Bird's Eye View

Grammy winners and Royal Academicians: an ordinary Day 4 of BEV2011

Grammy winner Imogen Heap at Southbank Centre

As we geared up for the one we’d all been waiting for last night, we realised there was also a hell of a lot else going on too! While Grammy Award-wininng superstar Imogen Heap blew the roof off Southbank Centre, we were honoured by the presence of Turner Prize-winner and Royal Academician Gillian Wearing for her first feature film Self Made ; and acclaimed contemporary folksters Blue Roses knocked our socks off with a new live score to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. My, what company we keep!

At the ICA, the guest list for Gillian Wearing’s startlingly original modern art-cum-cinema debut, Self Made included Independent film critic Jonathan Romney, several of the film’s participants and leading Method acting coach Sam Rumbelow, seen on screen putting the participants through their paces. In a fascinating panel discussion, Wearing commented that her word on Self Made was: ‘Similar to the first Big Brother, which was very good – both create structures that have elements of reality and fiction’.

Gillian Wearing

Over at Southbank Centre, a rather different crowd gathered as Imogen Heap was on top form for our Sound & Silents event. Support for the night came from Micachu, Seaming and Tara Busch in a cornucopia of musical delights. The concert was preceded by the launch of the PRS Foundation’s new Women Make Music grant scheme, inspired in part by Birds Eye View’s Sound & Silents project and our Women Make Music panel at King’s Place last year.

Talking about her composition – a score for surrealist classic The Seashell and the Clergyman – Imogen admitted she originally thought the task would be an easy one, but soon found it a much greater challenge. After long nights searching for inspiration, she eventually found inspiration through gazing at a picture of the handsome 30 year-old Antonin Artaud, who scripted the film in 1928. The result was an extraordinary and haunting choral work performed with the Holst Singers and London Contemporary Orchestra principal conductor Hugh Brunt, making for a spellbinding conclusion to the night.

After this euphoric high, it’s back to the grindstone today as we kick off an intensive weekend of Training and Innovation events for filmmakers, followed by the promise of a second (or third) wind as we get our groove on for tonight’s sure-to-be-legendary Festival Party at the ICA.