Pearlville in Progress - photos - Andrew Bracey

We are home now listening to a karaoke sounding rendition of a Rolling Stones classic emitting sporadically from the local pub. The lifestyle here is very different from that at Islington Mill and to some extent Miss Dover and I miss it. At our talk in the Cornerhouse Annex Mr Moisander and I were asked about our feelings about the Mill, we paused. This is not to say we had a bad time, we did not. We had a fabulous intense time and were looked after impeccably and generously by our hosts: Mr Carlin, Mr Campbell, Mr Bracey, latterly Mr Griffiths and also Miss Perks, Mr Harold, Miss Chan, Miss Leech and the other members of the team at Cornerhouse. But we did create for ourselves a sort of living hell. Here and now after a long sleep and a hot bath I am almost at last relaxed and beginning to pick up the strands of other projects and the loose ends that will need to be tied up before Pearlville can be unveiled.

Going through my photographs I have realised that I missed out many things in previous reports. I shall catch up with these details over the next few days.

This image of Mr Bracey's studio at Suite doesn't quite pick out a series of cutout images from saleroom catalogues. Throughout the two weeks he would always be just coming from, or just going to attend to these intricate images.

I laid out my clothes for the day this morning. It was a complicated choice because they would have to last me until my In Conversation this evening. I opted for grey tweed trousers, black socks and a light blue Seersucker short sleeved shirt. An outfit I deemed both comfortable and smart. Seeing the clothes laid out reminded me that I had returned two nights ago to my room to find Miss Dover sitting up in bed wearing the very same shirt. She had said she was cold. I put it on and noticed a red tomato stain down the front. It seems Miss Dover had been hungry too.




I am now waiting in a little cafe waiting for Mr Bracey. We are to visit the Chinese Arts Centre before heading to the Cornerhouse.

I am reading two books at the moment. I should be preparing for tomorrow's talk at the Cornerhouse where I have to do a presentation. It is only 20 minutes (the presentation) so I have been frantically cutting down my usual talk. Anyway the two books are: "The Lost World of Cliff Twemlow" and "Live and Let Die" Actually I have stopped reading the latter due to the embarrassment caused when reading it in alone in a Manchester restaurant. It was racially more than a little dubious to begin with, but when I turned the page to a new chapter entitled "Nigger Heaven" I felt as if a neon sign had lit above my head. My ensuing panic as the waitress appeared to take my dessert order caused my already wobbly table to buck spilling at least 50ps worth of my Martini. Hopefully Twemlow's lost world will prove to be safer.

The editing is more or less complete with 18 films on my hard drive. My thoughts have now turned to how the work will be shown. The plans so far are that a room will be built on the second floor of The Cornerhouse. That a Neon sign declaring "PEARLVILLE" will be placed flickering outside the room. That the room will be filled with old television sets and supporting furniture and that all the films will be played at once each vying with the other for attention. All I need is a room, a sign, television sets, dvd players and furniture.

As is usual I completely forgot to take production stills while making Pearlville (largely due to boyish excitement) So this afternoon I was forced to make a series of faked publicity images (some are below). As is usual with these things they show shots I would have liked in the actual films but somehow they never appeared.

Yesterday started badly and ended mediocrely. The middle went well. I was full of excitement because my Helium arrived early transported in an unmarked silver van by a man who would not have looked out of place in GBH (the Twemlow straight to video spectacular). It was not long before I had a camera floating on a large balloon and was making plans to allow it to float gently around the mill. I set it on the spiral staircase and turned back to check reception. All was well it had accosted a young lady on the next floor and was drifting slowly downwards.



Then without warning the balloon gathered speed. Twisting violently in the grips of an unseen force it headed towards the light and the signal was lost. Dropping the receiver I ran down the stairs but it was gone floating across Salford. I gathered Mr Bracey, Mr Griffiths (returned from a yurt in wales) and Miss Dover for a search. But the only evidence we could find was the following image posted later on Twitter.


Later filming went better. Though more than once I had to dive to stop my backup camera following its predecessor. There follow a few images from the so far unedited footage.




The day ended with a little light entertainment at The Cornerhouse. Miss Dover and I managed to acquire complementary tickets for Gainsbourg mainly by mentioning names at random until the vendor recognised one and was hypnotised into handing them over. Giant puppets apart, it was a drab monotonous film in which the protagonist certainly had a lot more fun than the audience.

Miss Dover and I decided to take a day away from the Mill today and visit my parents who live nearby. My washing had reached critical state and we were looking forward to a belated Sunday lunch promised on our last meeting. Film production has ground to a halt as I am awaiting for a delivery of helium gas and potassium ferricyanide. It should arrive tomorrow. We had an enormous roast lunch and a good deal of white wine and gin and tonic. There must be a study somewhere on increased alcohol consumption in artists in residence. It seems to be on a par with UN operatives in war zones. After lunch we returned to the Cornerhouse for a meeting with Dr Andrew Willis Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford, expert in the films of Cliff Twemlow, and Sarah Perks who will be leading the 'In Conversation' on Thursday. I managed to escape with only one beer drunk as I thought I might need my wits about me later. I had promised to help Mr Moisander extract HD video files from my camera, not a simple task.