Totemic

Whilst the wider world ruminates on the cultural significance of moving BBC3 online, do not underestimate the impact within upper floors of Broadcasting House of the news that Front Row, on Radio 4, and uber-critic and presenter Mark Lawson are parting company, after sixteen years.

Mark's presenting duties on the BBC go further back, to the Yentob-commissioned Late Show on BBC, which morphed in Late Review, before being semi-absorbed in Newsnight.

Front Row, only-begotten child of Kaleidoscope, is generally (apart from Russell Crowe days) a most civilised show - and one can't imagine Mark would give it up voluntarily, though today's announcements are at pains to stress "agreement".

Back in January, The Sunday Times reported that a petition signed by 15 members of the Radio Arts Unit had been presented to Graham Ellis, Controller of Production and Deputy Director of Radio.  The Guardian's take this evening is that Lawson, who also writes for the Guardian, is understood to have denied any suggestion of bullying, though acknowledges there were editorial arguments.

Mark will now be able to make more use of his Northampton Town season ticket, and spend more time tracking the fortunes of his beloved Leeds United FC.

Elucidatory

Still the dates come in for the perennial tour that is Alan Yentob, currently en famille at Vanessa Branson's Riad El Fenn for the Marrakech Biennale, where he is interviewing chums Julien Temple and Stephen Frears.

In April, Alan will be in conversation with Sir David Attenborough at the BFI, to mark the 50th Anniversary of BBC2.  But the big one is at the end of March, with FIFA.  No, not that one. It's the 32nd International Festival of Films on Art (at least that's how it translates from French) being held in Montreal. It bills Alan's session as "Tribute", thus....

This year, the FIFA is paying tribute to a luminary of British television: Alan Yentob, the producer of the avant-garde series Arena, with over 500 films to its credit. A screening of the film I Thought I Was Smaller – A Short History of Mel Brooks will be followed by excerpts from his films with elucidatory comments.

Entrée libre pour les membres de la Cinémathèque québecoise. Nice.

Levels

It was only a couple of days ago that I discovered that film director Stephen Frears had a regular coterie of big breakfast companions in Notting Hill on Friday mornings, including BBC Creative Director Alan Yentob. Today comes news that the conversation will continue at the Marrakech Biennale at the end of February - can they have anything left to say to each other after all these years ?

Also getting the Yentob treatment in Morocco is another film-maker, Julien Temple. Julian lives in Aisholt, Somerset, and is a pillar of the Bridgwater artistic community - as is Alan; both are patrons of Somerset Film.

Alan has what the Daily Mail always describes as a Tudor mansion outside the town.  The floods have brought understandable tensions to the area, with earth works and Dutch mega-pumps being deployed to protect Bridgwater's 36,000 inhabitants - while more rural areas feel the water's simply being diverted in their direction. Mr Temple's address seems to be on higher ground; maybe readers can help with the position of Yentob above mean flood level ?

Context

Theatre producer Michael 'Chalky' White is celebrated in a new film, The Last Impresario. His more famous London stage offerings include The Rocky Horror Show, Oh ! Calcutta, Cambridge Circus (with Bill Oddie and John Cleese), A Chorus Line, and West End shows with Dame Edna Everage.

Michael Coveney, critic for WhatsOnStage, notes that the film contains "a lot of boring wittering on from the deathly Alan Yentob - why? - about something or other".  Tatler's Bystander offers a shot of Big Al at the first night party for the film with his arm round Australian director, actress, and model, Gracie Otto.

And here's Al just before filming his contribution. He can't seem to keep his feet off other people's furniture or dashboards, I'm told.

Pull

In January 2011, BBC Breakfast Editor Alison Ford mused thus, ahead of the move of her programme to MediacityUK: "Will we get Will Smith on the sofa in Salford? It would be naive of me to say ‘oh yes, it’ll be fine’. It won’t be as easy as it is now."

This morning, Will Smith (and son Jaden) were on BBC Breakfast, filmed in a London hotel. And the piece was sprinkled liberally with promo clips from their latest film, After Earth. Liberally.


















As was a similar Breakfast interview in May last year....

Maybe next year....





.

Yanked

Congratulations to Jana Bennett OBE, once the first Director of Vision at the BBC, and now heading back to states to run Bio (The Biography Channel) and The Lifetime Movie Network (generally tv movies aimed at a female audience). They're part of the A+E group (Arts and Entertainment) jointly owned by the Hearst Corporation and Disney-ABC.

Jana came to the UK in 1969, and, via Bognor Regis Comprehensive, ended up at St Anne's Oxford, studying PPE, and befriended Tony Blair, at St John's. She first joined Auntie as a news trainee in 1979.

Monotheism

Festival season beckons. I wonder if there are many two-year courses at New York's School of Visual Arts. Last year, their inaugural SVA/BBC Design Film Festival featured an edition of the BBC's Imagine, on books (pres: A Yentob)  followed by a half-hour interview with Alan Yentob. This year, students will be enlightened by the 1975 BBC documentary on David Bowie, "Cracked Actor" (prod: A Yentob) plus two Q&A sessions with Mr Yentob, totalling 45 minutes.

Cutting your cloth

It looks like the BBC's Digital Media Initiative, aka "Don't Mention It", is still struggling. A letter to internal house mag Ariel says using the front end of the system, called Fabric, to find archive film for programmes is slower than all previous systems. "Research that would have taken an hour now takes four. With the licence-fee-freeze squeezing budgets and production schedules tighter and tighter, that's time I don't have."

When last looked at by the National Audit Office, the economic forecasts were not good; full implementation, expected by 2017, was going to cost £134m, against original estimates of £82m, producing benefits of £95m. Minutes of the Executive Board in the past year tiptoe round sorting things out, and promise a new action plan. I understand the project is now being directed from Salford, where it had been hoped that Fabric would mean "new ways of working", rather than "new workrounds".

Which of the new team will field this hot potato - Anne Bulford (Technology and Money) or James Purnell (Digital) ?

Good baddie

I went to an excellent party yesterday, to mark Peter Donaldson's (final ?) retreat from the microphones of Radio 4. Excellent, short, speeches were made, featuring that old news-reading ripsnorter, Lee Bum Suk.

It wasn't the time for a full tour of the Donaldson days. Further research overnight has found him in a modern dress production of Julius Caesar for the National Youth Theatre in 1962 - with fellow cast members including Martin Jarvis, Hywel Bennett, Robin "Poldark" Ellis and Kenneth Cranham.

Thence, in 1964, he moves to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park for The Taming of The Shrew, with Dinsdale Landen and Trevor Peacock.

In 1965, he's part of a stellar Royal Shakespeare Henry V at the Aldwych - Ian Holm, Eric Porter, Michael Bryant, Michael Jayston, Michele Dotrice, and more, directed by John Barton and Trevor Nunn.

The biggie comes in 1967 - lead baddie in a Sinhalese version of James Bond, (Jamis Banda, Agent Sri 007) entitled Sorungeth Soru. Peter had returned to Colombo on holiday, after touring Shakespeare there in previous years. The travel company went bust, and while stranded, he was asked to join in the filming. "It was after a couple of bottles of beer and some devilled prawns that I suggested - half in jest - playing the son of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun".

That's probably enough. You don't need to know about blow-torches. (2105 update: Link dead, but Peter used to be part of a team running a website called "Collecting Friends" - and boasted a neat collection of blow-torches)

On camera

According to the BBC1 news at ten last night (and again all through Breakfast), Bob Hoskins has made "several" films. I make it 66, excluding tv movies. He's also directed, written and produced. I'd hate to hear about anyone with a serious film career retiring.

Hail, Cesar

In some of the many dark moments of last night's football, memories of Carry On Cleo and other films drifted in and out of my mind.

Belt tightening

Alan Yentob is back from Cannes and on his way to Liverpool where he's on the judging panel for this year's John Moores Painting Prize.

Cannes was a little fraught for the BBC's Creative Director, who is also chairman of BBC Films. He nearly got bounced from the opening night, for responding to the "black tie" invitation by turning up in a silver tie with hi-top trainers. Things picked up at the after-party for Moonrise Kingdom, with luminaries such as Brett Ratner and Johnny Pigozzi (??). (Left - the rammed VIP area).

Then there was brunch with Robert de Niro. The BBC Films event was downscaled from the traditional party to a buffet lunch. Alan was also spotted on a bicycle around the mean streets and boulevards - presumably hired locally. A brilliant response to Delivering Quality First.

• A valued correspondent draws my attention to another outing for the trainers - from Richard Kay in The Mail: Opening night at Glyndebourne and one figure stands out among the dinner-jacketed guests taking their seats for Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen. It is Alan Yentob, highly paid creative director of the BBC, who has eschewed the dress code to arrive in an open-neck shirt and trainers. ‘Alan always like to stand out in a crowd,’ purrs a fellow opera lover.

Already vu'd

The swirling slow-mo, head-tossing, bleached-out trails for the BBC Royal Wedding coverage have triggered memories. Sophie, Huw and Fiona - where have I seen blonde, hunk and brunette together before, loving the camera quite so much ?

Yes, I have it. Ursula, Gerald and Gudrun, in Ken Russell's 1969 film version of Women in Love. Left to right, Jennie Linden, Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson.

Developing nicely

In February 2000, Michael Grade led the management buy-in of Pinewood Studios.  The price paid was estimated at £62m.  The following year, they acquired Shepperton Studios, and in 2005, Teddington Studios.   Last week's takeover bid from the Peel Group values Pinewood Shepperton at £88m.

In May 2004, Michael Grade headed the public flotation of Pinewood Shepperton. Shares were offered at 180p and oversubscribed. The Guardian estimated Michael made £6m personally in the transaction; some of the success of the launch was down to the tv work the studios had acquired, including The Weakest Link and My Family, for the BBC.     Later in May 2004 Lord Grade was appointed Chairman of the BBC.  Some called for him to step down from Pinewood because of a perceived conflict of interest.

In June 2006, the BBC Governors selected Salford's MediaCityUK consortium as the preferred bidder for the Corporation's ambitions to move 1,500 staff north; the Peel Group became the BBC's development partners.  In 2007, Lord Grade left the BBC for ITV.

In November 2007, Project Pinewood was announced - a plan to create 15 permanent "streetscape" sets across 200 acres of green belt land next to Iver Heath, in a "live-work community", which would have 1,400 residential units and create 960 permanent jobs. By April 2008, Goodweather Investment, representing Peel Holdings, had acquired 20% of Pinewood's shares.

Project Pinewood was refused planning permission in 2009, but on 5th April this year, a 20-day planning inquiry began in Iver.  Lawyers for Pinewood trumpet the backing of director Ridley Scott, former Tory minister Steve Norris, and CEO of WPP Sir Martin Sorrell.   The plans are opposed by South Bucks Council and the Stop Project Pinewood Group.  

Goodweather Investments currently hold some 29% of Pinewood Shepperton's shares; in June 2010, Steven Underwood from Peel Holdings was invited on to the board as a non-executive director.  Last Friday Peel made a full takeover bid, at 190p a share. Another major shareholder in Pinewood, Crystal Amber, has previously been highly critical of Pinewood's management, but today director Richard Bernstein welcomed the bid: "We have always said we believe there is significant untapped potential [in Pinewood Shepperton], and we wish to see the unlocking of that value.”  CITYAM reckons the final price Peel will have to pay could be in the range 220-225p.

There's plenty more about Pinewood on Save The British Film Industry.com.   It notes that John Whittaker, boss of privately-held Peel Holdings and resident of Isle of Man, accompanied David Cameron on a business trip to China in November last year; and that David Cameron visited Peel's Wirral Waters project team in January this year.  Landmark Chambers, providing Pinewood's barristers for the planning inquiry, say "The case will be an early test of the Government’s new policy for giving ‘significant weight’ to proposals that will generate economic growth, as expressed in the Ministerial Statement Planning for Growth on 23rd March 2011".

Tim on screen

I wrote earlier that Tim Willcox has been doing a grand job at Camp Hope for the BBC.  I'm not sure you need to know this, but Tim is also a Noel Gay artiste, and has appeared in the following films and tv shows.

Spooks - BBC1, 2007
Sex Traffic – Channel 4, 2004
State of Play – BBC, 2003
Jonathan Creek – BBC, 2003
102 Dalmatians – Disney, 2000
Clueless – Paramount, 1995

Bueller Bueller Bueller

Suspect there may be copyright issues, but it's great fun spotting the clips that make up this techno/rap mash-up.



Found via lemondrop

Maurice Jarre

If you like big films and big film music, you'll probably know the work of French-born composer Maurice Jarre, who's died in Los Angeles at the age of 84. Lawrence of Arabia, The Train, Dr Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, A Passage To India, The Year of Living Dangerously, Ghost, Mosquito Coast - even Mad Max Beyond The Thunderdome. Obit in the LA Times.

More logos

A previous post on logos led to the discovery that Saul Bass, famous to me as a designer of movie titles and film posters, also did iconic work with major company logos. Much more here, in Signal Noise

From the opening titles of PSYCHO.....