History of Disco, Paramount Pictures

Unpacking the gear from the crew van the only way down to the basement was through a narrow tiny cell of a lift. A sweltering sweaty place and for the best part of an hour everything needed for filming navigated this small contrivance. The grips and rails, the tripods, the C-stands and flags, the bulky chargers and adaptors, the lights, the cameras, lenses, monitors and trolley, all were squeezed, with varying degrees of swearing into that tiny lift and spread out among the elegant dining space down below.

It’s been a while since this site has been updated. Seeing as a whole lot of stuff has been going on I thought it a good idea while things calm briefly to put some bits and pieces up and show what's been happening. This year has seen some steady and interesting work as a soundie, which is great as it offers me a wide range of work be it broadcast, commercials or corporate. As well as the different parts of the country you end up travelling to and working in, the main pleasure for me is always the people you get to work alongside, some long familiar and dear friends, as well as new partnerships and collaborations. And this gig came through one such dear friend. As is often the case in this industry a friend of mine, a fabulously talented documentary director, mentioned randomly that they had mentioned me to another friend, a producer based in the States, about me being a very nice soundie with a bit of a niche in music documentaries. Which was all very generous and greatly appreciated. I waited to see what would come of it. Soon enough one afternoon a week or so later, the phone rang and there I was talking to the production office at Paramount about collaborating on a project covering the history of disco. It would be executive produced and presented by Nile Rodgers. Needless to say I was beyond excited from the outset, I’d be meeting and working with Nile Rodgers, the man responsible for a plethora of enormous hits, one of the great all time song writers, record producers and musicians. A multi grammy winning artist who pioneered the early sounds of both disco and hip-hop. Also the line up of other interviews seemed like an. unbelievable dream, a calvacade of musical heroes, so I immediately announced my unhesitating availability.

A few weeks later on a gorgeous sunny morning end of June, that most perfect time of the year, and I’m taking a taxi ride down through London to Berkley Square and the elegant private club called Annabel’s in Mayfair. I love these mornings, leaning up against my kit bags, gazing absent mindedly out the window watching people leaving their homes and beginning their commutes, all these lives, all these stories. Then after swift introductions to a cheery but jet-lagged crew from Ontario Canada we are pretty soon humping kit around and shooting a fascinating array of people from the music world. Nile Rodgers was our first contributor, and he gave a long deeply fascinating interview split across a morning and afternoon. He was attentive and generous, a day filled with great stories about his life, America and its history, all fields of music and creativity and of course the birth of disco in New York City in the 1970s. He is quite simply a phenomena, the sheer astonishing array of songs he has written and the artists he has worked alongside. From Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Beyonce, Lady Gaga. Its always a bit extraordinary to find yourself in these situations. Listening attentively through your headphones, eyes on the levels display of your mixer, immersed in the darkness at the edge of the pools of light thrown by the panels and lamps, aware of the camera crew and director a little to one side, indistinct shapes in the gloom, how lucky you are to be sitting there, to be a part of things like this.

At one point just before the interview begins, with Nile in position, we are doing a final tweak of lights and framing. This is the opportunity for me to position my microphone more succinctly for the contributor. The deal here is to get the microphone as close as possible and at the right angle without appearing in the frame of the two cameras, one which is shooting a wide the other close-up. It’s always - despite its absolute importance - a slightly awkward, slightly absurd job to do. In effect you are balancing something - namely a microphone - inches above someones head, the microphone is attached to a carbon fibre boom pole which is often extended over several metres, this is securely clamped to a sand-bagged light stand, and at the other end of the boom hangs as a counter balance two weighted lastolight bags. The whole thing, in nearly twenty years of doing this, has never fallen on the head of a contributor, although never say never, once in Malibu filming the great drummer Chad Smith, he had theatrically finished a drum fill and raising his sticks above his head had accidentally knocked a dialogue microphone, the sound of which reverberated painfully around my head for a few minutes afterwards. On this occasion however you certainly don’t want your kit falling on the head of one of the greatest living music producers of recent times.

As I’m doing this, and being very careful in the process, I say to the director of photography. “The closer the microphone is, the sweeter the sound.”

To my absolute joy I then hear Nile say gently. “Now that’s the truth.” I look down and for a moment we smile at one another, one of the shortest and yet nicest exchanges I’ve ever had with someone of his stature. Needless to say, we got a great inteview, it sounded magnificent, and nothing fell on Nile’s head.

For a short period we formed a happy little crew as we trailed around London filming back to back interviews, in a variety of locations, Annabel’s the very grand club just off Berkley Square, where I asked for a cup of tea and was given a silver pot and china cup with little jug of milk and sugar pot; an old Picture house in King’s Cross, turned into a venue and nightclub, a terrible place for sound where the Piccadilly line rumbled beneath our feet and enormous fans tried vainly to move the dank humid air; an old belt making factory where once workers bent over benches working leather and brass, all now cleared and bare and used primarily as a photographic studio; finally a cosy little flat on a housing estate in Hoxton, all the little lads on their bikes cycling around the mysterious film crew. Soon enough after a whole load of enjoyable days together it was time to bid adieu and after a sad parting with many hugs and high-fives, I found myself in a cab heading home, staring out the window watching nighttime London roll by, all a glitter with lights and people and that classic fatigue sinking in. All I could think was its 10.30 at night, I was at least forty minutes from home, I had a sound bag full of flat batteries and a load of footage to download, back-up and send to the production house, and aware that I had to get up at 5am the following morning to go to a shoot in Nottingham.