen I just love the feeling of the if the case experiment of the shape of the room and I love that it’s got that big D. performing space with the screen behind the scenes in the front row on the screen isn’t too closely and they went to the cinema somewhere else now the crux of the week insight and real woman deeply regretted cream my forty five degrees %HESITATION but it’s it’s a great place that sickness let it rest and I think he gets back on the books because it’s not in the city centre it’s in the sort of middle ground between here and like proper suburbia so people overlook a a little bit since and has always impressed me so you know it’s like this is the hardest on the Billboard charts what is the people I talked to the I don’t make stuff awesome he still knows where it is so I think this little gem on the %HESITATION like it’s all his stuff was all the more stuff here but this is trying to get a person the citizen and the funding and all the rest of us in the system also to eating yeah great yeah it’s a very special place to me at this the first cinema I would have gone see and I can’t remember what the earliest films I saw were that I had really fundamental films being experiences here so wait saw timber instead I met before Christmas and I was just a few weeks after my dad died so that was really special experience for me and I think you and I do I think we we went to see it again as adults but I think it was in the queue F. T. F. R. member correctly we saw together in KFC but I was family funded over quite a lot over the years as well the teenagers so the missile and I also when I was far too young went see Jurassic Park here at this and I hope they run off to the toilets on the new cover girl sequences all night because I’m the same way the school and walks up property each other’s about fourteen and I was in it so when I came to see it here so it is scary and yet they still pumping knows I still you know the first ones are the best yeah yeah yeah so it’s a it’s a specially plea yes and yes so I just wanna encourage anybody who’s ever living in Belfast but not in the east or visiting Belfast ever check it because there’s always such great things mean just up just last week he had the Rocky Horror Picture Show and had an amazing night here and you’ve always called gigs on there’s traditional Irish music but there’s there’s also %HESITATION you know things that might appeal to you all different parts of the community I think and as you say there Sarkis and there’s comedy nights and there’s all sorts of things so yeah absolutely jacket I just really special that either if you want to add anything I would say that it’s it’s the there’s nothing says strong thank you get necessarily no cinemas and is that tie in with the history of the site %HESITATION it’s not a multi plex variance here even though it’s called multiple screens %HESITATION it’s it’s something different it feels like you’re you’re literally taking in the E. ninety years of history here I don’t know for me that so stuff resonates more %HESITATION it feels like that’s an important thing to me team I’m a worry about place like I said it’s great to hear the phone line that you have are a lot of the funding that you need in order to kind of just jealous of this up a little bit more and approve it because so many of these places to get lost over time %HESITATION %HESITATION on various groups online and when you kind of read about another cinema that’s been torn off the condom to they can get the funding of local consciousness at now we don’t need it and it’s a little bit of the kind of the the culture of the area that’s gone so this is a special place it is important that it gets maintained it’s important that the case use of the people take a chance on certain I feel like it’s it’s important for east Belfast to have nice things that’s right they have nice cultural things because for a very long time it felt like we weren’t really allow you to have nice things are nice cultural things or enjoy those things if we did have some so I feel like even at slightly politically it’s a very important space to protect and to nurture for those reasons this file and I just think it’s it’s a real shame for other communities like Surrey Belfast because you know if north Belfast west Belfast sites both of us would have hot places like this around the finger tips you know just on the road and not something that I love here is that I live here and work here you know I can just walk around the corner you know good a gig here and not have to go in and out of the city centre %HESITATION but the stock has also always been like a place for everybody so even like it historically like throughout the troubles and things he would have had a mixed group of people come in here because we have people from Georgetown would’ve locked up or and because of and things of being close to the city center with like curfews the strong would still be open so we’ve kind of been not place people go on and it doesn’t matter where you’re from you’re gonna set Tyne and how this experience together and I think you know what that’s like what Robert was tennis I kind I feel less like family because either you can with your family or the cinema became your family so for individuals and for people and maybe also had been three traumas after wartime as well a lot of people said that when it came to the cinema they would be able to like let all of their kind of excess baggage go on for their mental health it was really important so we have a project called strong stories to try to collect all these stories or you know we were talking to someone he was hurt there currently staff so they would sign the film to their parents and then she was worried that she wouldn’t get all of that kind of cloths but you know with her mom was just so happy to be in space I’m happy that she’s in a space where you know you shouldn’t be doing anything or be a certain person she could just come and be entertained so entertainment is the most important thing in my own skin the sun was always came behind northern we needed this %HESITATION I mean it’s one of the things I love to I came across Belfast whose they skipped he skips to the cinema %HESITATION in front of most of the time of our home so I can stick my boxes %HESITATION but it’s just to remind you that that’s the way that we can avoid it or this way some of us have a voice the the the traumas that were going on during that time I happen to be looking at a research on ice looking through some old kinematic off with police and there was a list of the cinemas in Northern Ireland in nineteen fifty seven outlook items dozens and dozens and I were going to I don’t have any of course one of the hospitals in and told us it’s really depressing so they they are the old time capsules I know you guys teachers and stuff here as well and showing off the history center to focusing photographs when people cough most tourists and locals alike the stuff we see in the so you get into you we live in the stories that otherwise we you know we kind of just walk past I think that being nice hello printer yeah great strong Mr well thank you so much for your time that’s really kind if you find tax useful with your podcasts we’ve got two options for you you can subscribe to the audio visual cultures podcast on U. shape for captioned videos and you can visit all the visual cultures dot com and click the transcripts top both sites are linked in the show notes along with information like this episode J. Simpson yes hello who took it stays in a room with you I’m not on a computer screen this is a weird thing about social media and the way that our world works on it is that you you can feel that you are with someone a lot more than you actually are just because you have a computer screens and your Facebook updates and S. and we’ve done a couple of podcasting type things together so it doesn’t take us that long since I’ve seen you but it probably yeah we have %HESITATION we saw each other in person lasting things probably by October twenty nine new it’s scary because I haven’t been here in a long time well honestly August twenty twenty two hours like a whole other Jackie is we haven’t changed in some ways we have and in some ways we have consensus even the fact control of the pandemic yeah nine I would love for my listeners she learn more about you because I mentioned G. and we’ve done that we’ve done and I am in conversation but I picked out I don’t my my other personal you change that Wilson on the podcast and I’ve since any problems which is very kind of you to help me on this I basically invited my styles so you were on the list anyway again just our ordering young yeah well I think we’re at a point where it’s just anytime that she’s trying to find a way of doing things together you know because we are quite easily set up for online stuff but it’s just really great status in person yes it would you be happy to well I think what I’ll do is I’m going to throw a bunch of stuff in there my perception of old route to things you do X. I don’t know how I describe you but you do you do with this stuff so I’m gonna just say that you research and write about film young felons he runs any problems he makes any proposed class and you do the website and everything which is class and it’s really great if you subscribed to not because you create blogs by Robert and Rachel he’s also working on so many pounds ye are an artist G. E. jeho don’t even don’t even offer that right year Hardesty yeah you draw I think you G. to be disciplined yeah in some sculpture and then then yes yeah actor things are easy ask your I would say an expert on hammer on the date and not just company in Salem but comedy ferry generate here and it’s easy Aston expired it was a friends in that world yeah I’ve talked to lose stuff fight which is the things I feel like I knew a bite so are you happy that meander intake is three something I mean I realize it is a whole lot of stuff %HESITATION I could give advice when I was a teenager I met friends to begin with right right from friends for many years Hey told me just to focus on one thing because it would mean that case was easier to work out what I did and I stupidly nor the device and carry on doubling in as many things as possible %HESITATION if I was being generous about myself I think the word is poly mas Paul at that the other way looking as my Jack of all trades master of none the weather self deprecating and all of that %HESITATION so yeah I just I mean I didn’t describe as I work freelance in the arts that’s why I’m in the moment and I also ask them before which is in denial this year %HESITATION which I thoroughly enjoyed yeah I do a bit of arcs I kind of happened for a long time I don’t want to talk or face coming up back into it during the time that make an exhibition coming up in a couple weeks which is nerve wracking because it’s the first time I’ve done a solo show all like my actual Han’s artworks a lot of it is a sort of love as portraits based on raw and inspired by life should I did %HESITATION cold comedy of madness which is on the nice comedy in mental health and ended up with my friends Ross %HESITATION twenty sorry we did a couple times %HESITATION dinner before pandemic I can’t so hasn’t been touched I’m still thinking about all the things and over the pandemic of kind of going back into the house the seasonal stuff %HESITATION John things I love going out %HESITATION city %HESITATION I I guess I do some research and history of the month long time a switch in the university %HESITATION you know I was an octopus and things as well of the lower crime films over the years but not an official connection them for for quite some time %HESITATION I’m still researching their company has to have the the marking on the moment a couple comite Smokey before then the air now %HESITATION on their kind is distribution and exclusive films stuff well said and then second which is sort of my driving thing these days those mean Dr Richard Kelly controversial tile %HESITATION she showed ME I don’t give years actually should yeah I just like a gender neutral tiles not a reason to do it state but it’s a pretty yeah this is a switch on the kind of %HESITATION steer a lot of us the more me these days to switch us just caught a writing career stock room then %HESITATION things and family and %HESITATION that’s basically a project that supports using film today I was kind of like using phone conversation %HESITATION so it’s a sensible sensibly an organization that talks about film but actually we’re trying to do something or try to look at social conditions we try to look at that service %HESITATION thoughts and and and life and stuff and and use the phones as a way to open this conversation is waiting to find an ingress into sometimes difficult topics %HESITATION I mean we’ve done stuff with censorship and stuff but it’s Parker favors and stuff my gosh lighting number things with mental health all stemming throughout the lands of projecting film everyone feel safe and phone numbers of the film %HESITATION but you can actually kind of get under the skin of kalos stuff so we do that %HESITATION you know we got our podcast with Cummins publishing on as well and %HESITATION we do live events so we can interpret them our own pro on them I’ve haven’t had much happening since we’re trying to get back into it again %HESITATION yeah delete things behind a very we’re talking bout of the night but if you do them very well and C. G. some ready class stuff we’re going to go and see somewhere whichever one is that site in a minute so and and have a leave at lunch but we’re going to talk about more after its hopes night maybe by the phone but we can try to me because I don’t know I I N. Xin the sun’s going to pay I’m no I’m not gonna say before we go in the I’m not a Marvel aficionados neither am I which I think in a way it’s quite interesting because what if we come up with something you know or it might just be we we will talk about the film itself but we just keep having to reach out by Ian your stocks generally here I’ve seen a few of them I haven’t seen the whole gentle cycle phone so it’s it’s going to be fairly open ended for me although I find I wrestle find ironic that someone who’s not with a comic book nerds the first common tree trunk that I did for the release was for %HESITATION marvels really it is hard to talk %HESITATION which is kind of strange %HESITATION it is S. as in its action Marvel film yes yeah so I mean you know my relationship with these films as isn’t Sam big spider man fan I had seen no sign remains but then I was reading exclusively so may first time and then now it spends a picture on a news to the MCA’s so I’m sort of catching up a little bit because I mean despite our man I haven’t seen the sort of big Avengers homes or anything I know stuff but what’s happened things like that but I’ve just been definite and I you know I’ve seen the seconds guardians of the galaxy it just happened on this and I have seen so Ragnarok but I have not seen the work so you know there’s there’s so really fun and I liked it so I think it sort of it I think this is a quote because it’s taken thirty days so it’s sort of marvelous G. synthesis it’s what I eat I’m aware of but we’ll see what happens I think they should lose a cameos and stuff it should be quite fun I I’m just happy to an open minded and have a laugh related to that system for a couple hours really is not yeah and to you China very kindly Cytisus complimentary tickets because we have both done stuff for the strand before and %HESITATION sometimes on paid so you know it’s nice it just got some calls %HESITATION you know be able to do this and to stay up the straddle back lately yeah okay so do you see it later big thanks to our generous patrons Apache on dot com forward slash AP cultures for keeping us going if you’re not already supporting us your missing item behind the scenes content exclusive audio and early releases as well as being justifiably smoke for helping identity podcaster sharing free education you can see all my mistakes and get actions no one else is hearing all straight to your inbox or personal RSS feeds join the part today Apache on dot com forward slash A. three cultures this is a call to all right for a long time I have no idea this call for action line make them wrong but anyway civic spaces up stairs and shotguns that Joanna has very kindly and that is used to just have a bit more potassium we caught some nice artworks in the Scotland expands off the strands of photos and things but other analysis Benetton studio today four was it production of hairspray that’s coming hello Sir so yes and there was a lot of activity in the states very sweaty and here and here yeah hi this is very quiet and it’s just me and Robert how many tasks and staring at the holes in the crimes for the survey a hotel on the poke and very weird because those were here for all of my life yeah hold the city keeps on changing us was you’ve been away for so long it’s nine AM and I still live within a few miles of here but I’m not done enough this little bit yeah mmhm yeah so it is strange seeing senator sorry we’re just tired of the word love and thunder I thought it was quite the kids in the front row or I thought we’re gonna have to tell my my idol going shut up I think they sent a silent and I figured if you what it’s going to be such a light cross she finally found that they’ll join the money because they’re right at the front of the tenth most say they were OK after five months the first few minutes survey they didn’t detect analyze and I thought I suspect they thought they were on their own I think when they really service people may they not ISIS faxes yeah they were I think they thought they were told was when they were talking about it well I don’t know this jump scares in the film because some of the started by like minded horror and I thought can I did jump scare on the so well in that report and you have to be careful you can play pranks on kids anymore I mean look it’s terrible because the schedule was the you know you you we all your life to kind of be able to do it by %HESITATION the nineteen nineties enjoy the I thought it was good fun yeah I don’t know the film’s well enough to be invested in store on to be in no way you need to add anything so for me it was just like I was I was quite entertained for a couple hours yeah I think very similar for me I haven’t really thing we were talking about is our dear I have only ever kept in an isolated the MCAT so what I don’t really remember him most of these people are most of the time you know I just remember there was a funny rock creature and rock and I was very spectacular today he also directed both of these items that was all I remembered about Ragnarok tank and I was and they they thought little sketch was it was Sam Mayo and some often yes it was one of them I don’t know who the third one was something he was probably not Damon’s father and I’d like to really alike but they were playing it’s you know Loki and Thor and Odin and this week probably Friday at Asgard reenacting a lot of us that %HESITATION Lewis ragnaros or or something that was quite funny and %HESITATION yeah this in the car seat as I can remember sure sold so there we are I do think there was some sort of toward Olympic skating you can write about that’s all I remember yeah whatever yeah as you say I’m not home enough basses and guardians of the galaxy I only see the second one I just laughed like a drain three out today yes I could sign child so many options grounds couple of ours may see past the most Marvel films as a man hello I DO you kind of got a little bit frustrated with the abundance of characters I still think I mean like me being a kind of old school phone comments like universal monster movies where it was a low diminishing returns as the crowned everybody and it seems to be working for the marble stops the ball it also means that sometimes it’s just it’s my focus is to spread yeah just give me a character on the villain %HESITATION that may work but it was it was fine I mean I didn’t know who the backstories for most the characters but it was fine nice this sentimentality in and %HESITATION dying people all look here’s I thought myself Welling up but Sir no responses as there are for a lot of grief I thank yeah I haven’t seen the word which I feel a bit bothered by it because you know I do you have a very special place in my heart for Kenneth Branagh horseshoe directed at I haven’t seen all of this and I haven’t even seen Belfast yet I need to say it and it’s just never going to be no single well that didn’t come by Regis and you castle and then it was very shown anywhere in new castle signed so I wasn’t feeling okay about going to the cinema yeah when it came to light so %HESITATION just win and I’ll watch it when I can cope with it is I know that it would only have been probably only make me feel super home seconds also yeah I do find sometimes I finds fans from here but that this time sort of watch get fibrations I’ve been watching it maybe for research purposes and it’s really emotionally overwhelming because going yes Sir %HESITATION there you know he says most of the apostles and actually show in Belfast so yeah that’s a yeah they can swim as like seventy ones like that with it just because it doesn’t look like that anymore because a lot of the stick the British Army and anyone doesn’t show me up into the so the whole thing so the Senate she’s anyway hello there rumble yes %HESITATION yeah I haven’t been investments Heiser I think I’ve seen all three Iron Man films for a long time ago and I don’t remember anything beyond Robert Downey junior send them I think one of cultures and them and Nick fury Sam L. Jackson turns up that’s all I remember about those I don’t care I think I saw the first American %HESITATION %HESITATION I haven’t seen the denture stuff that’s already I was really want to see the spider man their most recent Spiderman yeah I haven’t seen it yet Netflix had spider-man’s Andrew working up see the second one with Tom hardy because their old homes thanks again except I think it’s homecoming we sing we watch that recently and I I went to watch far from home and it was gone I think it just was a couple of days to date it was already taken off Netflix so needs to see us at some point and then I can see all the spider man together yeah I mean you need to I wouldn’t have been just hold this vitamin and see films last year the spider man comics I wanted to follow what was going on and I hadn’t seen the more thing that works so that was also like my way of kind of getting into the whole MCU stuff so we watch them in order I kind of got the big thrusts but the role the big mixed mushrooms with everybody in experiments like a tiny bit part player in old and because it I started off by rewatching the many films that those and then attempt at the second set in the third set you know certain health but yeah some paid off thanks to say sorry I want spider Gwen and my mom’s father once a once yeah I just want all that %HESITATION in those miles Morales hello and despite our sh well that was just that you love to I think that this wasn’t even it was more just what could we both go and say that either I have seen yes we can go and see her face because I think there’s other phone so that the man I thought that was weird like complimentary check it’s far so hate for sin go to the center for some of well I mean like I’m missing I have means that pressure losses on that Mike yeah I do miss my regular my weekly outings this enough and not inside her I see them pay for a subscription ticket nine the facts so nice fun %HESITATION ball I’m still not I mean it’s it’s it’s worked I got my body for money so far and Cher well I’m not using it and all yeah see I used to do a little to suffer he asked Hey %HESITATION scanner and I was always said well if you are is back in the back and say I use it in in the Merion was Sarah I said no to soften its voluntary work for them and everything even the days in the office just right without men and things so I just want to send my for free all the time for a couple years okay so you simply cannot say so %HESITATION and selfish about it obviously thank you go to the center I do things are summarized for frail sometimes them and somebody asks me what my doctor sent in a telemedicine Feldman visual so basically what is something you got to go to the center for fails having a doctor it doesn’t give you a free pass to you and the thing I have for her yeah this is Larry or not so I question sure Lester is kind of nice couple not one author less what else can you pass yes this week’s sex at parties I don’t know what the doctor is only ninety minutes fines and concrete it’s nice really economy some people feel a bit intimidated it’s doctor because it’s a doctorate but I think that’s it she she if people don’t necessarily understands what is it I think you’re actually person or someone your origin story you know your your rags to riches rags to rags right to the hope of riches rifles thanks you know it was all kind of realized it’s just a normal person to sell as Jenny from the block K. single people look at you on the street in figure something they the paper %HESITATION do you want to get in so I want to play you know like there is this kind of an interpersonal gray I think you’re not getting in trouble off %HESITATION because some insight on the inside of it yeah share that that’s a whole a diatribe against me was a lone gas that’s actually kind of go %HESITATION hot in the ring you ready and you can’t stay stop happened and then never got back into yeah and you don’t do the research and all and anyway the toxin in an institution yeah I find that fascinating because you can do the research yeah you know I think a lot of people to look at I think you need really understand that’s when you called three to PhD process all of that work full not license so inaccurately put in for years of your life it was for she’s a document for examination and won’t stop meeting is over you discussed out for an hour or whatever box and it can be all it can to nineteen all rights on box moment in time and not to sites your weather you convinced your examiner surely deserve a doctored or not it’s a fairly subjective sass and it’s one that is life changing and it alters your very psyche it’s not something like necessary advice my name is Jay if you count data research and you can write it back but what it is you’re really interested in if you’re able to find a way and the means and the resources to share our Monday yeah because that’s not what a PhD necessarily yes no we had %HESITATION I was talking to a doctor afternoons on the same from how custom yeah and that was just on her fifty through since she went on to write on traditional and kind of give a little bit of reassurance that it can be counted on but it’s it’s it’s a hard slog as well because I think you probably view decided for me by the academic community you know our academic because you you know you’re not doing a project as such perhaps but then again it’s all fake tie dynasty if you don’t publish your stuff in the right places your work the matter how good is meaningless yeah so some of stuff five maybe want to do mine you know it doesn’t matter what standard to make get it tell you it wouldn’t comment so the whole things is policed and monitored and how long to sing so frustrating I mean I was looking one of my friends got some justified some other publication on big because taking years of work today and then you see the price point almond you know it’s like you need a mortgage in order to buy this book the researchers I put is an accessible to anybody who’s not part of an institution yeah which again sort of sits ready all day for me I kind of we talked about this before this is all day with me with this idea that education should be accessible Robson I mean this is this is probably like working class way from east Belfast I still very much feel there is opportunity so I hired and I took advantage of to learn a thing of the people should be able to do that shouldn’t be behind big glass doors yeah what should be you know you gotta have accessible no I completely agree because that’s I mean again that’s the thing that might be it’s easy access I developed at NC I thank and I can’t afford to buy it it’s ridiculous for paperback it’s forty five times no excuse I’m not still years after its nine well I didn’t appreciate years ago and things have moved on so much because it was very much about contemporary moment I mean I was publishing and I was already out of date and parts and snowing it’s well it is so very much has changed and it’s talk back and it’s on the scale and there are things that I would do differently and it was what it was at that at this time and it was never in it to be a survey it was just this is what came up for me on time and you know I think there’s still something in it and I think if it wasn’t so traumatizing to go box say I probably try and JD a more accessible version of it because that cracks me up that night for such a long time and even said either cursive and six oxime price I just don’t understand why but it was stopped urgency to population to get a job even just across the fixed term job somewhere totally precarious just to get a fit in the door with those I have to take the contract archetypal bushing is a permit scheme it’s horrible it’s I mean it’s it’s there’s a real work that is done with the old family the bulk of the people who do the work don’t benefit from it and if you’re in on Sunday to PhD program in which I was staying in the cells so you don’t get the benefit stuff see your husband hates do your work that you then going to sign over to somebody else to make the money yeah and they do make the money on that so here in a way that they sell it to the university libraries where it’s read by five people it’s just it’s just really great to me and it creeped me having seen some academic contracts the rights that people sign away for nothing and collision doesn’t pay the vast majority of people anyway you may not stop the grim reality of it but I’ve seen it and I think they went away all the rights in perpetuity I thank the system will not rescind those rights in order to maintain the tiny little kind of profit margin it got coming in I just I think it’s a scandal but I’m continuing this conversation very quickly so we want to let you know this is just to have it Virginia Tech because they don’t know how much steps to be fair yeah to be fair to take a CD and the words of income there I’m not sure how much mileage you can get we can have a go I mean a lot of it’s not without its problems it’s great crack and everything but you know he does raise a child army which I wasn’t too comfortable about remorse is a telegram if you think you just trusting Selbach Oster sedated well I mean I guess Seuss’s it did feel slightly manipulative %HESITATION to do so but there’s also been a woman all hope and that the policy coming fall by our children you know that there are actually real hope for everyone NAS because we screwed up the promise but the case possible I mean for enough because of the nature of these films and the sort of comic book storylines it is old %HESITATION war but the kids are doing as a last resort but they are helping and changing things and the adults counted without the kids I like to think you know as a director and as a writer that he’s a bit more savvy and liberal and I maybe get in and out to lunch it’s a fun sequences synergy sync sequence that that it’s it occurs to me hi this is any different from what we’re fighting against in certain countries where there’s child soldiers on it strokes wars and things like that and they’re reliant on comments and stuff and it’s great that they’ve got to save our city of K. it’s three different places there in Asgard which is vegan the Scandinavian and they’re all different colors all different races in Stockholm mix together and that’s really nice but at the same time you know you’re lumping all these kids and it is scared kids and their toys are coming these deadly weapons to kill the sand eagle creek church you know and there but it’s not face this evil and it’s not maybe necessarily that long ago that kids of certain racial box primes there are ancestors are not faced with evil and so I think that there’s maybe some March somebody hasn’t been the salt box very I don’t know or maybe it’s a way of overcoming it I don’t know how you’re feeling yeah but I didn’t feel good about it I mean I’m not one children in the house possibly as well home developer to really feel about it %HESITATION yeah I think it’s I think it’s a valid points in a way I kind of want when I think about children armies and discourage another line of ice like a part time job the dominoes the down you know and in which case dots why certain I’m going to buy and I children are scary the thing is they are powerful and they do have a lot more strength and %HESITATION yeah I mean that the point about that I mean you can put the with every single awesome them kind of narrative because the dam is always going to be someone that’s different there’s always some of the separation you can never find yourself really I need to see for yourself you got to do down under the pretenses of being something Alderton so I don’t know how you don’t and I don’t know hi culturally we don’t in some ways drawl on decades all imagery and bigotry and bias and uncertainty leading to the broad brushstrokes night doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it I I don’t think it’s a case of you shouldn’t do it but I think you kind of just need to be aware it’s it’s a fine line for all the the the talk of stuff and then drive to be more progressive which is a good thing I probably I don’t think we can stick her head is on sale a list of possible happen that we have and how these historical sites I know there’s not alone some of them are still true you know I mean you look at books on the Middle East and and and so she sent her Friday night and there is a sense of slightly %HESITATION faceless kind of threats you know we we suggest entire races of people are the same with the Russia when I’m rushing again this year %HESITATION but certainly every Russian piece of artwork from the twentieth century you could no longer play you couldn’t play then we see you couldn’t watch their films because they were all the other animals rats it’s more nuanced than not and I think that I think it’s okay to hop out that nuance and I mean ultimately argument on this question hello he’s very definite office I am very definitely has a reason yes that’s going to come yeah that’s the thing about eight A. M. C. and probably they’re slightly more peripheral works because it was reminding me of rock concert that balcony house appoints me as anything yes I kind of agree with this guy my mom Christian bale side a little bit kill all the golds not really they’re they’re making things worse or not really so just said about basic concepts you know I saw yeah this guy he’s been run roughshod lakes he’s not had a fun time and that’s actually quite understandable that he wants to see a band students missiles and not just stop at the death of his old people I mean this because he just doesn’t care and he was quite happy for them scientists are fine you know because it’s about like what we’ve been street and U. K. and what’s happened is that I think over in the states in so many places where those who are in part in some way he holds the park there have been a great time hello even when they’re not having a great time no no way better sign Mr so that’s what we’re in and the U. K. in this moment and summer twenty twenty T. anyway you know our prime minister he’s not our prime minister but is still our prime minister has home rough year but you’ll turning of his own making still on the ground time so do way way better than just about everybody else in the whole country so it felt a bit like thought it did feel yes there’s a point there but I did feel like Christian bale’s character who were I think it was his name is I really did fill in his fight for a lot of food and I just thought you only did just that now the topic this is you and the war is set kind of house techno local walks can one he’s actually trying to help him but the rest of the market and trusses you know so if I did find that quite interesting it did remind me of a set what’s the same is it Carol co creative skills no I’m thinking of Jessica Jones said the guy in Black Panther anyway he has a he has a real point you know and and not found the nine I thought that was really important said bring in that moral ambiguity rather than just skin sources spots and you know you did have a lot of that language if I’m going to go and get the five guys in this but I don’t think he was off on a guy and always he’s Christian bale so he has a super hero from the other universe the rifle universe so having mine for such a long time I mean I think you’re right I think I think that the nuances being played with is important but I think I think that is testament to the generation of where and where your villains are no longer just fell injured you guys are never entirely good I mean risks of spoiling for anyone who hasn’t seen this ours is a populist waters yeah yeah so I mean there is a point in which %HESITATION sore killed since and that is transgressive bold but also you’re kind of looking I mean what he’s doing is he’s sort of punishing somebody’s in the house %HESITATION who seems disinterested the but also he comes in he’s actually he’s %HESITATION he’s the gold color in a moment and there is the observation made the you know the times and and soon you doing exactly what you’re trying to stop saying therefore are you any better no you’re not you’re you are exactly the same willing to carry your own but the motivation is very similar to it it’s like you know it’s in the need to protect other people is sending bills characters is one to kill to calls because people are losing their lives in order to protect the people who don’t care and the office and see what’s going on as well as guardians because they’re not just on my house said they’re looking at the bigger picture I suppose that the the political the global political equivalent is is exactly that it’s it’s what goes on in terms of warring countries it’s it’s that those fears and says those leaders who will how the army’s go in blindly and lose themselves but really don’t care you know they’ll they’ll set their house on there that used a line which is Wednesday I did enjoy a all the rock music I mean I feel like I mean Thomas skulls and roses how much money does Aksel rose needed this point because the end of the chatter something more surgery coming up I don’t know her you know he’s not going to say but I enjoyed it but at the same time I kept thinking of making minds because make it mind you the salute to those songs again that you can just see Meghan I think the thing in your own innovate the title and stuff those needle drops those specific needle drops of all the guns and roses song that are familiar to people they aren’t even sounds of guns right they feel very tired I mean I think they’re used pretty well it gives us some energy but I feel like if you need those specific song pini welcome to the jungle beats way sweet child of mine and I said he whatever he needs those to give your phone the energy you might need to re assess what’s going on in your storytelling %HESITATION certain though that it needed them to get the energy but I assumed it was part of the S. six of the currents and I know that the gardens the galaxy scores or you know the song tracks run scorer kind of popular search and things on the guardians are here at the start of the film something that kind of almost two decades the tone that you’re gonna have to follow on from I mean it didn’t didn’t really bug me I think from a reading cynical point of view it’s a great way of getting the parents the ground I mean that’s just the parents the grandparents in yeah because is what’s really scary and I keep on saying this on social media is that you and I are not of a generation we could be grandparents offices Friday thank hi my online dating like this is like gradually crawling away like no %HESITATION but you know I I I think that it’s %HESITATION dots part of what’s going on is it means you got the older generation so that’s the starting to lose some so they may be okay now listens to the but their love and everything else so it’s kind of it’s it’s it’s this alchemy H. A. and Andy they kind of got like magic that brings these generations together which probably seems kind of appropriate them we have all these kids looking up to this older generation who also looks up to an older generation and how that kind of feeds and cross fertilizes I’m being very generous yeah for someone who is notoriously not a fan of comic book movies I think it’s worth census in the bait the CCI because it’s very C. GI tastic and there were points in some of the fight sequences right just saw he couldn’t make an animated maybe just make an animated movie I’d rather just watch all animation at this point all I’m saying on screen for however much a percentage of them it’s just a minute I mean man it says wait wait let’s see no and essentially because I think on the Sega name right Sarah her mood maze take it’s cool then later chairman Paul costs so it’s been talking about is kind of locked the case and you know mark mark does not like spam he ran off to join the spellings told you know there’s been a lot of people kind of trying to speak up on behalf of the soul the visual effects artists yes because it’s a really tough job and there’s a huge amount of them making it for my class I think the conditions aren’t very good to their working conditions are gays and they’re not unionized and they they’re under huge amounts of pressure to get the work done and the average year doesn’t necessarily know the sheer amount of stuff that goes into what we see on screen because you got people who work specifically on shadow work specifically on what color people who work specifically on bot like being it’s a huge team of people making everything that you say %HESITATION and you happen to work on that characters in the costumes and the people in the basements and that what happens in the lights and all sorts of different things that have to come together and they’re under huge pressure to do it very quickly and I think then that can lead to the there’s a sense of weightlessness there’s still I think there’s still an issue when they’re when CGI’s had to be rushed even really huge budget elms there’s still an issue with Bob character just that quickly happening wait anymore you have to in the maze so it’s just like sodomy that’s on an X. ray %HESITATION VS Morris I think income math facts the special effects are I think there’s so much more realistic and nonsense you know eight cabinet dissociated minus the C. GI visual effects because there’s no half still and so I can make an arrest is because it doesn’t feel like there’s any real jeopardy when there’s no limit to anything you know this makes sense but I don’t want N. trash talk the people in me because it’s not their fault thirteen to order what they send to let’s say it’s a nuanced conversation thank I used to be very very vocal and my dislike for C. GI having films are promos I guess you know fifteen years ago well whenever all right when I was kind of fool’s CG I wasn’t really advanced and off so didn’t actually use it sparingly it was reading the office %HESITATION I think it was the mummy I recall when this is like nineteen ninety nine will make their call the water and it was just so distracting Lee not radio and stuff like that we the greeted me because just use a tank it’s it’s going to cost you less money and will look like actual water but the way that the technology is going online it’s works a lot better I mean we were talking off the phone briefly and with John about ready player one which is all CG I and part of it because you’re in the computer world yeah the screen I mean owns on Saint Martin all along we talked to a free night awards and is again a very CG I haven’t well but you know the thoughts and the computer mouse hearts men’s bait I think that there’s still an awful lot of CG work that gets done the year doesn’t recognize SEG asshole I mean it’s quite disturbing when you when you see how much sometimes and they find this insurance is constructed in a and a computer one Hans the computer the stuff of the white Aryan scenes in the they bring into them because he’s a comic book movies I have a little bit more time for the because I realize you couldn’t create those spaces physically you need to give it a go one and certainly there’s going to be physical elements within new spaces I don’t know if you look at the the big war thing the bill for months Lauren okay I don’t know what I’m going to hold okay so what I did and this is it this is this all part of the Disney Lucas universe anyway so Marvel probably using the same stuff they basically have created this massive wraparound stage backgrounds that make it to the wall that was overrun this awful little pixels that projects the CG images in real time with the actors performing a problem and is almost seamless so the space is actually the screens will move and I’ll change lighting and stuff instantaneously the work with the cameras and you get a much more seamless experience simply actors as well what is meant is I mean like you McGregor famously on solid because he did the job because he was acting the blue screen the whole time there’s nothing there was night he’s just gone but we won and essentially you know we’re going back to the same stuff but the CD this time is standard it looks convincing and your city in it and the international space I mean I know myself a little bit of acting work they do to you if you stay in a room with the sap is being built for this enough there to kind of sell the illusion in a performance I am much more in a part of the performance and and what have you stick in a blank a blank room give me a black box and I’m kind of not not the black box the numbers are very welcome to hire me for but you can in a black box and it is harder to kind of immerse yourself as opposed to maybe call props and things look and I’ve been to and stuff like the department streets recently so you’re actually in the physical spaces and not really to sell stuff for you so when the CG I understand that it’s there for a reason and because of the aesthetics of comic books I can kind of accepted I felt like when I first went there whenever they go into the shop around something was black and white I thought that that kind of know why ask the statics vision effective and I mean it reminded me a little bit of Sin City %HESITATION yeah you know which which was deliberately echoing the comic but it’s based on but it has the feel of a comic you know when you look into because they are predominantly still black and white as snow every time you’ve got color comic so that that I thought works really well but also hides all the problems with CJ in the southern Roos shadows in the shadows so I really like that part I thought it was done really well and then you do you can’t these elements of color because it says now not the Hummer the lights G. and up a bit thanks my user and so that you can see her face light up and everything else stays and block my ears so I was really cover was really well done and yes it does hide a lot of you can hide things in the darkness and god you know so it’s at help in those parts that were still very CG I tastic on amino No Way Hey it’s a nice little introduction to some people who wouldn’t see a black and white film here it’s a nice way of just making it will open their absurdly I think again it speaks a lot to take these %HESITATION mentality in his his influences I mean for what was I suppose it’s it’s like the issue with the G. pitcher and home you can have a sketchy pictures always your story and your son is okay I can hear what’s going on in a concise and I go to store them in dance and I’ll I’ll overlook the fact that you’re using separate run thirty five miles or you know using the crime video camera folks on the news and you know the the list that cameras I had an issue with some of the sign in this film I couldn’t make out all the dialogue at times I don’t know if I just mean means that my ears need cleaning out I’m getting a maze I do have some of this or if it was about so I mix good evening where we were in the Senate on the sign you know it’s going to match the facts because not enough of the front speakers all these things can make a difference in terms of your your experience but whenever that’s happening I’m kind of struggling so the scene I I start coming out of the film a little bit about the dodgy C. GI I didn’t even know us there was enough there is enough of an emotional hearts for me to kind of just go on that and I was laughing and that the weird rock creature thing yeah I mean there’s a lot of humor for me works so it can go one that was something I did ready for member enjoying about Ragnarok and guardians of the galaxy TV they’re really funny %HESITATION riotous Lee funny and I appreciate it thanks because it’s retention I haven’t really seen a lot of the other stuff with low key and that can be better handled so if you know anything Loki and Ragnarok psychology brothers you know they’ve been these mortal enemies but neither just argue in an elevator and it’s really funny and so you know what their stuff like that and it constantly and it stops it was very Marvel universe stop taking itself so seriously I appreciate the thought you know and I think already into the galaxy some not really reality at several points in off each other and they’re all so funny with each other it’s what separates it from the DC stuff and the DC stuff really was a match for a long time %HESITATION I think the hope for DC is being actions taken aback and stopping something less like a kind of nasty marble and just relish in that kind of the greatness of your your simple stories with exception possible flash next year which are looking for all right other than that the tension that suit the C. hall and Michael Keaton coming back yeah that’s right that’s great yeah hello there is an issue now with the K. plan the flash and also its obligations right seen anything about any of that I will send you some links okay I actually was really quite keen to see parts of price I’m going to see that happen yeah and and it looks really fun so maybe that’s a say after moving toward something like Akane interaction yeah the interests in the Michael Keaton again has done his turn in the Marvel Marvel as well sure so that was a really nice surprise checks I have no way to state no patents into spider man %HESITATION any phones but just in the past year called off I mean the the current incumbent is a joy to watch her I did not expect to enjoy his films as much well I got a real buzz are them yeah and the last of the the spy movies because it’s fun service yeah thanks you know I’m all here for it HM eight so we’ve got you know it it did the things that tickle thing and but also I mean I I I do think that there’s been a huge part of the sort of things that come up during the pandemic we hog being much more nostalgic look back a lot we look for comfort and place the couple was not on the night it was in whatever we highlight ten fifteen twenty years ago so a lot of these movies that are doing these multi verses that are a lot of these franchises there being repaired it with some of the old incumbents I mean I think that that is also kind of fat into our own needs to we can access I mean I think we always have thought that it’s just it’s being read the reading office the last couple years share maybe a physical leverage points just my experience as well with the first spider man directed by Sam Raimi daca faxes by nine eleven nine they had to change the ending of the film as it was going to have all the Tarzan and me they were destroyed and then the maid of the world was very different certainly invaded the western world is very different after that and I eat do you feel like there was a huge shock and brings in talent television mini cross everything really but you know I have observed as well because I was very engine twenty four country terrorists drama thanks to god and even things like the axe files when it was still being made it got much darker than it ever been before and there was this turn and a lot of film and television production and stop spider man especially because of the setting because of the New York City siding they felt it so deeply and spider man being embraced by the city and thought city specifically failing I cant needed a hero and a way came right at the right time even though I was affected by it and I think you’re right I have always wondered if spider man is sought special one because those films were they did really well talks office they maybe didn’t work received huge you are critically but they were box office hits all three of them I have wondered if you know where the impervious to because of what it happens and I think people are spending PhD since stuff like this I don’t know but maybe somebody art therapy has investigated this property in there was better but I’ve been curious if I thought I said no I’m not gonna spider man the person was a cagey take their photographs must be my I call this giants %HESITATION spider man figure there was also some windows I have used the body still knocking around somewhere so I know that I am inherently biased because I love the I remember the TV series as a kid I don’t watch the cartoons and there were TV films as well that I remember watching and stop was part of my memory but also I think I was just at the right age when the Spiderman movies too much I was what will the person was ninety nine it was nice to his mom so I was trying to when I came out I was slightly older than Peter Parker is meant to be an artist and I think one reason systems connects it’s because it’s used a lot of the super heroes we see our old white privileged men up until very recently that the bomber is the ultimate white privilege not I am on white privilege mon lots and lots of money Peter Parker is working class yeah this is really what he’s learned because he actually has nothing yeah he’s intelligent but he’s a little bit bumbling there’s a girl really loves what he’s all about us and he is keen to go into the change yeah we will go through as we just entitles and that is something that I think that resonates and I think he’s gonna hearts that I mean he actually is a hard he’s a lawyer to show his emotions he’s not close off in the way that some of the others were he’s funny he’s Heller is when he’s played right he’s hilarious I I think that just make some slightly more lovable he he he’s the lovable rogue and marble been quite good at guessing capitalizing on this day they’ve got a bit more really someone’s with everything else but he’s a circuit that you kind of wanna keep you would like to bring your minutes when you get it what do you think you know what that was my kids or my nephew you hopefully get my Hogan I hang out with them and I think that may be wiped out works the nine eleven stuff yeah you’re right in terms of the was that moment and it was a fitting animals that kind of moment in the film and it felt like you know they’re making a statement my foot %HESITATION I mean I still remember that I’ve seen the trailer that they had to the birth date he catches a helicopter between the two cars a lab %HESITATION Mabel’s definitely an element of this box I don’t know I mean I think we always need a hero to combat this is this campus will Thomas are briefly it’s it’s the escape isn’t that some all person and when nine eleven happened I think it would make a big difference here in Northern Ireland where you know we kind of that’s the honest we’re used to people getting killed on a regular basis for no good reason and I remember thinking at the time it was horrible but I also felt kind of slightly normalize but we look for scapegoats when a person to take us away from this kind of fierceness processing here you have something that was it skip this that was also quite home grown threats which felt you know like the end of the film that sort of sits there on notice that game you know what ever since it’s it’s there or not Bob pasty so company keep calling for proper academic well we’ll have to find if anyone knows %HESITATION animals get tons hello %HESITATION and I live with he’s got offended about everything around well it’s been really good to talk about society because we don’t really get much response said to talk like that and it’s quite cool to see that work already on a PH with stuff not be necessarily entirely in the C. M. agreement but enough that we don’t kill each other that’s not why I think this is the same as this country though it didn’t feel like killing people I disagree with my parents generation I think that’s how you solve your absolutely it was just to show you know all those years by the university in Dyson’s pines that were spent casing Charlie wasted no we can have a tax and sign your over to it’s not we’ll call casting is four stars from me our box enjoy this I really enjoyed it and it was I think skate company to see if the kids have a good time to shut up and say and I think it was a wee bit scary first on because there was a bit where it was I thank you thank you know I made the jump scares me the milestone for the jump scare number last spoke to me is quite good if you know that the CFO with the audience’s version intended for what yeah and we’re not lives anymore and the dinosaur I think the thing that I can throw the records so I was just happy that you were bearable and the cinema because that’s my thoughts are always giving side isn’t right because the first time we’ve gone to see some of the cats are pretty sure has always said like what if this person doesn’t behave themselves well this is why you like I would never never minister first dates because like I you know I think that’s how you know other than that there was his second in an office the staff and all because we’ll be able to shop it’s people people talk will with your phone but it works but I did I thought of it sucked up in the atmosphere and it’s all because it’s just not right okay and then it’s also leaving behind this mission yeah exactly I think I I actually suspect they genuinely didn’t realize we were there for quite awhile and then the first time you run and it’s way then I think they really so there’s something and there are lots of the stuff that this call these Jurassic Park to then you haven’t seen it yet either no I’m dying to see them on the sale really last week before sending ships to dis or movies and I I I find it perfectly fine I mean it’s it’s it’s a retread of the first woman anyway all American for but it’s on it’s not scary even though there’s more dinosaurs more screen time but it didn’t offer me yeah not so much a thing it did enough for me to kind of maybe look at the stuff the stock together and how long all the suspects I mean this is the thing about probably talk about this before with you like friendships and stuff that if weather today the last few years differently and I’ve made a point this year can we connecting with people something virtually you know someone gets in person but it is quite nice is that need to get get a dime back well thank you Robert this is the most enjoyable pleasure what a great day that’s enough the T. make more nice memories and this shines a hospice yeah get back enough reason to think it’s a building sites in the all seeing in this party and this is true I mean look at its home %HESITATION and that that’s what we are hi guys for me being here once the strike was never mind was never a regular spot it was somewhere I went hostile this time I mean it’s all things that they don’t sing of arguing with John about it like I remember being a cage driving posterity in queues outside here with the four signs that freelancing who’s going to looking at these baselines always things slightly envious of people getting acute and I don’t care anymore yeah maybe a Film Festival some the only time I ever have to queue to get into a scream hello I’m also call upon the social to get older so I really don’t the people well this is the great just so happy that please how’s life because I’d be devastated if something really happened to it you know yeah since then so I’m part to me all my life thank you sharing this with me thank you for asking so here it was tell us where your expressionist %HESITATION huh okay so if if this was a relatively soon %HESITATION my extension is home the north’s going museum which is in Bangor castle Bangor Northern Ireland straight into training right this is daisy has actually started cinema seeking the seven look at my heart mmhm %HESITATION it’s opens on the twenty third of August and it will run through until the eighteenth of September okay okay system for just under a month but I will have her work to anywhere else that actually wants to do something with it excellent it hurts because he knows that I sent thank you again

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Audiovisual Cultures episode 77 – The Amabie Project with Johanna Leech automated transcript


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hello and welcome to audiovisual cultures with me paula blair i’m really super excited to be joined this time by artist johanna leech who is going to talk about the amabie project that she’s been working on and curating throughout the lock time period in 2020 and it’s hopefully going to culminate in an exhibition but it’s all online and you can see it on instagram so i’m going to let her explain more about it because she’ll explain that a lot more articulately than i can um huge huge thanks to our members over at patreon.com forward slash av cultures for all your really valued supports if you are interested in joining and there are three tiers of membership at the moment there’s to pay what you can which is one pound one dollar one year or whatever um and that’s that’s going to get you access a bit early to the new episodes that come out you’ll get to hear it a day before everybody else and then there are a couple of other memberships there’s a behind-the-scenes membership and a star supporter which will get your producer credit on any future stuff so do take a look through those if you’re able to help out and for other ways to support uh and just help out the podcast do listen right to the end and i’ll give you some other ways that don’t involve a membership um but do make sure you subscribe you hit that button just so that you never miss a new episode and i’ll help us out as well so this one was a lot of fun to record uh joanna is a it’s a very very good friend of mine and i’m really proud of all of her work it’s a really visual episode as well so if you’re listening to the audio only i have put the link to the video in the show notes and do make sure you go and see that um because um uh joanna actually shows us through quite a lot of the work that all of the artists involved have been creating and shows us through the instagram so if you’re able to see that i’d really highly recommend it so enjoy very much and i will see you on the other side

so i am super excited to be joined by my longest serving friend and artist joanna leach hello joanna hello how are we finding you today not too bad thanks just in limbo like the rest of us i think so trying to continue on at least try and do something productive excellent yes we’re gonna talk a bit about your productivity and what you’re keeping busy with and if it’s okay can i just ask you to explain to everybody a bit about your background i mean um i mean we first bonded over our mutual love of dinosaurs and i think that’s something that’s held us very close together all of these many very long years yes definitely and it’s in my artwork you know fascinating sinclair uh dinosaurs from the world’s fair absolutely um so would you kindly just talk us through a little bit of your own arts practice and then we’re going to talk about the really big project that you’ve been working on more recently sure so i’m a visual artist based in belfast and i also work as a program manager for a local cinema and arts center so sometimes a lot of those influences working quite um across lots of different art practices and arts fields and work can bleed into my practice a little bit um so instead of kind of having a sketchbook or kind of doing lots of drawings like every day like most artists would or quite frequently my thing was to collect objects collect stories and um making notes and taking photographs so you know like if you look at my iphone now there’s like 20 000 photographs that i’m kind of constantly referring back to so that that’s my sketchbook so it kind of gives you an idea of what kind of way i sort things in my head i’m also dyslexic so it just means that a lot of the time maybe written format isn’t as easy for me and the visual stands out really clearly because of that so it just means then i can have this amalgamation kind of like my work is almost like a little museum of its own you know you could have a look at my exhibition and there could be stuff that could be historical that i find something interesting there could be local lore and legend um or there could be just an experience or a place that i’ve been to so the working kind of become things where it’s maybe like more social practice where i’m maybe using the objects in a way to perform to an audience where like the object is shown in a way where it tells a story or it itself is quite humorous and you kind of look at it and it gives you a chuckle you know like i always like the work to be familiar to the audience and very much um kind of open for everyone to interpret um so my recent exhibition would have had things like a neon sign that said guns and gold and kind of like a really um particular lovely um neon golden color and that was a replica of one that i’d seen in america and just that ideas of those two words together um is it’s quite interesting and then i had wall drawings including wonderful dinosaur um and then i had stories about the dinosaurs that i’ve done work with and collected from all around the world so i had kind of display tables which had objects as well as stories all displayed together so it’s kind of it takes you on a journey and that’s kind of always say to people like i’m explore um showing you my discoveries essentially and then there was other things like photographs from kind of um attractions or places from around america so that that work kind of stands alone quite well just as a photography as a photograph um but um and then i’ll do sometimes just really kind of scale back drawings so it just it just really depends brilliant yeah and this has a really close connection with the current project that you’re working on so you’re curating this group of work of all kinds it’s it’s cross media and it’s artists working in all different modes and from different backgrounds and all sorts of things so um can you tell us a bit about the amma bay project please yeah so amabe is a japanese yukai and ukai is kind of like a mythical kind of magical creature within japanese mythology and this particular character would come out whenever there was sign of a pandemic or else maybe something to do with um crops and um different times where you know people would have worries about things they could look towards the emma bay for um some comfort so you know she’s a mermaid character and she kind of comes out of the sea and is very kind of mystical and i was just kind of really interested in that with the internet kind of in the era that we’re in now this character made a resurgence kind of through the start of the lockdown and it just meant that there was a lot of people kind of posting pictures of her or a lot of japanese people like taking a bit of solace you know to actually do a little drawing over or stick a little picture up of her in a window and with everything that was elsa it was happening throughout the internet and in the uk we kind of had all the kind of things so like help the nhs and the rainbow kind of became this icon of camaraderie and hope for a lot of people and that came from kids in america he just did it one time and you know then people started to kind of replicate that and it kind of spread like a virus but uh a very positive one and amabe was kind of doing a bit of that it was um kind of trading on kind of um if you kind of had like hashtag a mabe challenge and when i saw that i kind of thought oh you know but what i’m really interested in is i had been to japan last year and um i have connections through flex art studios where i’m based with a really cool art space called arts ongoing which is in tokyo and i kind of met those guys and i kind of always kind of thought oh you know what like what would i do if i went over and did a japanese residency so at this time where you know there’s pandemic i can’t go to japan as much as i would love to and looking at those connections and just i think the event manager in my head of kind of going what can i do you know i can’t go into the studio and you know it’s a really hard time to feel inspired how can i reach out and make that connection between that kind of sense of this viral connection but also bringing it back to artists practices but then looking at the connection between japan and belfast and especially because of flax art studio so they’ve been running for a number of years in exchange and one of the main artists who’s a really good friend of mine um shiro masayama um he is the only northern ireland artist based in japan and i was like me and him were like sharing each other like pictures of a mabe and being like oh you know we should get everyone in flax to make an imabe and then we’re like but why should i be kind of making that quite narrow so we owned it out because we wanted to share it with three artists arts ongoing and various other things like shearer would have a lot of connections um just you know to see if artists in general who are based in japan and uh the isle of ireland um or someone you know who’s still kind of connected to ireland are still connected to japan um what would they do and to kind of make it initially like an instagram that could become an exhibition so it was just to see like what would happen so i think it was something that kind of came up between me and sharon were like hey wouldn’t this be fun to do that and they kind of grew from there

and so um with the irish connection is there was there another mythical form from from irish mythology that you were looking at as well or was it just the mlp

well originally um i was talking to um close friend um martin boyle um and martin was kind of my sounding board and very thankfully and just about the right up and like how i was going to do the call-out and what he was interested in and what i kind of thought was it’d be nice to give people that option if they don’t want to do a mabe so whenever we did the call-out we kind of had it that it was if you could create a mythical creature to protect you what would it be and surprisingly a lot of people just did do your marble and that that’s cool too i mean she’s so beautiful and of course i did one of her but um i did like that idea of looking at art mythology and it just meant then if there was japanese artists who were like you know mommy’s quite a normal thing for them they could choose to do something different or an irish artist who feels very strongly with that now we didn’t get as many kind of ones that are quite irish-based we did also get one that was a beaver which i thought was really cool because um that person was just kind of had their own reason of thinking why he could be a quite an iconic character so it is it is mainly a mob but i think whenever we’re displaying that in the gallery you know it can maybe have a couple of different zones it was originally inspired by the irish connections of saint brigid and it was like the first of february and it was kind of the start of spring and how people would kind of um make woven um crosses that you would hang up on your door and there’s these kind of ceremonies called biddy boys and it was basically like you made like an effigy like this female character who sometimes was dressed in your grandmother’s clothes and again it’s this idea of bringing forth a good harvest and and hoping for the best which a mabe does as well and and i was just like when you look at the documentation of you’re like what’s so bizarre and then it brings in connections with mummers and the idea of going door-to-door connecting with your community and making these kind of woven hats and things they’d have on so there’s one of the pieces is me wearing a mummer’s hat and you know i think that could maybe be a bit of a project on its own and i think mabi kind of took over because i think a lot of artists were making work from home and it was probably a bit easier to do that so i definitely think that that could grow in a different way but there’s only maybe a few that are kind of included within that okay great it’s really fascinating and stuff so um so shall we should we take a look at some specific examples of this and the the really wide range of approaches that all of the artists took because you’ve got animators you’ve got people working in sculpture in different ways you’ve got people here illustrators and comic creators and all sorts of people so um shall we have a quick look at some of the examples sure we definitely had a you know a wide range of people but i think i’ll maybe just start off with the original image that is mainly known about a map so this is one that would have been like kind of in the local um news and kind of documented before so i’ll just share my screen here so you can see

um so you can see this here um which is just a really beautiful image and you can see kind of the three legs coming from the sea a beautiful man of hair and um i just thought this is a really good starting point because it’s it’s also that flexibility that people can can change her into anything that she wants to be so i’ve got the instagram here which is kind of the format of showing it visually online so we have um submission from different artists to despite 25 artists including two young people that have been included and i like that because you know it’s the fact that you’re in lockdown and your children are there so i really kind of like that one of the artists is like oh you know can i include my child’s one or you know someone was actually collaborating with her niece which was really nice so um as you can see this is just a really quick thing and this is just you know like uh shiro playing around with a new app that he’s brought together but it just it just worked so well and it’s that kind of again embracing the kind of online kind of quality of that so just for the audio can we just describe what was happening there sorry um

okay so with shiro’s um video he’s using this app and um can i turn the music on or would that i think yeah you should let’s try

so um he’s just made a little drawing of an amabe which kind of pops up in this app and then it kind of comes and scuttles around the floor so it kind of like moves around on the table which is just really sweet and then um we had some more stuff that was a bit more obscure so this one here i really like because there’s kind of a description here this is by chris watt and he kind of just looks at this idea of um stories of contorted human forms or similar kind of rock faces and the natural forces and the ancient humans and bones and you know um that one there i just thought was just really nice and quite unique um some quite a skeletal image that we’re seeing and um so it says he came up with a concept for the painting after visiting melon head on the very north coast of ireland so um yeah so there’s just this skeletal form that’s it’s almost like it’s embedded in the rocks it’s against the rock faces in a bit of a kind of fetal position yeah there’s a triangle protrading from an eye that kind of an obscure kind of um things in the foreground and kind of makes it quite dream like um really kind of bright neon colors and along with this really kind of strong blue blue and white for the skeleton’s body itself which is really nice um i will just see i could go on and talk about every single one let’s just have we scroll so you can see just like some of them against each other so um this is another japanese artist um which is absolutely gorgeous um sitting on buildings on fire almost yeah so emily um she’s actually just studying um at the moment and she’s studying in london but she’s japanese and she had a couple of versions there’s a couple of versions of this one um this is a collaboration with grace mcmurray and her uh five-year-old niece oh the embroidery little embroidery which kind of has a mermaid she’s got wings um and just like a couple of sequences i like as well it’s like just you know like weak cuts of purple and and blue so paula thought you’d enjoy a bit of embroidery so just really simple one um clinton patrick and again his one is more that kind of unseen unknown character because when you talk about the japanese uk sometimes they’re literally an inanimate object sometimes they can look almost human and sometimes it can be quite bizarre so i like that his was much more free in the way that was represented here we have an artist who bid on ebay for um something that was supposed to be made from a mabby’s hair right it was a brush on the internet so his kind of piece is um and he ordered it here it is in his home and he had done a residency in flax recently so he was over in belfast so it was just really nice to kind of have people’s work so um that was that one in particular was cool like you said about graphic artists yeah i have some graphic artists in here so we’ve got vanilla doran and we have um grace farley and then i think there was and molly henry in particular this kind of one too hmm as you can see you know there’s a real mixture of things um tomohiro tomahiro to also been to flax on a residency t and it’s weird because now that i’ve been in japan i’ve seen these kind of you know this is just outside a shop somewhere but i just love as well that it’s got it’s got the mask on so this is kind of like an everyday image someone who could have stumbled across this kind of um amazing kind of sculpture and then it being put with like there’s a kind of scroll to my bed it almost looks spry painted but obviously done on photoshop or something beside it so it just supposed in the tools i think is is really interesting definitely love these little guys with their masks so it is a real mixture of things so sometimes people made things in their homes some of them have done ink drawings or used like found objects like davies here um using hair um this is the image that i had mentioned before myself the kind of bummer hat on um so there’s kind of two in the series and i had actually taken these quite a while ago back in the america or back in the folk park i think it’s the one in belfast yeah so um is that the ulster folk and john smart museum yeah no one’s else’s [ __ ] transport museum so you can go there and there are often weavers i’ll kind of show you that and then if you want to look up mummers there is um different mummers groups from around think the main ones are in antrim and they still perform wedding ceremonies and do different things when i worked for um belfast photo festival a few years ago as a director we actually had an exhibition um by jim mcginn he actually went around and documented mummers over the years and looked at folklore but also looked at the traditional music he was very interested in traditional music so he has a lot of work that’s to do with those so i think that probably had placed it in my head originally um just looking at that um and then one little miniature performance um

this is just done over zoom oh actually we do have sign for this one let’s let’s try it again

so this and another worker kind of a gif so um what you have here is um she need brennan casuals doing a live performance on zoom to me and she has put in the background um like there’s a big kind of um mummified fish in the ulster museum so it’s in the background and you’ve got the ulster museum itself so she’s put on kind of like a sequined top um a nice long wig and has like a duck bake so she’s kind of wiggling around kind of as if she’s looking at herself you know um which i think is really sweet it’s kind of like just reminds me of the internet it’s like a weird kind of tick tock but an artistic tick tock or something um just really simple um which is nice so um and then we have some ceramic pieces like chris’s um here and then the more irish one um jim rick’s was one of the first ones but this was the kind of ones i was hoping for this kind of amalgamation of irishness as well and so he’s kind of muggy mutant various um kind of characters um and jim ricks is a he’s an irish um oh forgotten the name

he lives in america but he’s an irish i wrote this down didn’t i yeah he’s an irish conceptual artist so um yeah so that’s kind of examples i haven’t got all of the work up and the last one i’ll show you is my piece apart from so i have the irish piece which is the two photographs together and then this one is a drawing that i made and it was just that kind of like cathartic drawing and because i i like tracing things and drawing them over and over again and getting them really simplified but then whenever it’s locked down and you have to like stick it to your window it’s like coming through you know trying to draw it i kind of like that lockdown process i had because then you’ll have people here who yeah maybe you can’t go out and and make things i was surprised we did get as many ceramic things as possible so some of the artists might have changed to video pieces and we also have fantastic one um by amy mcgee and she has and i’m going to use it as the opening piece for when you go into the exhibition and it’s a video piece and she’s made puppets and she tells you dma by story and it’s just absolutely stunning wow really nice so i’ll hope by the date where we do hopefully show it i will have all of them online at the moment that’s just most of them and we also have um this have a video of how to make your own amabe by a japanese artist azuri um and that it’s about 15 minutes long so we have to just kind of uh link over to that and so he makes a little paper and a where the little bake is kind of in the paper and you can make her talk say whatever you like okay so you can see like it’s already such a wide range of work and there’s still more to come yes so you mentioned um a hopeful exhibition as do you have any more detail on that at the moment or um what do you know what can you tell us sure so um pollen studios uh based in belfast um had offered to do the exhibition with us so and um quite a few of the pollen artists all submitted as well so um they’ve been really tight knit with us on the project and with current lockdown methods there are some galleries are currently open at the moment but maybe some of the larger um organizations like the mac and the golden thread gallery and for pollen then um people will probably do it by appointment we’ll have an opening hopefully november 5th which is usually like a late night art where people come out um and we have we’ll have all the safety measures in place and you can basically book like an appointment to come along so i’ll probably put you know some weekend dates in and an evening each week that people can come along throughout november fingers crossed and um if it does get put back because naturally that’s what’s happening at the moment you know it’s kind of part of the project yeah in a way because the project was made during lockdown and it means that if you have to book in for an appointment see it it’s almost becoming a performance you know you’re becoming part of the exhibition by able by being able to come along and of course then with people who especially aren’t able to uh for health and safety purposes and things come out i will have the instagram up and i’ll maybe kind of do a bit more of like um an exhibition online and kind of look at that just for kind of access to make sure and especially for the japanese artists as well that they can kind of see all the work together and for my previous shows i always kind of shoot a video where i can talk through things and just means then that people who can come can still feel connected to it and um do you think you’ll have a lot of the physical works there or will it be you know because there’s quite a lot of sculpture for example um so would it be photographs of those or will the actual workspace and do you think to show so i’ve contacted each of the artists and kind of just had a chat with them and as well like i’m kind of self-funding this and i don’t have any funding for it but obviously i’ve been supported by the arts council for years so i don’t mind you know contributing some especially my own time but also some resources so i have a small budget for kind of contempo temporary prints um for some things and then a lot of the local artists i’m able to kind of go and collect the work but i just kind of ask the artist you know what way they want it shown because some of the video works obviously will go on screens and which particular one the beaver that i mentioned um which is lovely um it’s a gif and i think it would look really nice on on a tablet or on a phone so it’s kind of displayed in the way it was meant to be viewed but yes especially as japanese artists obviously i give them the opportunity if they want to post it they can post it over and i’ll return it but you know we don’t have unfortunately enough budget to kind of get that over um but we’ll be able to reprint some of those so especially like a zoo um which isn’t a zoo and the work that had the um amabe hair object don’t want to lose that on getting it posted over so um i think a print of the two beside each other so like the internet um image of it being sold and then the image of it in the house i think together would look really nice so um actually we will have quite a lot of the artists um are up for having the drawings or the ceramics physically there and then the rest of the stuff then we’ll kind of print um maybe in like a temporary manner or i thought about have mine displayed on the window because i’ve i do often have window drawings so i think it would work really well as a window drawing as well so you know the work will change a bit in the space too

and then i suppose you it must be a factor now you have to figure out how many people you can have in a space and how far apart your things you know that sort of stuff has to maybe be considered now as well in poland’s not a huge space so that’s quite complicated yeah i think it’s kind of um well then again in the millennium court art center that i went to recently it was like one bubble per half an hour so and then it would be frequent cleaning and things like that but because i’m coming from a venue i’m already used to doing that currently for my job and work so i’m very aware of all the exciting terms and conditions and health and safety policies um all over that so i can make it as safe as possible okay well fingers crossed that can go ahead but as you say even if it’s delayed it just adds more time and possibly more overlooking from the email base to help us out hopefully i know come on guys

um that’s brilliant joanna thank you so much for that um do you is um

before i ask anything else um shall we because we had those links of scream but just for the audio and do you want to point people just towards where to see these sure at the moment no worries so to find out more about the exhibition so it’s joannaleach.com and that’s spelt

j-o-h-a-n-n-a-l-e-e-c-h and then um you can do forward slice forward slash amabe so a m a b i e and on instagram it’s a mabe underscore project and that shows you all of the stuff that we’ve came in so between the two of those we’ll kind of have all the details we hope that we’ll create a facebook invitation page soon enough so otherwise um if you follow pollen art studios on facebook and they will then have that online i also have a facebook artist like page so if you just search for my name that i spelt earlier on um you’d be able to just kind of like my page and then those updates for things like the events and stuff will come up as well um i suppose just on this i mean how do you feel about exhibitions going online more and more because i’m personally loving it because it means i can see stuff in belfast and i’m stuck here in newcastle so um but how are you personally finding that and feeling about that as an artist i think it’s good and my previous um solo exhibition that i mentioned before um it was in millennium court arts center and it’s only you know about 40 minutes from belfast i think 40 minutes to half an hour away from belfast city center but there’s so many people who can’t drive um you’re artists mainly um i you know i didn’t learn how to drive until i was 30. so there’s just kind of there’s a lot of people here although it’s not that far away and on our transport system isn’t great that actually i realized even when i was doing an exhibition that was just outside of belfast um i did a recorded walk around of my exhibition which was called wanderlust and fantastic oddities so if anyone wants to look up you know what the work that i kind of described that showed a lot of my work was kind of like a little survey of everything i’ve done so far they can look it up online and there is like i have like a ton of photographs really good documentation and then just a little walk around with me with video and then that’s great because i can share that to people and i have artists that i work with in the states and you know even then all the people who are in belfast that just couldn’t get so there are you know three other reasons can have access to it and i think you know i discovered that before lockdown how important that was and i think it continues to be very important because there’s also even times where i maybe go to an art exhibition opening and you’re too busy kind of chanting whoever’s with you having a glass of wine and it’s quite busy and then you’re kind of like oh you know i’ll go back and then i’ll sit with the work or i’ll look at it for longer and sometimes you just don’t get that opportunity so i think the more that arts and things can go online i think it’s great but it doesn’t take away from that actual experience because a few weeks ago i mean i’ve been self isolating um quite a lot and working from home and um i just decided that when the mac reopened i went to see the exhibition at the mac and again you booked into a certain slot and it’s a huge space so you know it’s it’s a bit safer than maybe going to a small kind of gallery space and i also went to the golden thread to see their show um on the same trip and it just is like there’s no way like that buzz and feeling of going to a gallery you know it’s not as if you know all virtual stuff is going to make it worse or people won’t go out to galleries if they can look at it online that you never nothing can change that idea of just the silence of the space the concentration on an artwork the experience of the artwork being out of your house just you know you can’t you can’t it was just such an amazing experience it almost felt like i was going to a church and it was my religious experience like that’s that’s what it felt like for me was getting back into gallery and just gave my heart that little extra beat that i needed that’s you know like i think seeing art um in person will never be diminished essentially what i think yeah now that’s good to hear or is that very romantic romanticized yeah no it’s no it sounds good i totally understand you mean i imagine i’ll feel the same when i feel able to go to a gallery again um but for now it’s just not really for me and um but yes i i know the space as well that you’re talking about so i can just imagine it and it would be a bit i can imagine it would be a bit safer because they are really big rooms that you’re in um but also it must be nice to have peace in them because they’re only letting so many people in at the one time so that must be quite a nice element of it as well you feel like you have maybe a more intimate experience possibly yeah and i hope that’s what maybe the mabae project would be like because then if there’s people like you both of us are saying you know we don’t want to be you know gallivanting around with um everything that’s happening in the world right now whereas if i knew that it was just myself and my bubble going to a place for a specific time we know people have claimed it and you go in see the art and go away and like you said and have that piece to experience and for as long as you want um i think it’s really nice and um if it’s okay and you did mentioned about working at the strand art cinema as well so you’re used to that is it okay if i just ask you quickly about how that’s going and sure you know the cinema experience because that’s quite similar it’s another sacred art space that we need to protect and um how is that experience are you finding of working at a cinema but also people coming to that cinema again

like i think from i kind of had to make it kind of you know oh welcome back to the strand covert video um just to put out on social media just so people knew the experience and i mean like as far as any kind of covered procedures and things like we have every every box ticked and more you know we’ve changed our screen in times where it is and people coming in and out of the building and there’s um like special cleaning that we have like a fogger machine that antibacterializes the seats and everything never mind then you know just having cleaning stations and cleaning more so we we have that all kind of ticked so i actually have been to a few screenings while two screenings since lockdown because i know the strand is as clean as it can be and also we’re a small cinema and we’re in a rural space we’re not the city center so we’re never super busy anyway and then with we’re not particularly busy but it just means that you can book exactly where you’re sitting you’re socially distanced and so i was able to i went and saw tannen and um the other event i went to was a global film screening um which we’re doing at the moment and it was with green book and then we kind of had a discussion on kind of black lives matters and um different things like that so if yeah just give me that buzz because you know we’re kind of you know a vintage cinema um designed in 1935 so that kind of encompassing kind of red curtain feel and you’re sitting in half back seats and the experience is just so lovely and just being immersed in the film because i just thought no matter how many times i’ve watched inception um boogers for nolan i’ve forgotten half the time what happens in it and it’s because i just kept on watching it at home a few times or maybe had a glass of wine can’t remember the ending very well so it meant that with tenant i had that full attention span i went in no one not it it’s christopher nolan and you know there’s gonna be questionable things about it too but it’s gonna be an amazing cinematic experience so i did feel like i kind of said there maybe it’s because of my previously religious background but that kind of i’m that ultimate buzz of being like in your synagogue you know it’s like you know the room itself and the space and and just being spread out and and the feeling of being feeling safe because um people around you are further enough away and you just get to switch off and fully enjoy a film and i notice so many more things in green book than i did watching it at home because i missed it and the first kind of cinema release there was a few times with things i was like oh oh that’s not and i was like doing the talk afterwards like i was like i was noticing things more and i’m supposed to know more about the film so yeah i disagree if you’d like you know the experience of being innocent is never going to take away from watching those you know films on on netflix and whatever yes it is great that those um platforms are there so in the global film screenings i’ve made it that you can go on to the strands website and you can read like a resource about your green book so it has the recording of us doing the talk it also tells you that you can watch green book on amazon prime so i’ve kind of make packages afterwards and make it accessible to people who can’t go so they can still feel like they’re part of it so they can watch green book from the link and then um obviously they would need to you know pay for that or have amazon prime but then i would recommend and give links to the films that we mentioned in the talks because you always forget when you’re listening to something like that brilliant so i have resources of different films that are good to watch like moonlight um and then i have a connection with belfast which talks about frederick douglass who um you know would have been one of kind of the main people to kind of abolish slavery and he had been the belfast and that connection i had read an article about it in 2012 so i was able to like place that too so we’re in the strand we go beyond film sometimes and with special events then i can still bring in an online audience or i just give people that chance to go what was that film she was watching and then i can tell them about the original grain book and how it really was for americans um and you know recommended documentaries and stuff so um i think you should get get out there and support your local spaces if we can all stay open you know they’re closed in the south at the moment so um it’s good to support those spaces but uh not you’ll never get over that kind of cinema experience or um my partner was telling me oh we were talking about vr and he said you know you can get vr which makes you be in a cinema and then it projects your netflix film oh yeah but you have to wear a really heavy headset and you can’t it’s the smell of it too it’s other sensory things it’s the way the light is it’s the way the sound kind of almost hugs you because it’s um soundproofed and it’s all of those things you know it’s when the lights go down it’s like oh you know give a ticket you know he had all those things like um like i think uh there’s uh i was gonna say um mark cousins always talks about the romanticism the cinema but in the way he kind of describes it you know um like on how he he likes it i think he’d say like sitting in the front seat is it in a front row i like sitting in the front i like just ignoring if there’s other people i like feeling like i’m there by myself and it’s just for me with the big screen exactly well if people go to this round you might be um very small amount of people there and it will fill it likes your own screen if i could get your feedback probably exactly but the feedback you know from customers when i did that covered video and i got a couple of voxpos was one of them was like a guy who was a film student and um he was just desperately back he’s like i’ve been three times this week it’s like oh it’s so lovely and then you know it’s weird because the family audiences haven’t really came back so i think families have got so used to being in lockdown and getting to schedules i think you know i’m hoping there’ll be a time where those guys are able to come back and enjoy themselves and that bit of you know your parent as well okay you might be watching a kid’s film but you know your kids are going to be quiet hopefully beside you for an hour and a half enjoy it you know take the time for yourself to watch a movie and and enjoy it yeah it’s just worrying with so many outbreaks and skills at the moment so it’s very worrying to take children anywhere i think at the moment that’s one of the things but yeah we just have to find a way to help cinemas survive i think if we can yeah um and i think well the strand is spoiled because we’re supported because we are a charitable organization we’re supported by the arts council so loyalty burned

well just compared to maybe some of the other independents um who you know like my wage is funded by the arts council because i’m doing all this outreach and whenever it was locked down i was doing online videos and events and supporting artists and pain artists so we can kind of do that and we’re a bit luckier than some of the other spaces that might just be going on on solely the income they got in the door

right um is there anything else you would like to say put out there or anything before we go well no i think we’ve already talked about it so i had mentioned my website so if people want to see my work because they can save the exhibition at millennium court which kind of encompasses all of that and yeah keep an eye out for the amabe stuff you can get um most of a sneak break you get on the instagram at the moment there is most of the work there and so yeah so um just thanks so much paula for having me on the chat it’s been really good brilliant yeah no thank you for doing it it’s brilliant i’ve been following the project with interest and it’s such a lovely idea because it is just that idea of care and something looking after you but also a collection of people who are all spread out they’re all dispersed coming together to work on something like this it’s a really beautiful things it’s a lovely thing to be able to highlight and put out there really so thank you very much for showing us so much of the work it’s wonderful no problem

this has been a cosy pea pod production with me paula blair and my very special guest johanna leech the music is common grounds by airton license under a 3.0 non-commercial attribution and is available from ccmixter.org episodes release every other wednesday and you can get those anywhere that you find podcasts but also you can subscribe to my own personal youtube channel if you find pea blare you can see the full recordings now that we’ve been doing the video versions as well do please share and subscribe to help other people find the show be part of the conversation with av cultures pod on instagram and iv cultures on twitter and facebook we’re always happy to hear from potential guests so if you’ve got an idea for a show or something that you’re working on that you’d really love the world my tiny bit of the world to hear about then please do get in touch i’d really love to hear from you and if i’ve invited you and i haven’t heard back from yet i’ve got an open door policy so there’s it’s never too late and um everybody’s really busy and stressed so don’t worry about it um i’m always also happy to have suggestions from listeners about topics that you something that you think you’d like to hear us try to cover i do try to make those and i do keep a list um there are loads of suggestions that have been in the past i haven’t got to yet just because i haven’t been able to access this stuff and that is partly where your support comes in so even if you want to send us a dvd or access to something that you’d like us to see that would be really helpful so i do wear all the hats in the making of this program and um so if you could support my work and you there are the memberships and patreon as described earlier on but you can also drop me a fiver at buy me a coffee dot com forward slash p e a blair or you can give any amount so like a pound or something if that’s all you want to give at paypal dot me forward slash p e a blair and just anything at all really really helps so huge thanks for joining us i hope you really enjoyed this i loved making this episode keep well stay safe and as ever be excellent to each other and i will catch you next time