...Or, how to make brilliant use of empty, desolate spaces.
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So. For a little over a week I’ve been involved with Secret Cinema as a volunteer, helping to transform...a space…into the set for…the film (I signed a non-disclosure agreement). On my first day I was helping the site team which meant guarding a construction site barrier. As boring as this sounds, sitting in one place meant I got to speak to the people doing far more interesting things and watch what was going on. I’m the sort of person who loves the technical rehearsal for a show where others hate it, because I get to see the mechanisms behind the façade. There’s a great sense of honesty about it. My favourite part of that day was watching the set from the actual film we’re showing being unloaded from a lorry. It looked so fragile, so basic, nothing like what you see on screen.
“It’s all smoke and mirrors, all smoke and mirrors.” said Adam, a member of the site team. He told us a story about a film he worked on where while they were shooting a scene, he had to hold up a piece of set to keep it in place. When he watched the film with a group of friends he pointed to where he was lying down, just out of shot.
The set for Secret Cinema was prized from its cardboard boxes and laid out in a loading bay. Some people said, “Oh, it’s all made from MDF? I thought they’d use, you know, steel or something.” The project manager, who is incidentally renting a room in my flat, smiled at how much money he was saving the company. A pot of paint and clever lighting can make any material look how you want it to. I helped out the art department one day and our first job was clearing out a space of all the materials we didn’t need. One of the artists pulled out a sheet of wood with an acrylic effect on the facing side and said, “No. We’re not getting rid of this piece, I like it too much.” To the average pedestrian passing by the skip, this was just a sheet of wood. But I felt that he was prepared to defend it with his life. Because, it is the lack of obvious significance of these pieces is what is so raw and honest about them. It is up to the artists to harness that and make it into something spectacular.
There’s another old, empty building opposite the one we’re using. I have passed by this building every day that I've lived in Camden, thinking how beautiful it is, and asking why is it boarded up with ‘no entry’ signs and hazard warnings. It’s gothic looking, like something from a Charles Dickens novel, with an overgrown garden round the back and the eeriness of broken windows. Another installation artist working at Secret Cinema had noticed this building too: she wants to turn it into a haunted house, and that’s what got me thinking. for a while now I’ve been looking at boarded up buildings and wondering, what will become of them? We don’t need another supermarket, coffee chain or block of flats. How can it be made into something worthwhile? I’ll admit, I never even considered turning it into art.
I read an article in Time Out recently about a pop-up art group, Theatre Delicatessen. Not only do they make great use of these spaces brimming with potential but left to ruin, blanching the face of a city’s high street, but they utilise the space to put on theatre and therefore, turn that space into money.
In economic terms, apparently this is the worst recession we’ve ever had. In the last recession people turned to theatre and entertainment to brighten their spirits because it was a worthwhile expense for the little money they had. This, pop-up theatre, is even better: the Arts can take over the spaces rendered derelict by a company under administration and turn it into something that can be enjoyed by everyone for quite a small amount of money. You can go to your production of The Lion King and pay £60 for a ticket as well as £1 per ticket for a restoration levy. Alternatively, you can spend £10 on one of these productions knowing that all of your money is contributing to the renovation the company has given to the space. In this and in Fringe theatre, you will see the honest, aching underbelly of what art can really achieve and that is not to say that commercial theatre doesn't, there's just something quite charming about a set built out of a skip.
(I can now reveal that the film was Prometheus, the set was from Pinewood Studios and the venue was on Hampstead Road, London.)
The set for Secret Cinema was prized from its cardboard boxes and laid out in a loading bay. Some people said, “Oh, it’s all made from MDF? I thought they’d use, you know, steel or something.” The project manager, who is incidentally renting a room in my flat, smiled at how much money he was saving the company. A pot of paint and clever lighting can make any material look how you want it to. I helped out the art department one day and our first job was clearing out a space of all the materials we didn’t need. One of the artists pulled out a sheet of wood with an acrylic effect on the facing side and said, “No. We’re not getting rid of this piece, I like it too much.” To the average pedestrian passing by the skip, this was just a sheet of wood. But I felt that he was prepared to defend it with his life. Because, it is the lack of obvious significance of these pieces is what is so raw and honest about them. It is up to the artists to harness that and make it into something spectacular.
There’s another old, empty building opposite the one we’re using. I have passed by this building every day that I've lived in Camden, thinking how beautiful it is, and asking why is it boarded up with ‘no entry’ signs and hazard warnings. It’s gothic looking, like something from a Charles Dickens novel, with an overgrown garden round the back and the eeriness of broken windows. Another installation artist working at Secret Cinema had noticed this building too: she wants to turn it into a haunted house, and that’s what got me thinking. for a while now I’ve been looking at boarded up buildings and wondering, what will become of them? We don’t need another supermarket, coffee chain or block of flats. How can it be made into something worthwhile? I’ll admit, I never even considered turning it into art.
I read an article in Time Out recently about a pop-up art group, Theatre Delicatessen. Not only do they make great use of these spaces brimming with potential but left to ruin, blanching the face of a city’s high street, but they utilise the space to put on theatre and therefore, turn that space into money.
In economic terms, apparently this is the worst recession we’ve ever had. In the last recession people turned to theatre and entertainment to brighten their spirits because it was a worthwhile expense for the little money they had. This, pop-up theatre, is even better: the Arts can take over the spaces rendered derelict by a company under administration and turn it into something that can be enjoyed by everyone for quite a small amount of money. You can go to your production of The Lion King and pay £60 for a ticket as well as £1 per ticket for a restoration levy. Alternatively, you can spend £10 on one of these productions knowing that all of your money is contributing to the renovation the company has given to the space. In this and in Fringe theatre, you will see the honest, aching underbelly of what art can really achieve and that is not to say that commercial theatre doesn't, there's just something quite charming about a set built out of a skip.
(I can now reveal that the film was Prometheus, the set was from Pinewood Studios and the venue was on Hampstead Road, London.)
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